Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (2/13/2012 to 2/19/2012)

SAP AG completed its $3.4 billion acquisition of cloud vendor SuccessFactors. Also, SAP and Oracle were given a June date for the retrial of the TomorrowNow case.

Radnor-based QlikTech last week reported Q4 2011 earnings per share (non-GAAP) slightly below analyst expctations, although revenue was on track at over $320 million for the full year (up 42% over 2010). The outlook for Q1 2012 was also soft compared to prior estimates. Chairman & CEO Lars Björk described QlikTech's growth outlook as being for "25% or greater over the next several years". QlikTech's shares closed down more than 8% the following day.

Comcast's 4th quarter 2011 results beat estimates, although apples to apples (including NBCU for 2010) revenue growth was only 3% and operating cash flow grew at a 4.2% rate. The most significant metric was the virtual halt in the decline in video subscribers. Comcast also made many shareholders happy by announcing a 44% dividend increase and a $6.5 billion stock repurchase program. On Friday, Comcast filed suit in Federal Court in Philadelphia against Sprint, alleging patent infringement, likely a countermove to Sprint's lawsuit against Comcast filed in December. This came after Comcast and other cable operators announced they were selling spectrum to and starting a joint venture with Verizon Wireless, signaling the end of their Clearwire (majority owned by Sprint) joint venture. Breaking up can be messy.

The circus around Philadelphia Media Network continued. The New York Times wrote a scathing piece on ownership interference in the newsroom and management's (specifically, Greg Osberg's) account of events being disputed by Daily News editor Larry Platt. Plans for layoffs and the integration of Inquirer and Daily News newsrooms were announced. The Rendell group trying to acquire the papers came under increasing criticism from both former and current Inquirer staffers, and many signed a statement protesting censorship and stressing the importance of maintaining editorial integrity. A local blogger said Rendell told her the deal was probably off, a position he denied (while not totally denying that he said it) . Then Rendell said his lips were sealed, something everyone knew he couldn't do, and soon he was talking about it on the radio and promising some type of firewall between ownership and the newsroom.


The Federal Reserve Board approved Capital One's $9 billion acquisition of Wilmington-based ING Direct USA, the online banking pioneer. The deal closed at the end of the week. Chairman & CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann will step down, although he will stay on for a while as an advisor. And Google received US and EU approval of its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which includes its Horsham-based set-top box business. The deal still awaits approval from China.

Highmark, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and Independence Blue Cross joined with Lumeris to buy NaviNet , a communications portal that links physicians, hospitals and insurers.

Paoli-based search engine startup DuckDuckGO passed 1 million searches per day, and Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson wrote about it here. And King of Prussia-based ICG Commerce was renamed as Procurian.



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