Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (4/9/2012 to 4/15/2012)

SAP held a press conference in California last week to discuss its ambitious plan to take on Oracle and IBM in the database market using HANA and Sybase technology, and also to talk about its mobile strategy. On the database side, SAP said it planned to invest almost $500 million to spur the adoption of HANA: $155 million of it on venture investments in firms developing apps for HANA, and $337 million on incentives for customers moving to the HANA platform. It also announced on Tuesday that it will buy mobile application development vendor Syclo.
SAP also reported preliminary financial results for Q1 2012; While revenue grew by 11%, margins slipped and software revenue in the Americas fell by 4%. SAP cited "sales execution issues in North America" for that poor performance, which was clearly part of the reason for the recent departure of SAP North America President Robert Courteau.

A Federal Judge ruled last week that an antitrust suit against Comcast related to the Philadelphia market should proceed to trial, while throwing out some claims and cutting back others. Similar suits have been filed in Boston and Chicago.

I reported on Philly-based mobile app platform developer appRenaissance raising $1.5 million in seed funding, led by FirstMark Capital, the same VC firm behind another startup headed by Bob Moul, Dell Boomi.

I looked at recent events at First Round Capital, including personnel additions, one office expansion and a possible office relocation.

I got the story from attorney Frank Taney, widely known in the Philly tech entrepreneurial community, on his move from Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney to Stevens & Lee.

Contributor Esther Surden, Editor & Publisher of NJTechWeekly.com, covered the initial Princeton Tech Meetup held late last month. The next one, scheduled originally for tonight, has been pushed back to next Monday in what should be more comfortable quarters at the Princeton Public Library. The event is already waitlisted.

I looked at some tech firms & organizations that are moving or expanding in the Philly area, including NextFab Sudio.

Philip D. Moyer, Vice President and Managing Director, Safeguard Scientifics, contributed an excellent article to VentureBeat highlighting the strengths of the East Coast startup ecosystem relative to that of the West Coast.

A fairly large, publicly traded medical information technology firm based in Philly that not too many people know about, eResearch Technology Inc., is being sold to a PE firm for $400 million.

Chariot Solutions hosted its 7th annual Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference (ETE) in Philly last week; Ajungo Holdings, LLC, WizHive, and Peirce College were honored for "Project of the Year".

Quotes of the Week

Bill McDermott, co-CEO of SAP: "Rest assured, these issues have been swiftly resolved." SAP made "some leadership adjustments that were the right ones at the right time" (an apparent reference to the departure of North America president Robert Corteau).


Phillip D. Moyer of Safeguard Scientics: "By creating a bi-coastal strategy, a company can have the best of both worlds and encode its DNA with the West Coast’s big ideas and the East Coast’s focus on commercialization."

Mike Golden, president of ShopRunner: “I think any retailer would have to have their head examined if they allowed themselves to be a customer-acquisition tool for Amazon Prime. Especially if it’s under the assumption that Amazon won’t compete with them. Because people have been proven false every single time.”

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves on what he says he told NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke: "It just takes time, and you guys are going to figure it out."

NBC Universal Studios president and COO Ron Meyer: “I was quoted as saying Hollywood make shitty movies. What I said is we make some good movies and some shitty movies. Nobody ever sets out to make a shitty movie.”

Notable tweets:

Donald Farmer, VP, QlikTech: "InformationWeek: 'SAP Says Hana Tests Well On Performance, Scalability' (I should bloody think so, given the price!!)"

R “Ray” Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO at Constellation Research Group: "FWIW: SAP has to provide a #database. It keeps #oracle away from the $1B a year they make off of #SAP."


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