Links 10/31/2014: FCC said close to reclassifying ISPs as common carriers; EPAM makes acquisition






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Veeva Systems Flies High On Cloud For Life Sciences (Investors' Business Daily)
Good read on Veeva and Delaware County native, co-founder and president Matt Wallach, who is still based in Radnor, on his role in building business.

Marc Benioff tethers Salesforce cloud to Blighty
First European data centre spotted off west London
(The Register)
I'm sure that Veeva, with its large number of European customers using its CRM built on Salesforce1, welcomes this, with European concerns over US data security practices.

FCC reportedly close to reclassifying ISPs as common carriers (Ars Technica)

Comcast Looms In TWC Dodger Sports Carriage Fracas (Investors' Business Daily)

CSN Houston ruling clears way for new network, but Comcast appeals decision (Houston Chronicle)


Monetate announced a round of layoffs yesterday (Technical.ly Philly)

EPAM Acquires Great Fridays, Expands Product and Service Capabilities
(EPAM Release)

Technology Outsourcer Epam Systems Knows The Big Deal (Investors' Business Daily)

We have some big news to share! DataMarket has been acquired by Qlik. (Qlik Blog)

SORRELL: WPP's $25 Million Stake In AppNexus Leaves Publicis And Omnicom With 'Nowhere To Go' (Business Insider)

InterDigital Third Quarter 2014 Financial Results Driven by 57% Increase in Recurring Revenue (Globe Newswire)

The Power of Community Comes to Life at SAP’s TechEd (Enterprise Irregulars)

Stewart Butterfield explains why Slack is now worth more than $1 billion (Fortune Tech)


Links 10/30/2014: LiquidHub acquires digital marketing agency Foundry9; Uber urges Philly to follow DC model





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SAP's Bill McDermott provides a CEO's plan to defy disruption (Fortune)

Forrester Shows Little Love for SAP, Marketo in Marketing Wave (CMS Wire)

Concur CEO says SAP acquisition is a ‘big bet’ that will accelerate company growth (GeekWire)
How many times have you heard this before an acquisition?
"Singh said that the tie-up between SAP and Concur won’t be a typical acquisition deal. He emphatically stressed that his company won’t disappear as a result of the acquisition closing. Instead, Concur’s partnership with SAP will provide tools and funding to expand the business."

Security Is Focus in SAP's Government Cloud Portfolio (CIO Today)


LiquidHub Acquires Digital Marketing Agency Foundry9
(Business Wire)


Uber exec Plouffe urges Philadelphia to model D.C.'s laws (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Time Warner Cable Misses Estimates on Drop in TV Users (Bloomberg)

Arris Beats The Street In Q3 (Multichannel News)
Arris acquired the Horsham-based business formerly known as Motorola Home from Google last year.

Study: Comcast and Verizon connections to Cogent dropped below 0.5Mbps (Ars Technica)


Verizon Ventures Seeks To Double Portfolio And Investment Capital (TechCrunch)

Execs From Apple Pay Competitor Finally Speak, but Big Questions Remain (Re/code)


Merger reflects growth in retail-store data analytics (Crain's New York)
First Round Capital-backed NOMi (New York) merges with Brickstream.

Blackstone’s Tac-Ops Adds Philadelphia Insurer in Blitzer’s Bet (Bloomberg)

ChargeItSpot: The Next Indispensable Retail Service? (Wharton Entrepreneurship Blog)


Social media management tool Buffer goes truly "open book"




Tom Paine



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I have sometimes complimented Safeguard Scientifics on the level of transparency it provides in its quarterly reporting. Though as a public company it is required to report more than a private VC or PE firm, Safeguard goes well beyond what's minimally required.

But one startup is taking transparency a step further. San Francisco-based Buffer, a social media management tool, just says it closed on a $3.5 million round at a $56.5 million pre-money valuation, and it laid out in plain sight on the web its term sheet, financials, and just about every little metric about the company you would ever want to know. Even every employee's salary.

Now its trying to raise more: "Update: We closed a first syndicate on AngelList today, October 27th. We have opened a new one with VegasTechFund now here."


Garfield Group adds eight new clients; broadens geographical footprint


Tom Paine



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This past spring, Newtown-based Garfield Group, one of the leading tech PR/marketing communications firms in the Philadelphia area, announced a rebranding and repositioning initiative. Goals were to build its digital, content and creative capabilities and become a more fully integrated marketing services firm, establish new ties to the tech startup scene, and broaden its regional footprint.

Recently, Garfield demonstrated progress towards these goals by announcing the addition of eight new clients over the past six months. Four of the firms are local, two are in the Chicago area, one is in San Francisco and one is in Atlanta.

A prominent local tech addition is Conshohocken-based NextDocs, whose enterprise-scale eTMF, regulatory and quality solutions automate workflow and document management to speed FDA submission, automating compliance to improve efficiency while reducing costs. The end goal is to get needed new medicines to market faster. NextDocs has substantial venture backing from OpenView Venture Partners.

Peak Equity Partners, Radnor, is a newly formed private equity firm focused on buyouts and recapitalizations of enterprise software and solutions companies. Its co-founders, Greg Case and Paul Winn, were previously responsible for much of LLR Partners' tech investing.

Turnberry Solutions of Blue Bell is an IT staffing and consulting firm; its practice areas include the latest cloud, collaboration, and information security technologies. Bethelehem-based FamilyWize is a community service partnership focused on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, through a discount prescription card.

The other four are:

Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF) Chicago

Trulify San Francisco

Navman Wireless Glenview, Illinois

iMedX Atlanta


“We’re excited to have the opportunity to work with these dynamic companies,” said Larry Garfield, president and founder of Garfield Group, in a statement. “These are organizations run by people who are disrupting the status quo in a number of very interesting ways. They present the kinds of challenges we live for — the chance to tell stories that can change the dynamics of an entire industry, and truly make a difference in peoples’ lives.”


Links 10/27/2014: Salesforce entering healthcare biz; SAP expanding data center in Newtown Square





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Salesforce to make big push into healthcare industry (Reuters via Daily Mail Online)
Salesforce and Accenture already announced this "connected physician solution" at Dreamforce 2014.

Adobe emerges as marketing cloud leader, beating out Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and more (VentureBeat)
According to a Forrester report.

SAP's new $2 million grant means 375 local jobs (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Newtown Square data center "will become North America's "premier location for supporting cloud growth and other SAP HANA related business."

Battle of the CEOs: Oracle & SAP in personal showdown (Yahoo News)


SAP: U.S. Federal Secure Cloud Offering Coming Soon (Talkin' Cloud)


Xand Acquisition Gives TierPoint Instant National Player Status
(Data Center Knowledge)

Five Reasons Why Critics of Comcast’s Time Warner Cable Deal Are Feeling Hopeful (Re/code)

Comcast Goes For ‘True Gig’ Trademark (Multichannel News)
But where's the Gig service?

FTC/DOJ OK with Liberty Broadband Spinoff (Multichannel News)

ExecOnline Raises $5 Million Series A Financing to Expand Its Global Offerings, led by Osage Venture Partners (PR Newswire)

At Drexel, a new school for entrepreneurs (Philadelphia Inquirer)


Philly Tech People News 10/26/2014: Comcast adds top Washington lobbyist to DC team







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Comcast boosts lobbying effort with Washington hire
(Philadelphia Inquirer)

CardConnect Hires Chief Revenue Officer (CardConnect)

Richard Daukant Joins Return on Intelligence as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Financial Services
(PR Web)

Delphic Digital hires two-time Sitecore MVP Jamie Stump (PR Web)


Phlexglobal Announces Key Industry Appointment (Business Wire)


Sunday Highlights 10/26/2014: Consumerist guy, Comcast critic, lives in Philly; PPA cracks down on UberX



Watchdog in S. Phila. doesn't shrink from Comcast
(Philadelphia Inquirer)
Didn't know the Consumerist guy lived in Philly.

Aereo barred from retransmitting broadcast TV (CNET)

PPA Impounds UberX Vehicles in Undercover Sting Operation (Philadelphia
Magazine)

CurrentC Is The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt To Kill Apple Pay And Credit Card Fees (TechCrunch)

Wilmington startup develops web app for meetings (Wilmington News Journal)

Why is Salesforce so expensive? (Computing)


Dollar Shave Club, whose co-founder/CEO is from Lower Merion and a fantastic actor, has now raised total of $73 million


Tom Paine



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Dollar Shave Club, the monthly razor (and related products) delivery subscription service for men based in Los Angeles, said in late September it had exceeded 1 million members, and that it would triple its revenue to at least $60 million this year, the LA Business Journal reported. It also received another $50 million in venture funding, bringing the company's total amount raised to about $73 million.

Dollar Shave Club's co-founder and CEO is Michael Dubin, 35, who grew up in Lower Merion. He attended Emory and worked in New York before heading west. Dollar Shave Club, founded in 2012, was launched out of Santa Monica's Science incubator.

It is interesting to see some of the established, big money firms line up behind Dollar Shave Club, such as Venrock, Battery Ventures, TCV, and even Comcast Ventures. They must see something very disruptive going on. But there is serious competition among startups. One is Harry's, founded by Warby Parker co-founder Jeffrey Raider. It has already raised well over $100 million and bought a razor factory in Germany.

I checked to see if First Round Capital had invested early in either of these startups, but as far as I can tell it hasn't. I thought it might have been Josh Kopelman's type of business, as he loves subscription services that need to be refilled once month, and game- changing strategies that turn industries upside down in terms of convenience and price. Also, he had the connection to Raider from Warby Parker, and Dubin, with his flair for promotion, might be his kind of entrepreneur. But my biggest concern in investing big money in this business would be the (lack of) barriers to entry, or that Gilette or the smaller established brands would eventually put their feet down to crush them by establishing an off-brand product and selling it direct. I think of CDNow (though not a perfect analogy).

Update: Gillette has come out with a subscription productintended to compete with Dollar Shave Club. In fact it advertised it during the World Series.

Anyway, it will be interesting to watch.

Here is the fantastic viral video with which the company launched in 2012. "Mike" is actually CEO Mike Dubin, who spent time as an improv actor.



Update: Your beard is killing the shaving industry Washington Post)





CVS Stores Reportedly Disabling NFC to Shut Down Apple Pay and Google Wallet (MacRumors)

CSN Houston Faces Closing Chap. 11 Arguments on Oct. 28
(Multichannel News)


Links 10/24/2014: TierPoint to acquire Xand; both with Philly-area data centers; IBM: Breaking up is hard to do



The cable bundle may be weakening, but Comcast is poised to be stronger than ever (Washington Post)

TierPoint Agrees to Acquire Xand (Business Wire)
Deal would increase combined company's Philly-area data center capacity.

SEPTA names its long-overdue smart-card system
(Philadelphia Inquirer)


Safeguard Scientifics Announces Third Quarter 2014 Financial Results
(Safeguard Press Report)
Always a good read, with all the detail.

AmerisourceBergen Selects Qlik as Global Standard for Analytics (Business Wire)

SAP Unleashes Major Hana Upgrade (Business Wire)

Should IBM Break Up?
(Re/code)


Bill McDermott, Digital Health highlight IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference


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Philadelphia PACT's annual IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference begins Tuesday, October 28 and runs through Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia. I had an opportunity to talk with Michael Purcell, Partner of Deloitte (lead sponsor this year) and Chairman of IMPACT 2014 Capital Conference, and Dean Miller, President and CEO of PACT to review the program.

It will have two key highlights in my view: Bill McDermott as a keynote speaker, and an emphasis on the deep, expanding digital health community in the Philly area.

Bill McDermott /PACT
McDermott, the dynamic executive who earlier this year became the sole CEO of enterprise software giant SAP (he had been co-CEO), is the first American CEO of the Germany-based company. His home base is SAP's North American headquarters in Newtown Square, although with his expanded role he's spending more time in Germany, and has purchased a home there. McDermott, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for high public office (though I don't know the origin of the rumor that he might have interest), has also penned a recent book, Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office, partly autobiographical and partly a story of others' triumphs over challenges.

He may discuss the book among other things in the keynote, which actually will in the form of a Q&A conducted with Technical.ly 's Chris Wink.

The other keynoters are Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico who's served in several high-level roles in DC and is extremely knowledgeable about what's happening there, so he might include some interesting pre-election insights, and Dara Torres, 5-time Olympic Swimmer with 12 medals.

The other primary emphasis of the conference is healthcare, and in particular what PACT refers to as "digital health" covering a wide range of digitally driven healthcare products and services. A general session on Tuesday will be devoted to the subject. PACT, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of SEPA, EY, Fairmount Partners and The CEO Council for Growth have joined to produce a comprehensive analysis of the digital health opportunity in the region, including investment and exit activity over the past several years and a look at the healthcare and IT assets that make Philadelphia a magnet for healthcare innovation. The results, which should be valuable, will be presented at the session and released publicly.


In addition, one healthcare panel will focus on clinical trials, which is a huge business around here both for Pharma and the digital technologies needed to support them, and there will be another panel on mobile technology in healthcare IT.

Two other panels interest me in particular: a group of VCs from outside the region
will discuss why the Philly area is an interesting place to look for deals, and a group of
prominent local CIOs present the IT buyers' perspective, something that's always important to understand.

There will be 45 presenting ventures in three tracks: early-stage, healthcare and technology. Presenters range from fairly established firms (such as RJMetrics, which probably squirms as being named part of the establishment) to others most readers haven't heard of yet. But they were chosen through a rigorous selection process.

When asked what trends stood out in the area, Purcell mentioned the growing number of startups that merit attention, and added that the conference format has been changed to reflect that trend.


You can download the Philly IMPACT Mobile APP here. Also, there should a few sharply reduced-price tickets left for qualified entrepreneurs.


Links 10/22/2014: The nature of IBM's 'crisis'; Unisys rebounds



The Nature of the IBM ‘Crisis’
(New York Times: Bits)

Coming of Age in Cloud Computing (New York Times: Bits)

Microsoft and IBM commit to providing their enterprise software on Azure, IBM clouds (ZDNet)

Unisys Sees Q3 Revenue Rebound (CRN)
Some people thought that the announcement that Unisys CEO Ed Coleman was stepping down signaled more bad news, but not so this quarter. Don't know if its a start of long-term trend, though.

EMC Q3 Misses Estimates as Company Prepares to Buy Out Joint Venture (Re/code)


SAP offering customers 'simpler' way to buy its Hana in-memory platform (Infoworld)

Amazon Gets More Enterprise-Friendly With Launch Of AWS Directory Service (TechCrunch)



Antitrust experts slam Comcast merger plan, warn of threats to Netflix and Amazon Prime (Gigaom)

FCC Pauses Comcast-TW Cable, AT&T-DirecTV Merger Reviews (Variety)



Vistar Media Taps Carrier Data To Target Consumers Across Mobile And OOH (Adexchanger)
Vistar Media has its engineering offices in Philadelphia.

Quintiq expertly solving planning puzzles (Airport Business)


Links 10/21/2014: McDermott reassures that SAP's on track in Cloud; can Salesforce deliver on complex business processes?




Dreamforced: Can Salesforce.com Deliver the Complex Business Processes it Aspires To? (Joshua Greenbaum/Enterprise Applications Consulting)

SAP Cloud Plan On Track, Says McDermott (Information Week)


A refreshing start to SAP TechEd && d-code 2014 (Diginomica)

Mirantis Scores $100M To Continue Quest To Be Enterprise OpenStack Leader
(TechCrunch)
SAP among investors in round.



Epicor buys QuantiSense to boost Big Data services for major retailers (Diginomica)


Verizon FiOS Sub Growth Slows Again In Q3 (Multichannel News)

Pure Play QVC Group Tracking Stock Begins Trading On NASDAQ (PR Newswire)

Unisys Announces Third-Quarter 2014 Financial Results
(PR Newswire)


Neat, after period of organizational changes, seeks broader market; Partners with HP on product
Update 11/5: Announces new CEO


Tom Paine



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The Neat Company and HP announced in late September that HP was bundling Neat's Smart Organization System, the cloud-based scanning and information extraction and storage tool, with HP's Officejet 8040 printer. The partnership is a first for Neat, which has sold its products separately through retail and online channels in the past. Neat is not contributing any hardware, but only its cloud software service.

The HP Officejet 8040 with Neat e-All-in-One Printer is available in the United States for a starting price of $399 in retail stores and online. That includes a three-year subscription to the NeatCloud service.

The recently announced intent to split HP into two companies is not expected to have any impact on the product, which will fall under HP's proposed Printers and PC business.

Whether the bundling of its products with others will be a major boost for Neat remains unclear, but the HP arrangement continues a shift away from hardware towards software which has been occurring for some time, although Neat Vice President-Product Management Chris Barbier stressed in an interview with Philly Tech News that it is still very much in the hardware business and the HP offering doesn't replace any existing Neat product.

Neat has gone through many changes over the past two years, since reporting revenue of $110 million in 2012. Almost the entire senior management team has turned over, and Ron Kaiser, a board member since 2012 who has served with other Edison Partners (Neat's principle investor) ventures, replaced Jim Foster as interim CEO late last year, though Foster is still on Neat's board (correction: Foster is no longer on the board, though the company tells me the relationship is amicable). A Neat spokesperson tells me a new permanent CEO will be named soon.

Comments on Glassdoor (admittedly not always a reliable indicator) do suggest with some consistency that 2013 was a rough year organizationally and financially, although no update on the financial picture was offered by the company. But it did provide this response to my inquiry:

"Last year Neat accelerated the company’s efforts toward its cloud strategy – opening up an entirely new chapter in the company story. The release of NeatConnect (already one of the Nations’ leading Wi-Fi scanners) and the advancement of NeatCloud and Neat’s mobile application took precedence over our traditional hardware and desktop software. Integrating our cloud capabilities into other manufacturers’ hardware is another example of our evolved approach. That evolution has been reflected in the changing interests and skill sets of the Neat team over time.”

Neat's total customer base, I confirmed, has roughly doubled from the 1 million that it indicated it was at when I spoke with them about two years ago.

Bsrbier said Neat is placing more emphasis on the SME (small and medium enterprises) segment in addition to the SOHO (small office, home office) segment, but is not going after the large enterprise segment. The HP announcement seems targeted more at the SOHO market, though. I see some indications that Neat might be over its rough spot (though no confirmation), and its WiFi-enabled NeatConnect product introduced late last year was well received. Barbier indicated Neat may expand its applications to encompass other accounting and customer relations management tasks.

Edison could be looking towards a future exit strategy for Neat, though I'm not sure if Neat is a strong enough or broad enough standalone play for an IPO right now. Perhaps a sale to a larger company could occur, but a combination of companies with complementary technologies serving the SOHO & SME markets might be intriguing. In the mean time, it might try more joint product partnerships.

Update November 5: Neat names Jeff Dickerson Chief Executive Officer.

Update November 11: Neat Announces Seamless Integrations with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online


Philly Tech People News 10/19/2014: VenturefOrth acquired by Infonautics co-founder Weinberger






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Co-working space VenturefOrth gets new leadership (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Acquired by company controlled by Marvin Weinberger, who founded Infonautics along with Josh Kopelman.

MRO Names Steve Hynes Chief Executive Officer (Business Wire)

Rovi Names Bob Ivins Senior Vice President, Business Development (Business Wire)

Industry Leaders Bring Decade of Compliance and Data Management Experience to Veeva Europe (PR Newswire)

ERT Announces Updates to Executive Management Team
(PR Web)




Investing in You: Philadelphia is sizzling hot for start-ups (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Coupa and NetSuite form ‘unique’ selling partnership
(Diginomica)

Google’s Biggest Competitor…is Amazon (Gideon Rosenblatt/Medium)
Doesn't even mention eBay, which may (or may not) be significant.

Apple Pay hits U.S. stores Monday -- assuming buyers can find anywhere to use it (Computerworld)






She's helping get women founders in front of investors (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Third-party, open source AWS management tools offer unique benefits (SearchCloudProvider)
Discusses Philly's Cloudnexa.

DEAL TALK: U.S. DOJ digs into Comcast's Internet reach in merger review (Reuters)


Update from Dreamforce 10/16: Peoplelinx' new Salesforce1 app: City of Philadelphia on IoT




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PeopleLinx' Michael Idinopulos takes an expansive and interesting look
at Dreamforce
in this blog post, particularly noticing the confusing glut of analytical products.

BTW, PeopleLinx partially introduced its new app on the Salesforce1 platform at Dreamforce, and Idinopulos tells me they will be officially announcing it once it's live in the AppExchange later this fall. On the Dreamforce website, PeopleLinx' session at the event is described as follows:

"This session will look at real-world examples of how large B2B sales organizations are bridging the gap between social selling and CRM integration, and improving sales team effectiveness in the process. The session will also provide the first public demo of PeopleLinx’s “Social To-Do List”, a new Salesforce1 app that automatically guides sales professionals to integrate social connections into pipeline management across desktop and mobile devices."

Apparently, this is what the City of Philadelphia talked about at Dreamforce yesterday: "Cities of the future are here now and are leveraging Salesforce. The city of Philadelphia is building their city on IoCP and their session can be found here: We Built this City on IoCP: Connecting Citizen to the Cloud."


See full post: Philadelphia Salesforce.com ecosystem on display at Dreamforce '14


Links 10/17/2014: Urban Outfitters' sales slump continues; SAP Ventures now Sapphire Ventures



Venture capital in health IT drops to $956M in Q3, but global investment increasing (Med City News)

Comcast Blamed for Demise of PWC Employee’s Career (Bloomberg)
O'Rourke files suit.


Qlik Sense Makes Sense for Qlik (Ventana Research)

Urban Outfitters Tumbles as Sales Slump Threatens Profit
(Bloomberg)

Meet John Pomp: Philadelphia's glassblowing, surfing CEO (Fortune)

Dreamforce 2014: Announcements, Paradigm Shift, Crowds (Denis Pombriant/Enterprise Irregulars)

SAP Ventures Changes Name to Sapphire Ventures, Expands Focus (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)

SAP launches enterprise apps for smart glasses (ZDNet)


Zayo: Dark Fiber Provider Jumps 18% on IPO (Barron's Tech Trader
Daily)

When Uber and Airbnb Meet the Real World (New York Times)


Links 10/16/2014: Salesforce takes aim at SAP; Comcast's plans to rev up NASCAR





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Salesforce’s Plan to Bring in its Next $20 Billion–and Stomp SAP (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Salesforce aims to surpass SAP (ZDNet)

The building Block of a new dynamic at Salesforce.com? (Diginomica)

Tech exec or Dr. Feelgood? At Dreamforce, Salesforce CEO has it both ways
(Fortune)

IBM and SAP: A Cloud Pact That Solves Problems and Holds Promise (New York Times: Bits)

SAP Ventures Becomes Sapphire Ventures (News Release)


In the wider world of domain names, the address is key (Philadelphia Inquirer)


CBS Offers Web Viewers All-Access From ‘MacGyver’ to ‘Good Wife’ (Bloomberg)

Comcast has bold plans for NASCAR coverage (AP via Salt Lake City Tribune)

Pai Worried FCC Might Be Heading Toward Title II (Multichannel News)

Apple Pay launches Monday with support from Starbucks, Macy's and others (Engadget)


eBay’s Same-Day Delivery Experiment Is Essentially Dead (Re/code)

Johnson & Johnson to IBM: 'Watson, come here. I want you.' (Fortune)

University City Science Center gets $1M grant to advance start-ups (Philadelphia Inquirer)



AlphaPoint, seeking to improve functioning of digital currency exchanges for Bitcoin and others, raises $1.35 million





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A New York-based startup headed by King of Prussia-based LiftDNA (acquired by OpenX) founder Vadim Telyatnikov has received $1.35 million in funding, coming primarily from the Philadelphia venture community.

AlphaPoint provides technology to support digital currency exchanges, with Bitcoin the main currency being traded today.

Scott Becker of Google-acquired Invite Media, Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo, Robin Hood Ventures, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners are among the investors.

In addition to New York, AlphaPoint has offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco. Joe Ventura is founder and CTO. AlphaPoint seeks to address the "disparity among digital currency exchanges when it comes to usability, credibility and reliability".


Links 10/15: Netflix drops on missed subscriber forecast; HBO launching standalone streaming service next year



HBO Says It’s Going toO Start Selling on the Web Next Year (Re/code)

Down With Cable! Why HBO Is Finally Launching a Standalone Streaming Service
(Wired)

Netflix Skids as Subscriber Growth Misses Forecast (Bloomberg)



Comcast wins $7.5 million patent case with Sprint (Kansas City Star)

Walmart Invests In E-Commerce, Next-Day Delivery Expansions With Two New Fulfillment Centers (TechCrunch)
Planning second 1 million square foot warehouse in Bethlehem.



EDA defers action on Lockheed Martin aid
(Courier-Post)
Interesting.


Osage University Partners raises $150 million towards 2nd fund




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Dow Jones reports that Osage Partners, Bala Cynwyd, has raised $151 million, or three quarters, of a planned $200 million for Osage University Partners II LP. It follows an initial fund of $100 million raised in 2011.

Unlike Osage's other venture funds, Osage University Partners I and II focuses solely on investing in commercializing the intellectual property of academic and research institutions.


Quintiq "World Tour Stop" in Philadelphia tomorrow (the 15th) at Cira Center





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Quintiq, the supply chain planning and optimization software firm whose US headquarters is in Radnor, will be holding its "World Tour Stop" in Philadelphia tomorrow (October 15). The tour will bring together leaders in supply chain, logistics, operations, production, and resource planning, as well as professionals in the metals, rail, oil & gas, and aviation industries.

The event, co-hosted by SupplyChainBrain, will be held from 8am to 7pm at Cira Center, Philadelphia. Registration (free) here.

Quintiq was acquired this summer by Dassault Systemes of France for about $330 million(see my writeup about the deal).

Quintiq CEO Dr. Victor Allis, Quintiq Solution Architect Eric Pearson, and several prominent industry experts will be speaking.


Post event, Quintiq put together a Storify showing highlights from its "World Tour Stop" Philadelphia:





Salesforce reveals Wave, its big, bad analytics cloud (VentureBeat)


Philly Tech People News 10/12/2014: New Ellucian CEO; Rovi adds "master of metadata" in Radnor







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Former SAP Cloud Exec Price Has Landed at Oracle (Re/code)

SAP Appoints Cormac Watters as MD (IrishDev)

Unisys stock drops after CEO Coleman's firing (Philadelphia Inquirer)

NBC boss in hot seat as news empire crumbles (NY Post)


Ellucian Appoints Jeff Ray As New President and Chief Executive Officer
(Business Wire)

Hires Master Of Metadata (Multichannel News)


Clutch Names Mark Harrington Vice President of Marketing
(Business Wire)

Sankara Viswanathan Takes SVP, CIO Roles at Day & Zimmermann (GovConWire)

Buchanan Public Relations Hires Rachel Neppes as Vice President
(Philly Ad Club News)


Grant Thornton names Denham Philadelphia office managing partner (Business Wire)


Philadelphia Salesforce.com ecosystem on display at Dreamforce '14






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Dreamforce '14, Salesforce.com's annual megagathering, kicks off in San Francisco on Monday, officially, although some things are already getting started.

PhillyForce, the suburban Philadelphia area Salesforce.com developer group, will be holding a pre-conference meetup at Dreamforce at 3pm on the 13th. Location to be announced.

Dell Boomi, a long-time Salesforce partner, says it will have an even greater presence at Dreamforce this year now that its a Gold Partner.

CRM Science, a leading Salesforce.com developer and consulting firm founded by Ami Assayag and based in the Philadelphia area, will be making several presentations at Dreamforce.

RoundCorner CEO Dan Lammot was named "one of fifty interesting people you must meet at Dreamforce" by the web pub AllSalesforce.com. I recently profiled Villanova-based RoundCorner.

Look also for companies at Dreamforce such as TargetX, PeopleLinx (they'll be giving away Tastykakes), Hoopla, Veeva Systems, Trifecta Technologies and CRM Manager, which are either based in or have a significant presence in the Philly area.

I'll be running updates throughout the week. Anyone who has news to share can hit me by email (Phillytechnews@gmail.com) or at @phillytechnews on Twitter.

PCWorld's Chris Kanaracus previews what to expect at Dreamforce.


Update 10/12: Rootstock Software is a Silicon Valley company, but one of its key investors, along with Salesforce, has been VC firm Cross Atlantic Capital of Radnor. Rootstock has quietly been gaining momentum in the manufacturing ERP vertical running on the Saleforce1 platform.

Rootstock, founded by Pat Garrehy, recently entered into a partnership with with the Dutch company Vanenburg Software, founded by ERP pioneer Jan Baan, under which Vanenburg will market Rootstock's offerings in Europe.

Update 10/13: From the Boomi Blog: "Dell Software today announced that Dell Boomi has joined the Salesforce Analytics Cloud ecosystem to enable customers to connect any application—whether in the cloud, on-premises, mobile or social—to provide access to the critical data they need to support their strategic business analytics initiatives."

Update 10/13: PTC ThingWorx & Axeda Joins Salesforce Analytics Cloud Ecosystem to Extend IoT Technology






Update 10/13: PhillyForce is planning a DF14 Expo Meetup at about 6:30pm in Moscone North (when the foods out!)

Update 10/14: Accenture and Salesforce.com Collaborate to Help the Healthcare Industry Improve Customer and Patient Outcomes

Update 10/14: At Dreamforce this morning, Deloitte Digital announced the addition of Dell's Boomi integration service to the 2.0 version of its CloudMix integration system. It joins competitor Mulesoft, which was already available through CloudMix.








My article on Trifecta Technologies of Allentown from a few months back.

PeopleLinx' Michael Idinopulos takes an expansive and interesting look
at Dreamforce
, particularly noticing the confusing glut of analytical products.
BTW, PeopleLinx partially introduced its new app on the Salesforce1 platform at Dreamforce, and Idinopulos tells me they will be officially announcing it once it's live in the AppExchange later this fall. On the Dreamforce website, PeopleLinx' session at the event is described as follows:

"This session will look at real-world examples of how large B2B sales organizations are bridging the gap between social selling and CRM integration, and improving sales team effectiveness in the process. The session will also provide the first public demo of PeopleLinx’s “Social To-Do List”, a new Salesforce1 app that automatically guides sales professionals to integrate social connections into pipeline management across desktop and mobile devices."

Don't know what this is about:
.

Apparently, this is what the City of Philadelphia talked about at Dreamforce yesterday: "Cities of the future are here now and are leveraging Salesforce. The city of Philadelphia is building their city on IoCP and their session can be found here: We Built this City on IoCP: Connecting Citizen to the Cloud."

Salesforce exec reveals his plan to bring in the next $20 billion in revenue - and stomp SAP (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Salesforce.com Qlik & CloudApps SuMo case study (Video)




Anybody interested in sponsoring this page for a reasonable fee?


Saturday Highlights: Former SAP cloud exec now with Oracle; new "Einstein's Alley" signs in NJ



Officials tout East Windsor's 'high-tech corridor,' unveil new Einstein's Alley sign (NJ.com)

Former SAP Cloud Exec Price Has Landed at Oracle (Re/code)


Innovation without growth & the true potential of SAP HANA
(Capgemini Blog)

What to expect at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce (PCWorld)



Is Alibaba's Supply Chain Ready to Take On Amazon? (Industry Week)


Liberty Interactive spinning out QVC as tracking stock; Now trading as QVC Group (QVCA & B)




Tom Paine



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Liberty Interactive Corp announced last week the go-ahead plans for its previously announced (last October) intent to split into two tracking stocks, one for its group of digital commerce businesses to be named Liberty Ventures Group, and the other for West Chester-based QVC, which will be named QVC Group.

The move is intended to increase strategic focus on QVC and enable it to make moves to increase market share and growth. One often discussed possibility would be the acquisition by QVC Group of the 62% of HSN Inc. (originally Home Shopping Network) it does not already own. QVC has been growing slowly lately, but is in a position to consolidate share in the TV-based home shopping business. QVC has also been growing its web-based business, particularly via mobile.

Liberty Interactive, which is already trading under the QVCA and QVCB symbols (NASDAQ), is worth a lot of money. Its current market value is $16.5 billion.

The Liberty Ventures business is valued at $1.5 billion, in addition to $1 billion in cash.

QVC reported 2.3% growth in the US during the first half of this year to $2.66 billion. Worldwide, revenue was up 1.5% to $4 billion. QVC says 40% of its US business is ecommerce-based, with mobile accounting for 43% of that.


Links 10/9/2014: SAP, Birst partner on Business Intelligence







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Birst, SAP Join Forces as Big Firms Move Into Business Intelligence (Wall Street Journal: Venture
Capital Dispatch)

SAP and Birst steal Salesforce.com’s cloud analytics thunder on Dreamforce eve (Diginomica)

Slack exposes companies’ team names to outsiders, but it’s a feature, not a bug (The Next Web)

HubSpot IPO Raises $125M; Big Investor Demand, Big Symbolism for Boston Tech (Bostinno)


Cadient acquired by tech co. Cognizant (Medical Marketing & Media)

Powerlytics Receives Strategic Investment from CME Group (Business Wire)

IBM (Kenexa) using analytics software to solve HR problems (Washington Post)


Salesforce Introduces Interactive Mobile Customer Service And Gives Core CRM A Makeover (TechCrunch)

For Uber, Lyft, Pa. permits unlikely this year (Philadelphia Inquirer)