Sunday Highlights: Inside the FCC's audacious plan to blow up the cable box; Inquirer profiles Universal Display
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Small-Screen Giant (Philadelphia Inquirer)
On Universal Display.
Comcast customer's Raspberry Pi bot tweets when speeds are lousy (Engadget)
Inside the FCC's audacious plan to blow up the cable box (The Verge)
Tech Valuations In 2016: The End Of The Line For Sloppy Growth (TechCrunch)
Philly Tech People News 1/31/16: SevOne adds new CFO; Nutter to teach at Columbia
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SevOne, which the Boston media correctly identifies as Boston-based as Philly Tech News readers first found out, announced this week that it had appointed a new CFO.
 |
| Rafe Brown |
Rafe Brown, who had previously served as CFO of Pegasystems, a publicly traded Cloud software company, was named to the position. Brown had an earlier stint as a senior vice president of finance for Salesforce.com. Over the course of his nine years at Salesforce.com, Mr. Brown led the treasury and tax functions, real estate, and collections teams. Presumably, his appointment might be seen as another step towards an IPO, or whatever kind of exit or capitalization event SevOne may eventually seek.
CEO Jack Sweeney said in an interview with the Boston Business Journal late last year that the network monitoring company expected to exceed $100 million in revenue for 2015, up from about $65 million in 2014.
The bulk of SevOne's engineering workforce employment remains located in Delaware and Pennsylvania, though top managerial and administrative staff is ensconced in Boston's Prudential Center. SevOne is backed by Bain Capital and other mostly Boston-based investors.
A September round may have valued SevOne at or very close to the $1 billion mark, although the company didn't confirm that.
Chris Satchell's job: Make Comcast products more fun (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Nutter to teach at Columbia (Philly.com)
Frank Quattrone to Step Down as C.E.O. of Qatalyst (New York Times: DealBook)
Controversial South Philly native will be Executive Chairman.
IBM Closes Weather Co. Purchase, Names David Kenny New Head Of Watson Platform (TechCrunch)
Local lawyer becomes CEO of entertainment company (Philadelphia Business Journal)
TierPoint Appoints Morrison, Morales, Hicks and Markley to Technology and Operations Leadership Positions
(Business Wire)
Bob Hicks, who has been responsible for TierPoint's 6 data centers in Southeastern Pennsylvania, takes on broader geographical responsibilities.
USA Technologies Announces Appointment of Interim CFO (Business Wire)
Michael Connor Joins Alpha Card Services as VP of Finance (Business Wire)
Phillies snag new hire from Google (Philadelphia Business Journal)
SAP UK and Ireland shuffles management cards
(The Register)
Google's long-term plans to disrupt / destroy the cable industry
Tom Paine
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Two pieces of news out concerning Google could threaten to completely decompose the cable industry as we know it, although these things either take a long time to develop or frequently never come to fruition.
The first is Project SkyBender , in which Google is (secretly?) testing the use of solar-powered drones to provide high-speed internet service to the public on the ground. This approach offers theoretical data speeds 40 times faster than today's 4G LTE signals. Though there are challenges to this, as the website Phone Arena points out.
Google recently entered the wireless market with Project Fi , which resells wireless
carriers' capacity as an MVNO while using WiFi when available (an approach Comcast is also working on).
According to Phone Arena, Project SkyBender is being developed by the same Google Access team that is working on a way to deliver wireless internet using high-altitude balloons.
Less is known about the second initiative. But according to Broadcasting & Cable, invites were sent out for a demo scheduled Friday at Google's DC offices, of a video access solution (the function served by the set-top box) potentially bringing to an end the "era of being forced to rent a box from your cable company," according to Google.
Saturday Highlights: HSN Looking for the Next Joy Mangano; Philadelphia agency caught teaming up with taxi companies to fight Uber
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A Philadelphia agency was caught teaming up with taxi companies to fight Uber (Vox)
Comcast Lashes Out at FCC Set-Top Proposal (Multichannel News)
Google Gears Up for Set-Top Set-To (Multichannel News)
Gift of Joy: HSN Looking for the Next Mangano (Cablefax)
Links 1/29: Birchbox layoffs; Microsoft Cloud growth, but which cloud?
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NetSuite Q4 Beats Street on New Business From Snapchat and Lucky Brand (Re/code)
CenturyLink deal boosts options for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (SearchSAP)
Cloud growth? Take a number, Microsoft. Two engines have stalled (The Register)
Birchbox lays off 15% of staff, citing funding environment and a need to rebalance the company (PandoDaily)
Congress to probe Juniper 'back door' exposure, possible U.S. involvement (Reuters)
Google Fiber testing home phone service to bundle with TV, Internet (The Next Web)
Fandango buys online video retailer M-Go to boost 'super ticket' sales (LA Times)
Links 1/28: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Cloud both show tremendous growth
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Amazon Sales Soared 22% in Holiday Quarter, but Profit Fell Short (New York Timea)
Amazon Web Services is now an $8 billion-a-year cloud-computing machine (Quartz)
Microsoft Profit and Revenue Fall, but Cloud Computing Grows (NY Times)
12 minutes with Rob Enslin on SAP’s 2016 outlook (Denn Howlett/Diginomica)
Comcast Wants to Limit Your Netflix Binges (Bloomberg)
College Ave Student Loans Secures $20 Million To Fuel Growth (Business Wire)
Round in Wilmington-based company led by Comcast Ventures.
Salesforce causes partner pain with SteelBrick acquisition (Computerworld)
A not surprising reaction from a guest contributor.
Links 1/27: Aereo founder's next act; Salesforce Adds 'Private Spaces' On Heroku Platform
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The founder of Aereo is promising to bring gigabit internet to every home (The Verge)
Is box relief on the way for cable & satellite customers? (Philadelphia Inquirer)
AT&T Eyes TV Everywhere Gold (Light Reading)
Sinclair Found 'Right Fit' To Expand Into Cable (Multichannel News)
Bundling Tennis Channel With Retrans Was 'Palatable Ask'
VMware Cuts 800 Jobs, Narrows Cloud Business (Information Week)
SAP Takes HANA to China With Help From Lenovo (Re/code)
Salesforce Adds 'Private Spaces' On Heroku Platform (Information Week)
Venmo is taking on Apple Pay with in-app purchases (The Verge)
Trump says he might skip next debate (on Fox News), after Fox issues satirical 'press release'
Tom Paine
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The Fox release, in the form of a message sent to another media outlet, reads:
"We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."
There's considerable debate about who put the statement out. Many attribute it to Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News. My own theory, based on a passing familiarity with his twitter account (@rupertmurdoch), is that Rupert himself may have authored it because of the nature of the language. But some have suggested that Rupert is moving closer to Trump, and this tweet supports that view:
Cruz bets uniting white conservatives/evangelicals enough, Meanwhile Trump appealing across party lines. Surely the winning strategy.— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 16, 2016The one thing for certain is that no one I heard tonight really knows what's going on.
I doubt many in my audience, which I know fairly well, cares much for Fox News. But one thing worth understanding is that it does not have a unified voice, particularly when it cones to Trump. Fox News gave the Trump candidacy oxygen, and several of its personalities were active cheerleaders. Living in New York, Trump had the opportunity to cultivate relationships with some of them.
But many of the more senior commentators thought the idea of a Trump candidacy ridiculous. My impression was someone (Ailes?) was orchestrating the pro-Trump concerto, but some more senior people weren't going to take marching orders.
The other big issue, of course, is Trump's continuing vicious attacks on anchor Megyn Kelly.
Links 1/26: First Round-backed Jelli brings programmatic buying to radio; Comcast offering new business WiFi service
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Seeing OLED as the future for displays, LG bets big on new factory (PCWorld)
Comcast Gets Down to Business With WiFi (Multichannel News)
Fourth Annual University of Pennsylvania $10K Y-Prize Competition Grand Prize Winner is “Fermento” as Best of Penn-Owned Biomedical Engineering Concepts (PR Web)
Jelli, Software Provider For Programmatic Radio, Eyes Growth (MediaPost)
First Round Capital was an early backer.
Companies, start your (hybrid) clouds: Azure Stack's first beta is coming (PC World)
Bioclinica continues expansion under PE ownership, acquires Clinverse
Tom Paine
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Considerable change has occurred since New York-based PE firm JLL Partners acquired Doylestown-based clinical trial management system (CTMS) vendor Bioclinica in early 2013.
In its latest move announced last week, Bioclinica acquired Edison Ventures-backed Clinverse, which is based in North Carolina.
Bioclinica, which had been a publicly traded company, reported revenue of nearly $100 million in 2012, and was acquired by JLL for $ 123 million.
It was also merged with CoreLab Partners of Princeton when the acqusition closed. In 2014, it merged with California-based SYNARC. At that time, the combined company said it would be a leader in four specialized areas of outsourced CTMS:
- medical imaging services that track the effectiveness of new drugs across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology and musculoskeletal.
- an extensive worldwide network of research centers dedicated to recruiting patients for global trials.
- state-of-the-art technology and consulting services to support the overall drug development process, as well as services to monitor the cardiac safety of compounds under development.
- It also will offer central lab capabilities to analyze biological samples originating from clinical trials.
Bioclinica also made some smaller acquisitions in 2014-15, and one presumably reliable source reported 2014 revenue at over $200 million. At the end of 2014, long-time CEO Marc Weinsten departed, to be replaced by Dr. John Hubbard, who joined from Pfizer.
Last week, BioClinica announced it was acquiring Clinverse, a Durham, North Carolina-based provider of automated payment systems for clinical trial participants, as well as medical professionals making or receiving payments through involvement with trials. No terms were disclosed, and no financial data has been found for Clinverse.
New Jersey-based Edison Partners had led a $9.1 million Series C round in Clinverse in August 2014.
While some other payment tech firms dabble in the clinical trials market, the two main direct competitors to Clinverse are King of Prussia-based Greenphire and CFS Clinical of Audubon, which was acquired by DrugDev in 2013.
The 'Sunshine Act' reporting requirements, which went into effect in 2013, requires manufacturers of drugs, medical devices and biologicals that participate in U.S. federal health care programs to report certain payments and items of value given to physicians and teaching hospitals. This reporting need is the other side of the value proposition for the clinical trial payments vendors. Similar regulations are expected worldwide, although they may have been slower to materialize than expected.
Its not clear who is leading among the three clinical payment competitors, though Bioclinca must have liked what it saw in Clinverse's numbers. Greenphire ( see my 2013 profile ) in which PE firm The Riverside Company owns a controlling stake, reported revenue of $8.5 million in 2014, according to the Inc. 5000, up from $5.4 million in 2012. It moved into larger King of Prussia quarters in early 2015 and announced a goal to increase employment from 65 to 100 by year's end (LinkedIn currently shows 85). It just issued a release claimng "unprecedented year over year growth." CFS Clinical had 2012 revenue of $11 million, according to the Inc. 5000, though its a somewhat older business with a different revenue mix.
The Triangle Business Journal describes how the match between Bioclinica and Clinverse came to be. One issue that comes to mind is to what extent Clinverse will be able to serve the external market, rather than having all its energy sucked up by internal Bioclinica issues.
SevOne names new CFO; May lead to heightened IPO speculation
Tom Paine
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SevOne, which the Boston media correctly identifies as Boston-based as Philly Tech News readers first found out, announced this morning that it had appointed a new CFO.
|
| Rafe Brown |
Rafe Brown, who had previously served as CFO of Pegasystems, a publicly traded Cloud software company, was named to the position. Brown had an earlier stint as a senior vice president of finance for Salesforce.com. Over the course of his nine years at Salesforce.com, Mr. Brown led the treasury and tax functions, real estate, and collections teams. Presumably, his appointment might be seen as another step towards an IPO, or whatever kind of exit or capitalization event SevOne may eventually seek.
CEO Jack Sweeney said in an interview with the Boston Business Journal late last year that the network monitoring company expected to exceed $100 million in revenue for 2015, up from about $65 million in 2014.
The bulk of SevOne's engineering workforce employment remains located in Delaware and Pennsylvania, though top managerial and administrative staff is ensconced in Boston's Prudential Center. SevOne is backed by Bain Capital and other mostly Boston-based investors.
A September round may have valued SevOne at or very close to the $1 billion mark, although the company didn't confirm that.
Links 1/25: IDC: Public Cloud Spending To Double By 2019; SAP Melds Social And Learning In New Tool
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Exclusive: Former Pegasystems exec now CFO at growing Boston software firm [SevOne] (Boston Business Journal)
IDC: Public Cloud Spending To Double By 2019
(Information Week)
SAP Melds Social And Learning In New Tool (TechCrunch)
Talk of ESPN's demise full of 'hyperbolic drivel,' analyst says (FierceCable)
PUC plans a hearing on Charter's purchase of Time Warner Cable and Bright House (LA Times)
Malvern financial tech company acquires firm specializing in interactive payment (Philadelphia Buiness Journal)
Saturday Highlights: The Unicorn trap; IBM wipes out five years of gains
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ESPN exec: Sling TV 'significant' but Apple is 'frustrated' (Engadget)
Michael Wolff on Time Warner: It's a Game of Chicken as Jeff Bewkes Mulls Options (Hollywood Reporter)
CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt, MACRA, and Meaningful Use 3: The Practice Fusion perspective (Practice Fusion Blog)
VCs have pumped up the value of the “unicorn” startups. Now tech IPOs are in trouble. Good luck getting out. (Fortune)
IBM Erases Five Years of Gains Buoyed by Share Buybacks: Chart (Bloomberg)
Links 1/22: SAP touts Cloud revenue growth; Cable Acquisitions by Charter Face Rising Opposition
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SAP sees cloud, support revenue overtaking software in 2018 (Infoworld)
SAP Q4 FY2015 – a critique for the road ahead (Diginomica)
Cable Acquisitions by Charter Communications Face Rising Opposition (NY Times)
NBC and CBS in lead to pay NFL $600M for Thursday Night Football, double last season's price (FierceCable)
Just add that onto your cable bill.
Comcast opens Wifi network for storm (Philadephia Inquirer)
A New Year Chill on I.P.O.s
(NY Times: DealBook)
Facing a Price War, Uber Bets on Volume (Bloomberg)
T. Rowe Marks Down Dropbox Stake 51% (The Information)
And some other cuts.
VMware Insiders Brace for Big Cuts (Fortune)
Links1/21: Sparta Systems makes acquistion; TierPoint continues acquistion drive, adding major investor
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Thoma Bravo-owned Sparta Systems buys 123Compliance (PE Hub)
Sparta Systems is based in Hamilton, NJ.
Kent’s TierPoint to acquire Cosentry, gain investor (St Louis Business Journal)
TierPoint, a major operator of data centers (6) in eastern Pennsylvania, is rapidly becoming a force nationally through acquisitions. It is led by former cable entrepreneur Jerry Kent (Charter, Suddenlink).
Cox bails on OTT service Flare MeTV, possibly due to licensed X1 platform conflicts: report (FierceCable)
It's not just you: Massive Comcast outage blows Bay Area offline (The Register)
Verizon's AOL Shines In Q4 As EPS, Revenue Beat (Investor's Business Daily )
FiOS TV Gains Lowest Ever
Telco Adds Just 20K Video Subs in Q4 (Multichannel News)
Verizon Confirms It May Sell Its Data Centers (Data Center Knowledge)
UNISYS LAUNCHES NEW CLOUD SECURITY OFFERING FOR AWS (CivSource)
y
Josh Kopelman's email on current VC market conditions
Good story by @AlexKonrad on current VC mkt. I'm quoted but thought it might help to share my entire email to Alex. pic.twitter.com/CIv1Olb270
— Josh Kopelman (@joshk) January 19, 2016Links 1/20: Newtown-based Bioclinica buys NC automated trial payments vendor
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Bioclinica buys Clinverse citing pharma demand for trial payment efficiency (Outsourcing Pharma)
North Carolina-based Clinverse had major backing from Edison Partners. Its main competitors in the automated clinical payments market are Greenphire (King of Prussia) and CFS Clinical (Audubon), which was acquired by DrugDev. Bioclinica is based in Doylestown.
Comcast Partners With Twitter-Owned Niche and 19 Influencers to Pitch Its Cable Box (Ad Week)
Jack Dorsey Juggles Twitter and Square, Both Caught in Downdraft
(NY Times)
Amazon's Cloud Is Not Enterprise-Ready, Says Oracle Exec (Fortune)
The top 5 Hadoop distributions, according to Forrester (Network World)
Phiily Tech News Notable Quotes & Tweets of the Week 1/20/2016
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"We’re gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries."
Donald Trump, speaking Monday at Liberty Universty.
"As for Amazon – I don’t think there’s a successful business model on the planet that Amazon isn’t considering disrupting. As in the enterprise, with AWS as a launch pad, the sky’s the limit (actually Amazon’s drones mean the sky’s not a limiting factor either :) ) I think Jeff Bezos and Amazon would be the platform competitor I would worry about the most, and it may make sense at some point for Salesforce.com to look over its shoulder at AWS and start working to co-opt the Bezos juggernaut."
Josh Greenbaum of Enterprise Applications Consulting, from
last week's Salesforce Analyst Summit.
“I’m like, ‘How could I get this lucky?’ That’s how I feel.”
SAP CEO Bill McDermott, on recovering from his eye injury.
"The market thinks (Radnor-based) software developer Qlik Technologies is growing fast. We don’t buy it. Eventually, investors won’t either."
Dow Jones columnist Vito J Racanelli, in a Barron's column: Qlik’s Waning Value
“I called my contacts at G.E. and said, literally: ‘Help, what’s going on here? My phone is ringing off the hook. I’ve got three TV stations with crews coming in a half-hour.’
Michael Tetreau, Fairfield, CT first selectman, on reacting to the news that GE Headquarters was leaving town for Boston.
“Maybe because it’s more fun than talking about NBC ratings,” Sarandos said. https://t.co/dGw4FfCjYE
— Ted Hearn (@TedatACA) January 18, 2016“No relation between their current profitability and their market value”
FX Networks Chief Executive John Landgraf, on Netflix.
DOCSIS 2.0 is 15-year old tech. Anyone still using a 2001-era 1st gen iPod? If you still use D2, please upgrade. :-) pic.twitter.com/49QB03P17C
— Jason Livingood (@jlivingood) January 13, 2016Comcast Cable Vice President - Internet Services Jason Livingood, explaining why Comcast service reps might urge customers using very old networking equipment to upgrade.
Links 1/19: Jumping From Java to Force.com: Salesforce MVP Peter Knolle; Oracle's cloud ambitions may be nearing moment of truth
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Jumping From Java to Force.com (Salesforce Developers Blog)
Peter Knolle, a Salesforce MVP, is Solutions Architect with Allentown's Trifecta Technologies.
Oracle's cloud ambitions may be nearing moment of truth (ZDNet)
SAP Cloud for Analytics: Present and Future Plans for Data Integration
(ASUG News)
IBM forecasts weak earnings for 2016; shares slide (Reuters)
Report: GM acquires most of Sidecar’s assets and technology (GeekWire)
Netflix Eclipses 75M Subs Worldwide (Multichannel News)
Comcast Gaining Vs. Disney In Distributor Content (Investor's Business Daily)
Solovis Raises $3.25M to Accelerate Growth of Institutional Portfolio Platform (Business Wire)
Led by Edison Partners, and including participation from MissionOG and others.
Edison Partners exits Telarix Inc. (NJBiz)
Links 1/19: Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy; Netflix's Sarandos Reacts to NBC Outing His Ratings
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Netflix's Ted Sarandos Reacts to NBC Outing His Ratings: "Remarkably Inaccurate Data" (Hollywood Repoorter)
Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy (TechCrunch)
Fairfield Ponders a Future Without General Electric (NY Times)
Accenture to bond itself to SAP? (Enterprise Times)
Back to School Week with Salesforce.com (Josh Greenbaum/Enterprise Applications Consulting)
Salesforce Reboots Wave Analytics, Preps IoT Cloud (Doug Henschen/Constellation Research)
Philly Tech People News 1/18: SAP's McDermott: `How Could I Get This Lucky?'; Angelakis to chair Philly Fed
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SAP CEO's Lesson From Losing Eye: `How Could I Get This Lucky?' (Bloomberg)
Philly Fed taps Angelakis (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Women in Cable Telecommunications Announces 2016 Board of Directors
(Multichannel News)
Martha Soehren, Comcast, serving as Chair in her second year of two year term.
Brownstein named chair of Philly Arts & Business Council board (Phildelphia Inquirer)
Sustained Growth in 2015 Positions LeadiD Well for 2016 (PR Web)
Karen Paletta Named Sprint President, New York and Philly Tri-State Region (Business Wire)
Barron's takes dour view of Radnor-based Qlik Technologies
Tom Paine
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This week's Barron's has an article by Dow Jones columnist Vito J Racanelli, Qlik’s Waning Value (paywall, but you might get a view).
The subtitle reads "The market thinks (Radnor-based) software developer Qlik Technologies is growing fast. We don’t buy it. Eventually, investors won’t either."
The column focuses almost totally on financial metrics, not the important nuances of product strategy, and it can be faulted on those terms. But having followed the company since it went public, I generally concur with Racanelli's findings on the financial side. And that, of course, is the ultimate metric.
Racanelli focuses on the (usual) lack of profits and stalling growth, while recognizing the recent drag from the stronger dollar on its results.
My simple conclusion: Tableau ate its lunch, in the US anyway. Although increased competition from others (including a stronger Microsoft offering) may have been factors.
 |
| Tableau (Google Flnance) |
 |
| Qlik (Google Finance) |
It probably produced some awful output, because the rigorous models and data governance required in Qlik weren't required in Tableau, at least to the same extent. But people could do what they wanted with it and they liked it. By last year's third quarter, Tableau'e revenue was $171 million versus Qlik's $141 million, despite a head start of several years for Qlik.
Qlik responded with a semi-bifurcated product strategy, introducing Qlik Sense as its visualization play in late 2014, and keeping QlikView as its more structured product. The jury is still out on Qlik Sense's market acceptance.
Qlik's market value is $2.54 billion, and its year end earnings report is scheduled for February 11.
Sunday Highlights: Linode cloud security response draws praise, raises concerns; Landmark At Broad And Callowhill Is Home To The Internet
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Linode cloud security response draws praise, raises concerns (TechTarget)
AWS price-cut patterns reflect cloud growth, maturation (TechTarget)
Fab Co-Founder’s Shopping Site, Bezar, Is Running Out of Money (Re/code)
Landmark At Broad And Callowhill Is Home To The Internet (CBSPhilly)
Saturday Highlights: CableLabs Cuts 30-Plus Staff Amid Restructuring: SAP Hopes For ‘Fun’ and Friendly Vibe of Cloud for Analytics
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CableLabs Cuts 30-Plus Staff Amid Restructuring (Multichannel News)
FX Networks Chief Worried About Deep-Pocketed Competitors (Wall Street Journal)
SAP Hopes to Woo Business Users with ‘Fun’ and Friendly Vibe of Cloud for Analytics (ASUG NEWS)
Brooks Brothers Chooses SAP Fashion Management Solution (RIS)
Harry Deitz: Time will tell if move will save journalism in Philadelphia (Reading Eagle)
An early hint that GE might move to Boston?
Tom Paine
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Perhaps this announcement by GE, as described by NJ.com on June 2, 2014, was a precursor for GE's announcement this week that it was picking up its toys and moving its headquarters from Fairfield, CT to Boston. Perhaps the move was already in the early planning stages. Major corporate moves of that size usually require a five year planning horizon.
GE subsidiary to move jobs from Princeton, Piscataway
"GE Healthcare Life Sciences confirmed today its plan to consolidate operations near Boston, which will impact many of its 400 New Jersey employees — including job loss for some.
The facilities that will be closed next year are in Princeton and Piscataway. Operations in Livingston and South Plainfield will be unaffected by the plan, according to a company spokesman.
Of the Princeton and Piscataway employees, some will be invited to relocate to the Massachusetts facility, some may end up working remotely, while the third category would be laid off."
Though I feel little sympathy for Connecticut, whose inflexibility helped lose GE according to reports, knowing a bit about how the power structure works in that state. However, Connecticut apparently offered considerable incentives to Comcast in order for NBC Sports to relocate there three years ago.
Coincidentally, GE's move will bring it closer to PTC, headquartered in Needham, which is GE's primary IoT partner, with a significant contribution from its Exton-based ThingWorx unit. The geographical proximity doesn't mean anything in particular, but GE could snap up PTC in a minute if it wanted to.
Note: PTC announced another acquistion today to support ThingWorx and its IoT strategy.
Links 1/16: PTC buys Kepware to support ThingWorx IoT strategy; Anexinet Acquires ListenLogic
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PTC to Acquire Kepware (Desk Engineering)
Acquired for fit with Exton-based IoT Platform company ThingWorx, a PTC subsidiary.
Anexinet Acquires ListenLogic to Expand Digital Solutions Portfolio (Anexinet)
Anexinet was backed in the deal by its lead investor, Marlin Equity Partners.
Comcast's NBC: Ad sales for Rio Olympics could set records (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Sling TV to Reach 2M Subs This Year: Analyst (Multichannel News)
Wal-Mart merges tech teams in online push (Reuters)
Links 1/14; Will TV war between Comcast and YES Network last until Opening Day? The expected ripple effect of GE’s move to Boston
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Comcast Expands Their Commercial CDN Offering With Live Linear Streaming Platform (Dan Rayburn / Streaming Media Blog )
Yankees 2016: Will TV war between Comcast and YES Network last until Opening Day? (NJ.COM)
SAP CEO's Lesson From Losing Eye: `How Could I Get This Lucky? (Bloomberg)'
The expected ripple effect of GE’s move to Boston (Boston Globe)
Amazon’s next AWS data center region will be in Canada (VentureBeat)
Anaplan just raised £62 million and became the North of England’s first true tech unicorn (Business Insider)
Links 1/13: NBC reveals Netflix usage stats, raises questions; Cherry Hill's AmeriQuest sets terms for IPO
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Why NBC Says Netflix Does Not Yet Pose a 'Consistent' Threat to Broadcasters Network reveals ratings data for streaming service (AD Week)
Comcast bugs BYO modem user with browser pop-ups suggesting an upgrade (PCWorld)
Its IPO game is on fleet: AmeriQuest sets terms for $74 million IPO (Renaissance Capital)
AmeriQuest is based in Cherry Hill.
RIP Threadflip (TechCrunch)
First Round Capital was one of the investors in this used apparel website.
I'm guessing First Round's portfolio in the online apparel sector isn't looking too good right now, but as usual its exposure is probably limited.
Picwell raises $7M, will hire 22 for health plan software (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
Links 1/12: How real are SAP and Oracle’s cloud numbers? Safeguard Scientifics invests again in Syapse
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How real are SAP and Oracle’s cloud numbers? (Phil Wainewright / Diginomica)
Renewals and 'cloud' sales boost SAP, but outlook cautious (Reuters)
NetSuite Adds Employee Data Partner (Fortune)
Bewkes nixes HBO spinoff but open to Time Warner sale (NY Post)
2 TV giants are plotting to bypass Netflix (Business Insider)
Precision medicine software maker Syapse raises $25M (Med City News)
Safeguard Scientifics participated again in this round for Syapse, as it had done in its prior round. Based in San Francisco, Syapse also has a Philadelphia office.
Links 1/11: SAP Sales Top Estimates; Osage Unversity Partners joins $62 Million round in Kymeta Led by Bill Gates
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SAP Sales Top Estimates as New Software Cycle Takes Hold (Bloomberg)
Certainly appears impressive.
An Open Letter to Our Customers: SAP Brands Come Together as One ( Maggie Chan Jones, SAP)
digibyte – SAP blows out Q4 2015 in pre-announcement (Diginomica)
If data’s so important, why is IBM selling Salary.com? (Diginomica)
Salary.com had been acquired by Kenexa, back when Rudy Karsan ran it, prior to its acquistion by IBM.
Kymeta Raises $62 Million in Investment Led by Bill Gates (NY Times: DealBook)
Bala Cynwyd's Osage Unversity Partners is a return investor.
How Oracle Is Helping Retailers Sell More Stuff (Q&A) (Re/code)
Comcast's NBC unit launches comedy channel. No Joke (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Carl Icahn Is Buying up Time Warner Shares (Reuters via Fortune)
Philly Tech People News 1/10/16: Preschlack Joins NBC as Regional Sports Head; Mt. Airy native’s app wins Apple award
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Preschlack Joins NBC as Regional Sports Head (Multichannel News)
Arris closes Pace acquisition, lays out executive team (FierceCable)
Philly Mag changes editors, announces layoffs in restructuring (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Mt. Airy native’s app wins Apple award (Chestnut Hill Local)
SAP Appoints New Canadian Manager (TechVibes)
Lincoln Financial Group Appoints Kenneth S. Solon Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer (Business Wire)
Connexion Healthcare Opens New Cambridge, MA, Office (PR Newswire)
Alpha Card Services Doubles Customer Service Team As Revenue Continues to Soar
Saturday Highlights: SAP expected to preannounce strong 2015 results next week
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SAP expected to pre-announce strong 2015 results next week (Reuters)
Consulting firms buy into Salesforce as Hybrid IT complexities hit home (Computer Buslness Review)
BT and Salesforce tie up in Cloud of Clouds vision (CloudPro)
Is Oracle's 'supergraphic' a super problem? (San Jose Mercury News)
East Falls' consumer IoT firm BuLogics spinoff StratIS says its breaking even, may seek to raise venture capital
Tom Paine
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( Note 1/13: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect certain aspects of the relationship between BuLogics and Zonoff, and also between BuLogics and StratIS.)
BuLogics is one of the more creative young technology firms you're going to find anywhere, not just in Philadelphia. Founded in 2003 by Ryan Buchert, a Drexel engineering grad (BS & MS) who spent a few years at local wireless IP giant InterDigital, the East Falls company has prospered primarily by developing and licensing innovative wireless technologies.
BuLogics and StratIS Headquarters in East Falls
For example, in 2011 Malvern-based Zonoff acquired certain technology assets from BuLogics, which enabled Zonoff to implement the initial version of its IoT platform.
Indeed, the Internet of Things was one of the centerpieces at this year's CES. And its also at at the center of BuLogics' strategy. As it describes itself on its website, "From idea to shelf, BuLogics designs, builds and certifies wireless solutions for the Internet of Things."
While doing work for others pays the bills, and licensing intellectual property can certainly be lucrative, greater opportunities may come from creating new businesses. And that's exactly what BuLogics is doing with StratIS.
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| BuLogics CEO Felicite Moorman |
StratIS, as described by BuLogics CEO Felicite Moorman in a phone interview with Philly Tech News, is a family of products built around BuLogics IoT technology. Moorman, a native Oklahoman who somehow ended up in Philadelphia, is an attorney who turned from real estate law to technology, and she's interested in much more than piling up a patent portfolio.
StratIS consists of four distinct modules (or spheres, as it calls them), but the one that's furthest along in terms of commercialization is Access Manager, which is targeted at the multitenant housing and hospitality markets. As StratIS describes its benefits to the landlord, Access Manager "enables property managers and staff to quickly and easily provide replacement credentials, vendor access and full audits without leaving the management office. Save time and money by eliminating the need to re-key and replace locks."
Moorman, perhaps because she isn't an engineer, doesn't dwell much on other bells and whistles it offers both landlord and tenant, but rather the payback the product offers landlords, which it claims to be in as few as twenty-four months. Another sphere, Energy Management Plus, is sold as an add on to Access Manger. StratIS currently claims to be in over 70,000 units.
Bucks County's LifeShield Security, which had attracted a considerable amount of venture capital and also targeted renters, though in a different way, was acquired by DirecTV in 2013. DirecTV, which actually said LifeShield had worked out well for it, was of course recently acquired by AT&T, and its too early to tell how LifeShield will fit into AT&T's home automation mix.
An important benefit StratIS has in this market is its relationship with Schlage, one of the leading lock manufacturers, which StratIS describes as its "primary strategic access partner." Schlage Control Smart Locks for multi-family properties and building owners are compatible with StratIS solutions.
Other StratIS "spheres" include Aging in Place (to support home livng for the elderly), snd The Internet of Things, which seems to be a grab bag of capabilities which might be possible with the StratIS IoT platform.
StratIS referred to itself as a spinoff from BuLogics, which was a bit confusing at first because it was difficult to see how they were separated. But a statement from Moorman clarified things:
"StratIS is a separate legal entity that is currently profitable as a bootstrapped technology company. BuLogics retains some interest in StratIS, though the two companies work very closely together, referring work to one another strategically."
BuLogics indicated that it is considering launching a Series A financing round for StratIS early this year (though no filing is evident yet).
Links 1/7: Burke explains NBCUniversal investments in BuzzFeed, Vox; Harmelin Media Takes Programmatic In-House
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CES: Steve Burke Explains Why NBCUniversal Invested In BuzzFeed, Vox (Hollywood Reporter)
Wheeler: Fixed Broadband Deployment Not Good Enough (Multichannel News)
Harmelin Media Takes Programmatic In-House (MediaPost)
As Devices Go To OLEDs, Universal Display Catches Break (Investor'a Business Daily)
Who's laughing now, doubters? Cloud makers rake in £75bn in sales (The Register)
Links 1/6: End of an era? One Kings Lane, Gilt Groupe about to sell selves at huge markdowns
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Oracle Buys Audience Tracking Firm AddThis For Around $200M (TechCrunch)
Top that, SAP!
Amazon to Sell Its Own Brand of Chips Next to Wipes, USB Cables (Bloomberg)
Netflix Is Running Into Some Significant Headwinds (Fortune)
DuPont Fabros Wants to Sell New Jersey Data Center, Exit Market (Data Center Knowledge)
Company expects to incur an impairment charge from $115 to $135 million.
One Kings Lane, Once Valued at $900 Million, is Likely to Sell for Fraction of That
(Re/code)
First Round Capital was an early investor.
Gilt Groupe to Announce Sale to Saks Fifth Avenue Owner as Soon as Thursday Morning (Ee/code)
Linode issues statement regarding DDOS attacks: Under control; all Linode Manager passwords have been expired, must be reset
Tom Paine
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Linode has issued a release summarizing what it has discovered and done regarding the DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) incidents it recently experienced.
Effective immediately, all (external) Linode Manager passwords have been expired, and must be reset, the company said.
A security investigation into the unauthorized login of three accounts led to the discovery of two Linode.com user credentials on an external machine. This implies user credentials could have been read from its database, either offline or on, at some point. The user table contains usernames, email addresses, securely hashed passwords and encrypted two-factor seeds.
This may have contributed to the unauthorized access of the three Linode customer accounts mentioned above, which were logged into via manager.linode.com.
Linode says it retained a well-known third-party security firm to aid in its investigation. Multiple Federal law enforcement authorities are also investigating and have cases open for both issues. When the investigation is complete, it says it will share an update on the findings.
Linode says it has no idea who was behind the attacks.
Other than responding to some press followup inquiries, it doesn't plan to issue any further statements at this time.
The DDOS attacks began on Christmas Day centered on Dallas, and spread around to different locations in Linode's global network, ending with an assault on its Atlanta data center. Things seemed largely under control by Sunday.
Linode competes in the public cloud hosting business with Digital Ocean and others, much smaller than Amazon Web Services and the other giants.
Yet that smaller segment is considered an attractive market for growth. But Linode may have to do more outreach to assure its customers that it is addressing security concerns.
From its original base near Atlantic City, Linode has been gradually migrating towards Philadelphia. It recntly acquired the historic Corn Exchange Bank building in Old City as its Philadelphia base.
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