Daily Links 11/30/2011: Clearwire reported to be reaching funding deal with Sprint




Thursday is D-Day for Clearwire (and Sprint) (Gigaom)

Clearwire seen reaching Sprint funding deal (Reuters via Baltimore Sun)

Netflix Viewing Seen Swelling U.S. Users’ Cable-TV Bills Next Year: Tech (Bloomberg)

You Bet Apple TV Is Coming, Says Apple Guru Gene Munster -- Here Are The Details (Silicon Alley Insider)


Comcast Business Services to hook up San Mateo with faster data (CED Magazine)

Jive Pushes Ahead With IPO, Seeking $117M (Bloomberg)
Jive has also been rumored recently to be a possible acquistion target of SAP.


Complaint: medical "copyright over your comments" contracts are illegal
(Ars Technica)


Infragistics Growth Continues in Q3 2011 (PR Newswire)

U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book: Philadelphia District (Text) (Bloomberg)



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Daily Links 11/29/2011: Live Verizon FiOS TV Coming Very Soon to Xbox




Live Verizon FiOS TV Coming Soon to Xbox, Complete With Kinect Voice and Gesture Controls (PR Newswire)

Analyst: T-Mobile to Comcast, instead of AT&T? (Seattle Times)
Comcast has consistently said it doesn't want to own a major wireless network, a position Vice Chairman Michael Angelakis reiterated earlier this month. I believe they mean what they say, but that doesn't mean they don't have a long term interest in wireless as LTE becomes an important alternative to fixed-wire networks for many applications.

Motorola Mobility's Sanjay Jha & Dan Moloney discuss Moto's
set-top box plans
(Video: Light Reading)

NetApp Taking on EMC Puts CommVault in Takeover Sights: Real M&A (Bloomberg)
CommVault is based in Oceanport, NJ.


TE Connectivity in Exclusive Negotiations to Acquire Deutsch
(PR Newswire)
TE Connectivity (formerly Tyco Electronics) has its operational headquarters in Berwyn. The acquisition would be valued at about $2 billion.

Oracle, SAP, Infor: Three's a crowd (Computer Business Review)

Is SAP HANA about the “in-memory database”? (Vital BI)

Customer Sues Epicor After ERP Software Project Attempt Ends in 'big Mess' (PC World)

Mint Linux freshens up web searches
We've got our own engine. Swallow that, Google and Microsoft
(The Register)
Teams up with Paoli-based DuckDuckGo.

Shop online, try it out in person: Kembrel gives hybrid retail sales the old college try (VentureBeat)
Opens small store location in Philly.

Cyber Monday? It was more like Mobile Monday, according to eBay & PayPal (VentureBeat)
And GSI Commerce.


Business incubator's future in peril as state cuts funding
Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Bethlehem trims payroll, helps fewer clients.
(Allentown Morning Call)




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Top Vanguard technology operations exec Michael Moore dies in cycle accident



Mutual Fund Wire is reporting that Mike Moore, a principal at Vanguard Group who recently became head of its technology operations, died on November 9 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident on November 6. He was 45.The accident, which occurred at a South Jersey motorsports park, was earlier reported by the Cherry Hill Courier Post.

Mutual Fund Wire says Vanguard spokesperson John Woerth confirmed in an email to them that it was indeed their executive who passed away.




Verizon has 6 months to re-engineer FiOS VOD (CED Magazine)

Comcast Gets Ready for CCAP (Light Reading Cable)

Comcast's metro E service easy as 1, 2, 3 (CED Magazine)

Social TV app BeeTV hits the deadpool (Gigaom)

EHR Adoption To Reach 80% By 2016
IDC cites Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare as a leader.


Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (11/21 to 11/27 2011)



I covered (via Webcast) QlikTech's first annual Analyst Day in New York and wrote about it here .

Philly area companies dominated the AlwaysOn 100 Top Mid-Atlantic private companies, which wlll be honored at the IMPACT–Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic this week at the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia.

Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis was named Vice Chairman of the corporation and had his contract extended through 2016, though he does not yet have a seat on the Board of Directors.

The hype campaign around HANA, SAP's in-Memory technology platform, continues, with one consulting firm calling it the biggest thing since the PC and others taking a more cautious, wait and see approach. Speculation is mounting that SAP may acquire an enterprise-oriented social networking platform, with Jive being one name mentioned.

First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman says that from a VC perspective, he thinks 2012 may look more like 2008 than 2011.

Dell Boomi's Bob Moul tweets: "proud to say it's been a great 1st year @Dell. have doubled the size of the @boomi business & next yr looks even better."


eBay reported Thanksgiving results at its eCommerce businesses included a a 345% increase in U.S. mobile sales this Thanksgiving vs. 2010 for GSI Commerce.

Lancaster-based appMobi celebrated Black Friday by open sourcing many of its HTML5 mobile development tools to developers.



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Josh Kopelman: “I Think 2012 Will Look More Like 2008 Than 2011″ (TechCrunch)

Hitachi & Sony working with Apple on 4-inch iOS device, iPad 4 to see new display technology (Apple Insider)
I guess this means Universal Display's (Ewing, NJ) OLED technology is off the table for now?

Cyber Monday is especially busy workday in Louisville (Louisville Courier-Journal)




Mercury News interview: John Chen, chairman, CEO of Sybase (San Jose Mercury News)
Chen is a straight talker who doesn't always stick to the (SAP) company line.

SAP extends Business Suite 7 maintenance: What is the real reason? (ComputerWeekly.com)

Motorola Touts Home Control, HTML5 Guide Experience (CableFax Communications Technology)


Philly region ranks high on AlwaysOn 100 Top Mid-Atlantic private companies



Tom Paine


AlwaysOn, a Silicon Valley-based firm that puts on major tech events, just announced its 2011 Mid-Atlantic 100 Top Private Companies, who will be honored during the IMPACT–Venture Summit Mid-Atlantic, to be held November 29th - 30th at The Ritz Carlton Philadelphia.

What surprises me is that 43 of the 100 companies are located in what is generally considered to be the Philly Metro area, or actually 42 now that CityRyde has apparently flown the coop for Cambridge (as Technically Philly reported ). The region AlwaysOn covered for the Top 100 extended from New York to DC (and beyond in a few cases). AlwaysOn says it "conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2011 list", and that "companies were selected based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz".

For those in the Philly Tech community who decry the lack of interesting young ventures in the region, you should check this list out.



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Consultancy claims SAP's HANA the biggest thing since the PC (Computerworld UK)
Bluefin Solutions is a respected firm, but this seems like over the top hype to me.

Watch a Sneak Preview of "The Comcast Holiday Spectacular 2011" (Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)

eBay sees spike in 'couch commerce' on Thanksgiving (USA Today)
Says GSI Commerce registered a 345% increase in U.S. mobile sales this Thanksgiving vs. 2010.

Bloomberg: AT&T to offer to sell 'as much as 40 percent' of T-Mobile to get merger approved (The Verge)

Like Dwolla, SCVNGR is Building Local Mobile Payments Groundswell With LevelUp (Read Write Web)

Marketo looks to buy into social (ZDNet Blogs)

Drexel Celebrates National Computer Science Education Week 2011 (Drexel Computer Science)





AT&T Deal With T-Mobile Takes a Step Back (New York Times)


QlikTech holds its first Analyst Day in New York



Tom Paine

Radnor-based QlikTech, the rapidly growing Business Intelligence software vendor that went public in the summer of 2010, went to New York this past Thursday to hold what it called its first annual "Analyst Day" for people in the financial community who follow the company ( Listen to Webcast). Any quant jocks just there simply hoping to update their spreadsheets might have been disappointed, as there was barely a mention of QlikTech's financials except for CFO Bill Sorenson reaffirming the 4th quarter guidance the company issued in late October (full year revenue of $315.0 million to $320.0 million, same bottom line guidance). He did, however, suggest the possibility of some uncertainty in Europe, where 56% of its revenue comes from.

What the presentation was about was the product and market, and I have to admit
that it was a very polished and powerful message, whether or not you buy the whole pitch. It is worth listening to just for learning how to give better presentations. QlikTech CEO Lars Bjork started off by comparing the company's core principle to innovators Google, Apple and Salesforce.com: simplicity, with depth. Bjork sees the "traditional" BI market, estimated at about $9 billion per year, as addressing only a small number of heavy users in mostly the large enterprise market, plus some penetration of mid-sized and small enterprises. The rest of the market is largely undeveloped, he said.

Newly named Vice President of Product Management and leading BI evangelist Donald Farmer, who joined QlikTech early this year from Microsoft, focused on the 28% penetration of potential users reported by Gartner, a figure he says has gone unchanged for many years, and talked about how QlikTech is working to change that with a solution that is mobile, social, and personal. Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Products Anthony Deighton compared what he calls BI's traditional, IT-driven and top down BI model with limited report flexibility to QlikTech's associative, user driven and dynamic real-time model. Its key technologies are its in-Memory processing (combined with data compression) and user interface. Deighton described in-Memory technology, which processes chunks of data in memory rather than from disk, as the enabler, not the end goal in itself, of QlikTech's product strategy.

COO Les Bonney summarized the major points of QlikTech's go to market strategy: Rapid Time to Value (quick initial deployment), Balanced (diversified) Business, Land and Expand (start small within enterprise and grow), Love Every Lead, and Customer Success. Bonney emphasized that Qliktech is getting more large contracts from major enterprises, and is also getting a boost from its relationships with some of the big systems integrators. QlikTech relys on its partners to reach much of the middle market, and an inside sales group to serve smaller customers. One partner who presented was Business & Decision, a large BI consulting firm with its US headquarters in Wayne.

QlikTech's market value is currently just over $2.1 billion. It went public in July 2010 at $10 per share, and has traded as high as $35. Today it was at slightly over $25. Revenue growth has continued in the 50% range, though some have questioned a lack of short-term emphasis on profits. I think the point of QlikTech's presentation was to show how big a market opportunity the company believes is in front of it.

QlikTech just announced the general availablty of it latest version, QlikView 11.



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Comcast CFO Angelakis named Vice Chairman



Tom Paine


Comcast EVP & CFO Michael Angelakis now has the title of Vice Chairman, according to an SEC filing by the company today.

His new contract extends his terms of employment through 2016. While Angelakis' base salary and annual bonus potential (up to three times annual base compensation) remain the same, he will receive signing bonuses in excess of $4 million. The filing says the agreement "continues the structure of Mr. Angelakis’ prior employment agreement of crediting contributions to the Company’s deferred compensation plan", although its not clear right now if the amounts involved change from his previous arrangement. Angelakis' base salary in 2010 was $1,682,448 and his total compensation was almost $23 million, according to Comcast's Proxy statement (pdf).

Angelakis joined Comcast in 2007 from PE firm Providence Equity Partners.



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Daily Links 11/23/2011: SAP places PR Account up for review; Comcast raising prices




SAP PR Review Puts Burson-Marsteller On Alert (The Holmes Report)

SAP CIO predicts in-memory HANA will replace relational databases
(computing.co.uk)

'Tis The Season for Another Comcast Rate Hike
Comcast Rings in New Year With Significant Increases
(Broadband Reports)

Why Microsoft bought VideoSurf for $70 million (Gigaom)


Daily Links 11/21/2011: Will SAP buy Jive?



John Malone's Liberty Interactive Keeps Options Open on HSN (Hollywood Reporter)
Liberty Interactive owns QVC, and 34% of HSN.

DirecTV Plans to Cut Back on Spending, Hiring to Prepare for Any Slowdown (Bloomberg)

Comcast goes full-footprint with Dory gateway (CED Magazine)

NBC News announces changes to technology, social media staff
(Poynter)

OVER 635,000 ADD BROADBAND IN THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2011
77.8 Million Get Broadband from Top Cable and Telephone Companies
(Leichtman Research Group Press Release)

SAP to buy social networking company Jive? (Computerworld UK)

On the Move, in a Thriving Tech Sector (New York Times)

AT&T developing a home energy service (Gigaom)

The Smart Grid: What's our next move? (Boston Globe)
Discusses Viridity Energy of Philadelphia.




Experts say industries in the Mercer area should consider benefits of collaboration (Times of Trenton)
On Central New Jersey's Einstein's Alley
organization.

HRM extending its growth
Company makes specialty of pharmaceutical marketing
(Cincinnati.com)
Also has growing Lawrenceville office.

Panel OKs $500,000 grant to help IT firm add 250 jobs
CAI also gets money to expand Newark center
(Wilmington News Journal)





Fun Fact of The Week: Path to Revenues (Josh Kopelman/Redeye VC)

3Q11 Was a Solid Quarter for our SaaS Portfolio (Enterprise Irregulars)

CNBC's Jim Cramer interviews Airgas CEO
Peter McCausland
(CNBC Video)
Discusses progress of Airgas' $200 million SAP implementation, among other things.

What Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, And SAP Don't Tell Customers (Silicon Alley Insider)


Daily Links 11/17/2011: SAP co-CEO Snabe's comments reignite acquisition speculation




SAP Aims to Enter New Product Categories, Snabe Says (Bloomberg)
Comments spur new round of acquisition speculation. My recollection is that the last time Snabe started talking about big acquisitions, Sybase was announced shortly thereafter.

SAP co-CEO talks new product areas, in-memory computing (Computerworld)

Localisation is not the problem facing SAP - boosting take-up is
(Dennis Howlett/CloudPro)

Salesforce Drops 6% After Hours On Earnings Miss (Silicon Alley Insider)


Starz and Liberty Capital merged (Variety)
Liberty Capital's holdings include TruePosition of Berwyn and the Atlanta Braves.

Philly Fed Manufacturing Index Slips (Wall Street Journal: Real Time Economics)
Philly Fed's Press Release

Connexin Software, Inc. Receives Strategic Investment from Bluff Point Associates; Deal Will Accelerate Growth and Leadership Position of Pediatric EHR Software Provider (Business Wire)

Safeguard Scientifics Leads $7M Series a Financing for Medivo
New York-based Healthcare IT Company Leverages Clinical Data to Improve Health Through Faster, Easier Access to Lab Testing and Actionable Information
(Business Wire)

ICW Announces Improved Networking Solutions for Patient Identification and Data Sharing (Marketwire)

Monetate Launches National Search for Top Engineering Talent
Philadelphia Technology Company Offers $2,000 Referral Bonus for Hired Engineers
(PR Web)

AppLabs founder Reddi back on startup scene in Phila. (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Please Turn On Your Cell Phone: Comcast's Fandango Embraces Mobile Movie Tickets (Mashable)

Philadelphia Media Network goes to Saxotech for 400-seat deployment (News & Tech)


Philly Tech News VentureWatch: 11/16/2011: G2Link, AboutOne, Sidecar and more






Ed Sullivan, the Delaware County native and serial entrepreneur who founded rapidly growing SaaS billing company Aria Systems and previously internet service provider LaserLink, has a new startup, Drexel Hill-based G2Link. It appears, from what I can see at this point, to use both third-party information sources and peer reviews (crowdsourcing) to provide ratings on businesses, including customers, vendors, and prospects, for credit and risk/reputation assessment. If G2Link can really incorporate the kind of information it talks about, it could be a very interesting concept. G2Link is just launching, and will compete in Philly Startup Leaders' Founder Factory Beta Bowl tomorrow.

Malvern-based AboutOne founder Joanne Lang is featured in Microsoft's new documentary, CTRL+ALT+COMPETE. The film follows Lang as she works to make AboutOne a reality, with comments and analysis from outside experts. The film debuted at the Napa Valley Film Festival on November 11. Lang had worked at SAP Labs, where she became knowledgeable about Cloud computing and realized from her own family situation the need to keep all kinds of family records online in one place. Also see this post on Joanne in Women 2.0.

Philadelphia-based Snipi, having just raised $2.52 million, has morphed into Sidecar, which is described in its press release as "the first-ever 100% automated online marketing platform for ecommerce companies". Not sure exactly what that means yet, though it sounds like an extension of Snipi"s original social recommendation platform. The Series-A round was led by Innovation Ventures, L.P., of Wilmington, with a long list of additional investors including e-commerce entrepreneur and GSI Commerce Founder Michael Rubin, NextStage Capital, Gabriel Investments, MAG Fund, and ARC Angel Fund. Sidecar says in the release that it has automated Paid Search, Comparison Shopping, On-site Personalization and Personalized Email for online retailers through a single platform. Founder Andre Golsorkhi continues as Sidecar CEO.

Bleacher League Entertainment of Upper Darby has raised $140,000 in debt-based financing, according to an SEC filing. Bleacher League provides an app, for baseball only now, that enables users to follow games and compete against friends by making virtual bets on the outcome of events during games. It is currently available for iOS and on Facebook, with an Android app coming, according to its website. Bleacher League started off with a board game.

CapTech, the expanding Richmond-based mobile app development firm that I posted last week was opening an office in the Philly area, has apparently opened it in King of Prussia.

Search Engine startup DuckDuckGo, which until now has been largely a one person operation run out of Gabriel Weinberg's home, will move into its new offices in Paoli next month. DuckDuckGo recently received about $3 million in VC funding lead by Union Square Ventures.

Philly-based Viridity Energy's CEO Audrey Zibelman was honored earlier this month along with others by the White House as a "Champion of Change".



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NJ’s Data Center Market Poised to Rebound

Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, New Jersey Tech Weekly


New Jersey is at the brink of a data center leasing rebound, fueled by pent-up demand in the financial services, pharmaceutical, healthcare and Internet sectors. So said real estate experts in a panel discussion at a recent Industrial and Office Real Estate Brokers Association (IOREBA) meeting, held at Sentinel Data Centers’ NJ1 facility (Somerset). As recently as June, The Wall Street Journal had noted a possible oversupply of N.J. data center capacity. That glut appears to be disappearing.

The panel’s conclusions were reinforced by recent earnings reports from two major players in the N.J data center market. According to a Data Center Knowledge report, during its earnings call, Digital Realty Trust (San Francisco) stated it had seen a “rebound in demand” in the Garden State. The company said it had identified up to 42 megawatts of demand and only 24 megawatts of supply here.

Speaking during the DuPont Fabros Technology Inc. (Washington) earnings call, CEO Hossein Fateh noted the N.J. market is coming along, calling it “good” and “solid.” He said the DuPont Fabros NJ1 facility is now 34 percent leased.

Though not so quick to say the market was back, panelists indicated the only question remaining is when companies that have been retooling and patching their in-house data centers will reach a tipping point and begin signing leases. Many firms now in N.Y. class-A office space will eventually “roll out of N.Y.” to N.J., said Mike Pembroke, senior VP of leasing and marketing for Russo Development (Carlstadt).

It’s taking a long time for companies to make decisions because they aren’t really comfortable with the economy, he added, and many are still putting Band-Aids on their existing facilities. However, the panelists expect this situation to change soon. “Basically, any data center five years old or more could be upgraded, or the company could move to a new center for a more updated, redundant and resilient solution,” Sean Brady of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. (East Rutherford), who moderated the discussion, said in a later interview.

N.J. is an important location for data centers, especially for the high-frequency traders and financial services brokers who need their trades to take place as close to Manhattan as possible, reducing “latency,” Brady pointed out. It’s also a prized location for Internet providers who need to deliver "search" rapidly to the 20 million people who live in the N.Y. metro area, he said.

Nevertheless, Michael Silla, director of strategic development at Concept CSI Inc. (New York), noted some factors tend to push other industries away from N.J.’s data center market. “If you don’t want or really need your data center located in N.J., you aren’t going to come here, because of the high cost of construction and utilities.” Pembroke added that, relative to other nearby areas like Long Island and Connecticut, N.J.’s power cost is low, though still high compared with that of, say, North Carolina.

Nevertheless, according to Brady, N.J. has the second largest concentration of data centers in the U.S. after California. Also, “there are more viable sites in N.J. than in other parts of the region.” He noted that eight of the 10 largest banks and financial institutions have data centers in the state. Data centers have unique siting requirements, and the availability of power, water, fiber and building stock gives N.J. some advantages over other states.

According to the panelists, the N.J. data center market comprises several segments. Standalone centers, for which Russo Development has the majority of the market, are usually dedicated to large enterprises and service providers. User-owned and tailored to their needs, they feature the highest security level available and involve the greatest upfront investment.

Wholesale colocation sites, like Sentinel Data Centers’s NJ1 facility, house several large or medium enterprises or service providers that have signed eight- to 12-year leases, said Josh Rabina, Sentinel’s co-president. In N.J., the major providers of these wholesale colo sites, as they are called, are Sentinel, Digital Realty Trust and DuPont Fabros. According to Pembroke, a large chunk of the new demand will be in this mid-range wholesale colo market. Companies that currently have capital constraints, and those that don’t want to spend a couple hundred million dollars on a dedicated data center facility, will migrate to this market.

Retail colocation represents a third market segment. These data centers provide many services for their users, the IT departments of enterprises and smaller entities. Providers active in the N.J. retail colo segment are Equinix Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.), Savvis Inc. (Town & Country, Mo.), Telx (New York) and Telehouse America Corp. (Staten Island).

IO Data Centers LLC (Phoenix, Ariz.), a supplier of modular data center technology, also participates in the N.J. market, running a center in Edison. “This is the newest type of data center operator to come into the state,” Brady noted.

The exact amount of vacant N.J. data center space is difficult to quantify, Brady said during the interview. Some centers are partially developed, and not all areas of a center may be available for a company to move into. Various time horizons exist for different operators. Also, each data center supplier creates space with different capabilities meeting different requirements. Some spaces are more versatile than others, and more versatile spaces fill up faster than more expensive, but more specialized, ones. Also, data center deals take a long time to deploy. “You have some space that’s available in six months for some sized deals and some that’s available in 18 months for other sized deals,” Brady explained.



Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of   New Jersey Tech Weekly , and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in New Jersey Tech Weekly.



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (11/7 to 11/13 2011)




Best Buy gets deeper into IT services for small & medium-sized enterprises by acquiring mindSHIFT, which has a strong presence in the Philly area, for $167 million.

Although speculation always arises about Comcast's wireless plans, CFO Michael Angelakis reasserted at an analysts' conference last week, "We have no desire to own a wireless network".

Leading SaaS/Cloud strategist John Wookey, who left SAP last spring, is the latest star to show up on Salesforce.com's payroll.

Philly-based and DreamIt Ventures-backed startup ElectNext officially launched.

At its BE Inspired Conference last week in Amsterdam, Exton-based Bentley Systems announced two acquisitions, Pointools and FormSys, and also announced an agreement with Microsoft to use Azure for its cloud-based Transmittal Services Offering.

And Quepasa completes its acquisition of myYearbook.com. The combined company trades on the NYSE AMEX under the symbol QPSA. Not clear yet where corporate headquarters will be. myYearbook CEO and cofounder Geoff Cook will serve as Quepasa's COO and president of its Consumer Internet Division.
(Update: Quepasa's earnings report released today says combined company will be headquartered in New Hope.)


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Daily Links 11/14/2011: Philly papers moving to former Strawbridge's building






SAP open to acquisitions in Asia, to hire more in China, India (Reuters)

SAP Sapphire: New Paradigm Needed? (eWeek Europe)

SAP: Cloud success inhibited by legal matters (BusinessCloud9)

10 ways to beat SAP at the bargaining table (Computerworld)

Inquirer, Daily News moving to former Strawbridge’s building (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Trading in 525,000 square feet for 125,000.


Buffett builds $10.7 billion stake in IBM (Reuters)

Quepasa Corporation Announces Third Quarter 2011 Results (Marketwire)
First earnings report since completion of merger with myYearbook. Combined company is headquartered in New Hope.

Kenexa Announces Acquisition of Batrus Hollweg (Marketwire)

What's Cookin' at Cable-Tec Expo? (Light Reading Cable)
The 2011 Cable-Tec Expo takes place Nov. 15-17 in Atlanta. It is presented by the Exton-based Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE).

Decision Simulation Extends Licensing Agreement with University of Pittsburgh for Virtual Patient Platform
Updated version from University of Pittsburgh to be made commercially available by Decision Simulation in 2012
(Business Wire)



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SAP optimistic for 4Q, forecasts growth in 2012 (MarketWatch)

What next for net neutrality? (Fortune Tech)


Fun Fact of The Week: Time from Inbox to Investment (Redeye VC)


Daily Links 11/10/2011: Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis: "We have no desire to own a wireless network".

Is SAP finally getting its money's worth from Sybase? (Computer Weekly Development Network)

Cisco's Chambers: 'We Got Very Lucky That Motorola Got Purchased By Google'
CEO Reiterates Commitment to Cable Set-Top Market
(Multichannel News)

Senate Declines To Vote On Net Neutrality-Blocking Maneuver (Multichannel News)

Comcast CFO: No plans to go outside footprint with video (SNL Blog)
There is no way the major cable companies would ever invade each other's footprint, at least not in the forseeable future, in my view.
CFO Michael Angelakis also said, "We have no desire to own a wireless network."

Adaptly, A 23-Year-Old's Fast Growing Startup, Hires A Googler To Take On Europe (Silicon Alley Insider)
Adaptly, now based in New York, was in DreamIt Ventures' 2010 Philadelphia class, and raised $2.7 million in VC funding led by First Round Capital. Paul Turner, former Head of EMEA for Invite Media (backed by First Round and acquired by Google), has joined Adaptly in the same role.

Quepasa and myYearbook Announce Completion of Merger (Marketwire)

WVT Communications Group Reports Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Marketwire)
First earnings report reflecting inclusion of Alteva results for part of quarter.

SunGard Availability Services and University of Texas at Austin Partner to Create Cloud Computing Research Center (PR Newswire)

PayChoice Moves to a Private Cloud Infrastructure That Delivers Performance, Advanced Business Continuity Capabilities, and Anytime, Anywhere Accessibility (Business Wire)


Ben Franklin (Northeastern Pennsylvania) announces investments in area companies (Allentown Morning Call)

Rx For Growth: Havas Forms Strategic Alliance With China's MedMed (MediaPost: Media Daily News)

Google teams up with Startup Weekend, provides trainings on Google technology (VentureBeat)
Google planning Bootcamps, but none scheduled for Philly yet.

The time for healthcare tech startups is now (Gigaom)



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Daily Links 11/9/2011: Comcast begins rollout of IPv6 network

SAP Pumps up Its In-memory, Mobile and Cloud Strategies (PC World)

Universal Display posts Q3 profit, shares rise (Reuters)

Comcast begins rollout of IPv6 production network (Network World)
Comcast Blog Post.

Comcast and the Multiscreen Play (Pipeline Magazine)

Lazarus: NBC Sports Network Changes Will Be 'Done Well, Not Fast'
NBC Sports Group Chairman Says Network Will Look To Build Trust With Viewers, Advertisers, Distributors
(Multichannel News)

The children are our future, and they’re not paying for TV (Gigaom)

Senate Debates Net Neutrality Regs
Sens. Hutchison and Rockefeller square off on joint resolution to nullify rules
(Broadcasting & Cable)

U.S. web sales grow 16% for QVC in Q3 (Internet Retailer)

Fan (Richmond) tech firm expands in NoVa, Philly (Richmond BizSense)

Unisys Strengthens Enterprise-Class Cloud Offerings with New Version of Secure Private Cloud Solution (PR Newswire)

SunGard Availability Services Announces Managed Recovery Program to Deliver Expert Management of Recovery Lifecycle (PR Newswire)

A more grown-up CRM for BusinessOne users (SAP Watch)

The Lawmakers Sponsoring a Very Facebook-Friendly Bill (The Atlantic Wire)
Toomey, Carper cite Wawa, W. L. Gore as possible beneficiaries.

Hey, Siri, send Jenn $5 (VentureBeat)
Venmo's app for Siri.

BioClinica Announces Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)



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ElectNext announces launch, partnership (Press Release)

Historic Partnership to Revolutionize Voting in America


November 8, 2011 - Philadelphia, PA - It's morning for American voters. Today, millions will enter a voting booth without a clue. It doesn't have to be that way. ElectNext, described as eHarmony for voters, launches today with a simple message: Vote well. The National Constitution Center announces today a partnership with ElectNext to provide the startup with non-partisan content and expertise on current election issues rooted in the Constitution.


ElectNext, a DreamIt Ventures backed startup, launched in beta just two months ago, and today unveils a relaunch based on user feedback. "Every change in the redesign was a direct response to seeing people use the site and responding to feedback," says co-founder Keya Dannenbaum, who speaks today at this year's TEDxPhilly, and tonight, hosts the ElectNext public relaunch party.


Dannenbaum and ElectNext partner Paul Jungwirth met while in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. The pair consulted with national political experts, including professors from Harvard, Princeton and Penn, to create easy-to-follow questions that may deliver surprising results. Going forward, input from experts at the National Constitution Center will offer an even stronger framework for understanding all sides of issues.


With ElectNext, the aisle dividing American political parties disappears. Because politics is the art of disagreeing well, ElectNext offers a Debate Engine to encourage public discourse. Starting with a focus on the 2012 presidential election, ElectNext has plans in coming months to go granular, adding local races as well.


Already garnering praise from TechCrunch, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and other national forums, ElectNext gives voters a new sense of civic engagement. From national presidential elections to future local races, ElectNext, a DreamIt Ventures funded company, empowers voters to discover the right candidates and make informed choices.


To find out more, visit www.electnext.com.



About the National Constitution Center
Located on Independence Mall in Historic Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center is America’s first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to the U.S. Constitution. As a cutting-edge museum, national town hall and educational facility, the Center illuminates constitutional ideals and inspires acts of citizenship through must-see multimedia exhibitions, live performances, timely public programs and dynamic educational resources. The museum dramatically tells the story of “We the People” through more than 100 interactive exhibits, films, photographs and rare artifacts; the stirring theatrical performance Freedom Rising; and the iconic attraction Signers’ Hall, featuring 42 life-sized bronze statues of the Founding Fathers. As America’s town hall for constitutional dialogue, the Center regularly engages political leaders, scholars, pundits and journalists of diverse viewpoints. The Center also houses the Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach, which serves as the hub for national constitutional education and provides exceptional civic learning resources both onsite and online. For more information, call 215.409.6700 or visit www.constitutioncenter.org. For smart conversation about the Constitution, visit the Center’s blog, Constitution Daily, at blog.constitutioncenter.org.


Daily Links 11/8/2011: Bentley Systems makes two acquisitions

Bentley Acquires FormSys to Expand SACS Offerings for Floating Structures (Business Wire)

Bentley Makes Point Clouds Valuable Across Full Infrastructure Lifecycle Through Acquisition of Pointools Ltd (Business Wire)

Liberty Interactive Reports Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)
QVC revenue grows 6%; parent Liberty increases stake in HSN slightly to 34%, buys back shares.


Exclusive: HP weighing sale of webOS unit (Reuters via Fox Business)
Oracle mentioned as one possible buyer.

PHD Virtual Technologies Announces Additional Investment (PR Web)
Insight Venture Partners and Citrix Systems invest again in Philly-based provider of virtualization monitoring solutions.


Getting your staff on board with superior customer service (Washington Post)
By Gary Jackson, chief executive of Philly-based Shunra Software.

Siemens/MobileMD To Play In Accountable Care Arena
The technology giant positions itself for emerging reimbursement environment with purchase of health information exchange vendor MobileMD
(Information Week)


Tyco CEO Breen to resign from Comcast board (MarketWatch)

Don't Pull the Plug on Cablevision (Barron's)

Dish Network CEO Ergen: 'We're just not getting our fair share yet' (Fierce Cable)

Sneak peak at Comcast’s Skype on Xfinity service (Gigaom)


Gary Flake names all-star cast of investors in Clipboard’s $1.4M round (Geekwire)
First Round Capital is one of them.

PANL: Gabelli, Avian Doubt Skeptical View Of Patent Hearing (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Wondering who Universal Display's IP attorneys are.

Universal Display Corporation Announces Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)

USA Technologies, Inc. Reports Results for First Quarter of Fiscal 2012
License and Transaction Fee Revenues Up 62%, Total Revenue Up 51% Compared to a Quarter a Year Ago
(Business Wire)

CardioNet, Inc. Reports Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Plosser says Fed should target inflation, not jobs (Reuters)



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (10/31-11/6 2011)

Tom Paine


I reported on Comcast's 3rd quarter earnings release last week; a mixed bags perhaps, but don't worry about them. Comcast is making plenty of money, though its NBC Broadcast Networks don't appear to be making much of it.

Meanwhile, the city of Longmont, Colorado took a step, in theory, towards competing with Comcast, passing a referendum that would allow it to utilize a largely dark fiber network that runs through town to offer competing telecom services. However, no business plan or financing is in place.

I wrote about Publicis' decision to merge its Philly-based digital health agencies, Digitas Health and Razorfish Health, into its New York-based Publicis Healthcare Communications Group.

And I spoke with co-founder Aksel Güngör of Philly startup Ridaroo about his firm's efforts to develop the market for applications that help bring Carpoolers together in the US.

In other big stories last week, Malvern's Siemens Healthcare made a move into the Healthcare Information Exchange market by acquiring MobileMD of Yardley, SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott say SAP's Cloud strategy will be unveiled early next year, and Monetate said its 3rd quarter revenue increased by 387%.

And Ewing, NJ-based OLED technology firm Universal Display (NASDAQ:PANL) has been bouncing up and dowm on an almost daily basis buffeted by differing analyst reports, rumors, questions on whether Apple would incorporate its technology, and a possible European patent ruling, among other things.



Best Buy expands in IT services by acquiring mindSHIFT, which has significant Philly presence

Tom Paine

Best Buy geared up its efforts to provide IT services to small and medium sized enterprises by acquiring Waltham, Massachusetts-based mindSHIFT Technologies for $167 million, it announced today. mindSHIFT, which has 500 employees, provides cloud services, data center services and professional services mostly on the East coast, including Philadelphia.

mindSHIFT expanded into the Philly market by acquiring Dynamic Digital Services of Levittown in 2005, and in 2007 through the acquisition of Network Alternatives, Inc. of Langhorne, a provider of full-service technology solutions to small- and medium-sized enterprises in the legal and professional services markets. mindSHIFT had over 60 employees at its Langhorne facility, it said in a press release early this year. The Philadelphia Business Journal rank it as #24 on their list of Top Technology Providers and #12 on their list of Largest Systems Integrators for 2011.

The deal reflects an effort by Best Buy to reduce its reliance on Big Box electronic retailing, and increase its base of commercial customers.



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SAP seeks to speed up, facilitate HANA deployments (SAP Watch)

DuPont's AMOLED HDTV tech licensed by... someone, will likely be used to build HDTVs (Engadget)

Universal Display Not Likely To Get Apple OLED License Deal (Forbes: Tech Musings)

PANL: Key Patent Claims Denied In German Hearing, Says Watchdog Group (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Story needs more interpretation/confirmation.

Dish Advances as Dividend Calms Concerns Over Network Spending (Bloomberg)

Time Warner Cable gets hit with 'large' outage (CNET News)
Update: Probably caused by outage at Level 3.

An “eHarmony For Voters” (TechCrunch)
On Philly startup ElectNext.

Google Ventures Takes A Sip Of Milk, Invests In Kevin Rose’s New Startup
(TechCrunch)
First Round Capital is also an investor.



Longmont, Colorado votes to take on Comcast, CenturyLink

Tom Paine

Voters in Longmont, Colorado passed a referendum this week that will allow the city to utilize a 17 mile fiber optic loop that is mostly dark today to offer competitive, commercial telecom and cable services to businesses and residents there. The loop was installed by a local power utility in the 1990's at a cost of $1.1 million, and is only used today by a few public agencies and a local hospital. Comcast and incumbent local telco CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) are the two major established competitors there. Longmont is a city of about 86,000 people in Boulder County.

The passing of the referendum does not mean any services will be immediately available in Longmont, but only that Longmont can now legally consider offering them. A Colorado law passed in 2005 prohibits municipalities from offering commercial services using publicly owned infrastructure without voter approval. An effort backed by the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association, which includes Comcast, is reported to have spent $300,000 on a campaign aimed at defeating the referendum, which passed with about 60% of the vote. The Cable industry objects to
competing with government entities which do not face the same taxes, and also have power to regulate its competitors.

Although many advocates consider the outcome a major victory towards establishing more competition for Comcast, big questions remain unanswered. There is no business plan in place, nor did the referendum authorize any financial committment to the project, which is supposed to be self-financing. Seventeen miles of fiber by itself does not constitute a system. Longmont will probably look to bring in a commercial partner to help develop a service. This type of arrangement doesn't always work out, though, as people in Philadelphia well know from the Wireless Philadelphia experience.

With its unused fiber network, Longmont had pitched Google very hard to be chosen as the pilot city for its "Google Fiber" project, for which Kansas City, Kansas & Missouri were ultimately chosen.

Colorado has been a paticularly contentious state for Comcast's customer relations. Its frosty relationship with the ski resort town of Vail is one example.

The anti-utility sentiment in Colorado also showed up in the nearby city of Boulder, where voters narrowly passed referendums that could allow the city to take over the municipal energy franchise from Xcel Energy, the state's biggest electricity provider. In that case, though, much of voter fustration was driven by perceived mismanagement and cost overruns associated with a pilot "smart grid" project Xcel was trying to implement in Boulder, something that originally appealed to many in this environmentally conscious city. Others felt Xcel wasn't moving quickly enough on adding renewable energy sources.



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No HBO Go for Roku users on Comcast or DirecTV (Gigaom)



Philly's Ridaroo trying to develop nascent market for Carpooling apps

Tom Paine



Although carpooling is gaining in popularity in Europe, it has been slower to take root here in the US, due in part to lower fuel prices relative to Europe, a generally less dense population concentration, and perhaps by a strong American attachment to their own personal transportation. Safety and personal security are also important factors. While HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes in dense traffic corridors encourage a certain amount of pooling, most Americans have preferred to go it alone. Census Bureau data says 10% of American workers carpool to work, down from 20% in 1980.

Of course, changing economics (higher fuel prices, financial pressures), environmental concerns and more traffic congestion could change that. And this is what Philadelphia startup Ridaroo is betting on happening.

Riadaroo's value is its application, which allows users within participating organiztions to connect with others with similar routes who are also willing to carpool. It also provides for flexibility. There are many people who might not want to commit to an everyday carpooling schedule, but might want to do so on an occasional or perhaps sudden basis, and through Ridaroo you can make those arrangements through a feature named "Quick Trip". The benefits of Ridaroo probably increase when there are more participants at a given location, since the larger network means a greater probability of finding a suitable hookup.

Ridaroo's app allows each participating organization to to have its own unique and secure portal. Commuters can create and edit personal profiles to connect with others within that portal. Ridaroo says it has a "unique algorithm" that matches commuters based on start address, destination address, and other factors.

While Ridaroo has publicized its service to college students, which it expanded this Fall from Drexel to all area colleges (and is available for free to students), the key monetization potential appears to lie within the Enterprise market. Ridaroo co-founder, COO and Director of Business Development Aksel Güngör told me the startup is working with some large corporations in the Philly area, and also a few governmental organizations in DC, on possible deployments, though it does not yet have a major client to announce. In addition to providing a convenience and a cost-saving option to employees, an organized carpooling app may also help companies reach measurable goals for sustainability and reduced carbon footprints, which are becoming increasingly important for many.


Güngör and co-founder & CEO Andy Guy launched Ridaroo about a year ago with a little angel funding from family and friends. They have been working out of Drexel's Baiada Center business incubator. Both are Drexel grads, Güngör having an undergraduate Finance degree and Guy an undergrad degree in Computer Science from Penn State and an MBA from Drexel. They are the only full-timers at this point, although they've been getting part-time development help from some Drexel students.

The market is fairly open in the US. Carpooling.com, which claims to have the largest carpooling network in Europe, is said to be pondering an entry into the US market. In the US, Zimride seems to be the furthest along. In September it raised $6 million in VC funds in addition to $1.5 million it had previously raised. That much investment would appear to provide a degree of validation for the market. Facebook just announced it will be financing Zimride's expansion into Menlo Park, where several thousand Facebook employees will be based at its new headquarters there. Another startup, Y Combinator-backed Ridejoy, is more focused on helping people find passengers to share (and help cover expenses on) longer road trips.

Güngör said Ridaroo's goals for now are to get a couple of substantial enterprise clients on board, and at some point, to seek a larger funding round.



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Daily Links 11/4/2011: Malvern's Siemens Healthcare to acquire Yardly-based Health Info Exchange vendor MobileMD

Siemens Healthcare Enters into Definitive Agreement to Acquire Leading HIE Developer MobileMD, Inc. (PR Newswire)
Siemens Healthcare is based in Malvern, MobileMD in Yardley. MobileMD is listed on Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch".


Google May Tinker With Pay-TV Service: Report
Search Giant Has Approached Disney, Time Warner and Discovery About Kansas City Trial
(Multichannel News)

Clearwire Shares Soar After Sprint Says It May Provide Financial Backing (Bloomberg)

NetSuite Sales Surge, Making for a Good Day in the Cloud (All Things Digital)

PANL Surges 15%; CNBC Warns Of Patent Threat (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Manufacturer Must Pay Up for Bogus Patent Suit (Courthouse News Service)
As if Checkpoint Systems needed any more problems right now.

inTEST Reports 2011 Third Quarter Financial Results (Marketwire)



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