Make Philly the tech place to be (Philadelphia Inquirer)
By Curalate CEO Apu Gupta.

Who Lives And Dies In A Down Economy (TechCrunch)

Fidelity Slashes More Startup Valuations (Fortune)



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Philly Tech People News 2/28




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Children's Hospital CEO Madeline Bell joined Comcast board to "get out of my comfort zone" (Philly Voice)

Jeff Freyer on leading a Comcast region during uncertain times (Minnespolis Star Tribune)

Adam Stotsky Named NBCU's E! Entertainment President (Multichannel
News)

SAP Introduces Its New Chief Security Officer (PR Newswire)

SAP Names Rob Hetherington Global Head of Financial Services Industries Organization (PR Newswire)

AC Lordi Expands Leadership Team with New Executive Hires (Business Wire)


Carl Taylor, Vice President of U.S. Channel Sales for OKI Data Americas, Recognized as 2016 CRN Channel Chief (OKI Data Americas)


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Labels:

Philly Tech News Quotes & Tweets 2/28/2016







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“The cause of the fiber issue has yet to be determined however based on multiple fibers being damaged it is suspected to be something like a squirrel chew.”

 Comcast statement on California outage this week.

Chewbacca?








 Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit: "We've build out the public spots based on the usage trends we see and I think it's – concerning the handoff between Wi-Fi and cellular, there is some technology out there. The question is whether you'd need to do the handoff or not and how seamless it would be. But we are looking at technology in that space as well." 

  ( Comcast Earnings Call, 2/3/2016).










“As much as buying the software, I think SAP is buying the talent.” Forrester Principal Analyst Martha Bennett, quoted by ASUG News, on SAP's acquisition of mobile BI vendor Roambi last week.

















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Why Clayton Christensen Is Wrong About Uber And Disruptive Innovation (TechCrunch)

Jeff Freyer on leading a Comcast region during uncertain times (Minneapolis Stsr Tribune)

Liberty Interactive Corporation (QVCA) Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End 2015 Financial Results (Business Wire)


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Links 2/26: Skee-Ball Game Maker Sold to a Wisconsin Rival; Will Comcast Have to Buy Mobile Operators to Survive?






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Maker of Skee-Ball Game Sold to a Wisconsin Rival
(NY Times)
Not really tech, but sentimental story with local connection.

Happy 125th Birthday, David Sarnoff (David Who?) (Re/code)

Comcast et al. Will Have to Buy Mobile Operators to Survive, Says BTIG (Bsrron's Tech Trader Daily)
I don't always buy into everything BTIG espouses, such as in this csse.

But Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit seemed to question the technology for the handoff between Cell snd Comcast WiFi hotspots snd the need for former: "We've build out the public spots based on the usage trends we see and I think it's – concerning the handoff between Wi-Fi and cellular, there is some technology out there. The question is whether you'd need to do the handoff or not and how seamless it would be. But we are looking at technology in that space as well." I took his comments as lesning towsrd a largely WiFi-based approach. ( Comcast Earnings Call, 2/3/2016).

Pai: No Way To Paper Over Title II Failure
Says Reclassification Was Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing (Multichsnnel News)

Independence downplays WSJ report on Blues' merger meeting (Philadelphia Business Journal)

How does HSN plan to change course to reach 'distracted' shoppers? (Tampa Bay Times)

Sixers' owner's firm's fund faces 'junk' ratings (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Technicolor announces more layoffs in Olyphant (PA Homepage)
Nobody told remote PA town that people didn't need CDs and DVDs much anymore.


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Looking back at Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch" from Spring 2013, and starting an update


Tom Paine



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I am starting to update Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch." Actually, its hardly an update, since the last version was published in Spring 2013. But in a way it makes it even more interesting to look back and see what has transpired since then.


I explained that the criteria I used back then was to find any data points I could use to make some guesses as to what a startup's market value might be. And I ranked the companies based on these rough estimates. No science to it, though I know valuation techniques reasonably well. In a few cases I knew an exact valuation (based on a reported transaction), and in a few cases I had virtually no data but went with my gut that a company was on to something good. But they were mostly just informed guesstimates on my part.

As I start the revision, I am seeking input. The pool of credible startups has increased greatly, and I don't know the new wave of the past couple of years as well as I'd like to. So don't hesitate to email me at phillytechnews@gmail.com












Young

Companies

To Watch


(Originally posted May 28, 2013)

After considerable delay (it took me longer to put this together than I anticipated) here is my updated, revised and expanded (to 41 companies, actually, from 30 previously) Philly Tech News "Young Companies to Watch".

Rankings reflect a general, though by no means precise, estimate of relative market values based on revenue or profits when reported, growth, invested capital and reported valuation points, and a scattering of any other data points and inferences that I could gather. Also I look at non-quantitative indicators such as a startup's intellectual property, the track record of its leadership, and evidence of market acceptance.

The depth and quality of these Philly-area startups, I believe, is much stronger than in the past, and there many other excellent startups not on this list but are included on the bench (see others to watch). And then there is a entirely different tier of earlier-stage startups that others in Philly area have compiled information on.

This is not a revenue-driven list; relative market values may vary greatly from revenue comparisons according to the quality of a company's intellectual capital, its market acceptance, and its long-term potential for growth and profitability. There are many other excellent consulting firms and agencies, but for this purpose I focus on product-driven businesses.

Each company is privately held (though publicly traded corporations may hold a minority interest in some, and InsPro Technologies has a small public float but most of its value is in its non-listed preferred shares) and has an official headquarters or co-headquarters in the broader Philadelphia region. All of these companies' strategies are largely driven by proprietary information technology.

At the least, the top five companies (SevOne, iPipeline, InstaMed, Quintiq & Monetate) may have the potential to become IPO candidates if they do not have some other exit first. Another notable trend is the strength in the insurance software space, which appears to be booming. iPipeline, InstaMed, InsPro Technologies, Unirisx and Adaptik are all represented, and there is also Adminovate which is not included here now but may be soon.

I update these rankings on a regular basis as new information becomes available, and welcome input or insights that that might enhance their accuracy.

Congratulations to Philly Tech News' Young Companies to Watch.


View the entire document







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Links 2/25: Has Uber Finally Met Its Match? SAP Hybris rolls out its modular microservices marketplace







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Startup ThousandEyes just landed $35 million. (Fortune)
This company sounds as if its in a space close to, but not in, SevOnes's space.

Salesforce Revenue Jumps 25% As Enterprises Go Digital (Information Week)

SAP Hybris rolls out its modular microservices marketplace. Is this a better approach to building an ecosystem? (Computerworld)

Amazon Wants to Seed Cloud With Banks (Bloomberg)


Has Uber Finally Met Its Match? (Vsnity Fsir)

The Politics Of The Internet Of Things (TechCrunch)

NJ Gives Thumbs Up on Charter/TWC Union (CED Magazine)

The Hershey Company Partners with Infosys to Build Predictive Analytics Capability using Open Source Information Platform on Amazon Web Services (Infosys Press Release)



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Links 2/24: Salesforce delivers above Q4 targets, ups outlook; Big news from the far side of the state







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Highlights from the Oracle Cloud ERP analyst summit (Brian Sommer/ Diginomica)
Important stuff for Oracle.
Philly's Primavera Systems (acquired by Oracle around the beginning of the "Great Recession") lives on in Oracle's Cloud ERP offering.

Get ready for turmoil if Salesforce fails to deliver in its earnings today (Business Insider)

Salesforce.com shares rally 7% on outlook (Msrketwatch)

Salesforce delivers above Q4 targets, ups outlook (ZDNet)

Salesforce's Upbeat Outlook Quiets Concerns About Economy (Bloomberg)

Sharp decides to accept Foxconn’s takeover offer, sources say (Reuters via VentureBeat)


Google Fiber Is Finally Coming to Where all the Startups Are
(Re/code)

Zenefits lost its biggest client days before CEO resigned (San Francisco Business Times)
Missed this from earlier in the month.

Uber is expanding its self-driving research operations in Pittsburgh (The Verge)

Judge confirms what many suspected: Feds hired CMU to break Tor (Ars Technica)

Kent Plunkett has global plans for the 'new' Salary.com (Boston Business Journsl)


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Links 2/23: SAP, Salesforce invest in Qubit's $40mm round; How Does Recently-Acquired ‘Cool’ Mobile BI Vendor Roambi Fit At SAP?







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Qubit Raises $40M To Power Big-Data Analytics For Marketing That Goes Beyond Adwords (TechCrunch)
SAP and Salesforce venture arms among investors.

How Does Recently-Acquired ‘Cool’ Mobile BI Vendor Roambi Fit At SAP? (ASUG News)

Google Fiber joins AT&T, Comcast in Huntsville, Ala.'s 1 Gbps party (FierceTelecom)

Time Inc. Said to Be Interested in Joining Fray of Yahoo Suitors (Bloomberg)


DigitalOcean to splash down Bangalore bit barn (The Register)
DigitalOcean does not have a US data center? No, Register article is incorrect or incomplete; it has data centers in New York and San Francisco.

"Adrian Cockcroft, a well-known cloud infrastructure technologist and more recently a venture capitalist, working as a technology fellow at Battery Ventures, pointed DigitalOcean out in his overview of the cloud market last week at the Structure conference in San Francisco as one of the leaders, saying the company had been in “hyper growth” until about one year ago, even though recently its growth was slowing."
Data Center Knowledge, November 2015.

Paramount's Suitors? Here's Seven Top Prospects (Hollywood Reporter)

COMCAST'S FUTURE TECHNOLOGY HUB ON THE RISE IN PHILADELPHIA (Comcast)


Pa. to look into complaints about Verizon copper lines
(Philly.com)


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Links 2/22: Linode probe into 2015 crack finds fake 2FA creds flaw; Arris layoffs to include Horsham








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Linode probe into 2015 crack finds fake 2FA creds flaw (The Register)

Linode SSH key blunder left virtual servers open to man-in-the-middle fiddles for months (The Register)

Off 10% Worldwide
Cuts Follow Recent Acquisition of Pace (Multichannel News)
Says layoffs will include Arris Horsham (formerly Motorola Home).


Can Rotten Tomatoes still be trusted now that Comcast owns it? (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Angelakis launches his $4b Comcast-financed fund (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Oracle snags cloud startup Ravello in deal said to be worth $500m (PCWorld)




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Philly Tech People News 2/21: Idinopulos leaves PeopleLinx, rejoins McKinsey; First Round Capital names first female partner




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Michael Idinopulos leaves PeopleLinx, rejoins McKinsey



Michael Idinopulos, who was PeopleLinx' Chief Marketing Officer from 2013 through 2015, has returned to McKinsey & Company, this time as VP Client Experience,  New Ventures, according to a recent update on his LinkedIn page.

Idinopulos was first with McKinsey in the mid-2000s leading firm-wide collaboration technology. His group launched some of the earliest enterprise-wide deployments of social technologies (blogs, wikis, microblogging, internal social networks), according his LinkedIn page.

He then ventured into the social enterprise world, first with Socialtext, one of the earliest technology platforms for social software inside the enterprise, and then with PeopleLinx. Among his achievements there was refocusing the company away from a dependence on LinkedIn to a more open approach built on the Salesforce platform.

New Ventures, the unit he is joining, is a tech startup within McKinsey that brings its best technology to its clients.


Idinopulos received his Ph.D., Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

There is no CMO listed on PeopleLinx' website, and no word on whether its seeking a replacement, but Amaya Capellan, who has Princeton and Wharton degrees as well as a broad range of experience, has been on board as VP of Product since early 2015.



Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna Joins First Round Capital as First Female Partner (Re/code)

 Visible change in First Round leadership ranks /
FRC website


AccuWeather Names Sarah Katt as VP
Product Development, Operations Exec Joins From Verizon (Multichannel News)

We’re excited to announce two additions to the Comcast Ventures entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs) program: Michelle Gonzalez and Noah Shanok. (Comcast)


TWO COMCAST NBCUNIVERSAL EXECUTIVES NAMED AMONG MULTICHANNEL NEWS’ WONDER WOMEN (Comcsst)

MissionOG adds Rob Metzger as Senior Advisor (PR Web)


HealthQX Continues To Grow & Attract Philadelphia Talent (Press Release)

Shannon Hartley, former head of Razorfish Health, joins nonprofit
(Medical Msrketing & Media)

NBCUniversal Cable Shakes Up Executive Team (The Wrap)


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Labels:

Yahoo Said to Start Approaching Possible Bidders Soon As Monday (Bloomberg)
Article suggests Comcast as potential bidder, but gives no evidence of its interest.


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Saturday Highlights: York-based UFD connects into New Jersey; Signs of hyper activity in IoT market







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QVC laying off 100 in Pa., sending jobs abroad: Report
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

York-based UFD connects into New Jersey (York Dispstch)

Arris says its E6000 converged edge router is being used in Comcast DOCSIS 3.1 deployment (FierceCsble)


Rising Cloud Sales at Microsoft, Amazon Reflect Bigger Shift in Enterprise Market (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

AWS Remains Dominant Despite Microsoft and Google Growth Surges (Synergy
Research)



Data Center Stocks: Rackspace Pivot to Cloud Support Fails to Impress Investors (Dsts Center Knowledge)


Industrial and Consumer IoT Grow in Order of Magnitude
(Ed Ruth/ Verizon Ventures)

Amazon recruiting heavily for Echo and Alexa engineers, hosts big invite-only event to find talent (GeekWire)




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Links 2/19: New IoT alliance formed; Salesforce Acquires PredictionIO To Build Up Its Machine Learning Muscle








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Microsoft, Samsung and others form IoT alliance to do what Apple and Google already are (The Next Web)


Limerick software firm to create 30 jobs with €5.5m investment (RTE)
Limerick (Ireland,not site of our beautiful nuke plant) software company Kneat, with a Philadelphia office, actually Norristown. Kneat offers a process validation platform for the Life Sciences companies.


Digital Place-Based Advertising Is Primed For Programmatic Growth (Ad Exchanger)
Mentions Vistar Media.

Salesforce Acquires PredictionIO To Build Up Its Machine Learning Muscle (TechCrunch)





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Links 2/18: FCC approves controversial set-top proposal ; Epam Jumps 9% As Q4 Beats








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Epam Jumps 9% As Q4 Beats; Can Stock Challenge India Outsourcers? (Investor's
Business Dsily)


IBM Buys Truven For $2.6 Billion, Boosts Watson Health Unit (Information Week)

HHS adds more guidance for health app developers navigating HIPAA (Mobihealthnews)

FCC approves controversial set-top proposal by 3-2 vote (FierceCable)


Comcast offers credit for Monday's service outage (CNN Money)


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Links 2/17: SAP Hybris Chief makes the case for YaaS; EPAM reports strong results








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Silicon Valley’s new darling: Healthcare (Accenture Strategy)
Accenture study suggests Silicon Valley can't address most health technology issues without the help of people more knowledgesble with the system.

SAP Integrates Apache Spark, Buys Into Mobile Analytics (Informstion Week)

Cloud platform wars – SAP Hybris Chief makes the case for YaaS (Diginomics)

EPAM Reports Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 (Globe Newswire)
Beats estimstes hsndily.

6 Months After Fraud Cleanup, AppNexus Describes Impact On Its Exchange
(AD Exchanger)
AppNexus is a First Round Cspital portfolio compsny.

ESPN in Discussions to Get on Other Streaming Services (Re/code)

Grammy Report: Taylor Wins, CBS Live Stream Loses (Fortune)


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Moore College of Art & Design hosting an event featuring women game artists on February 25


Tom Paine



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Alison Carrier, UI/UX Designer for Red Crow Austin
Panel Host
Courtesey Moore College of Art & Design 



Moore College of Art & Design has obviously gone through significant changes since its founding in 1848. Some of the most recent examples of that change will be on display on February 25.

With the growing popularity of its Animation & Game Arts major, Moore College of Art & Design, the first and only visual arts college for women in the U.S., is hosting an event featuring a dynamic roster of women game artists. The video game and technology industry has been seen as a male interest for the past 20 years. With this major, Moore hopes to close the gender gap.

Game Changers: Women Making Games, will be held on Thursday, February 25, 2016, from 6 – 8 pm at the College, 20th Street and The Parkway. The event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP at womenmakinggames.eventbrite.com.

This event will be live streamed at moore.edu/gamechangers


Game Changers will explore the role of women in the game art and mobile industry drawn from the experience of the speakers.

At 6 pm, Alison Carrier, a UI/UX Designer for Red Crow Austin, a mobile game studio created by Electronic Arts, will moderate a panel discussion about the future of the industry, among other topics. Panelists will include Nicole Kline, an analog game designer, writer and editor; Amanda Renfroe, Production Manager and 3D Character Animator at Steamroller Studios in Central Florida; and Kat Webster, a 3D character artist currently working at BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

A meet-the-artists reception will follow at 7 pm. The panelists will return to Moore the following day, February 26, to speak with Animation & Game Arts students in their classrooms.

“This is the third year of this event and each year the audience becomes larger and more engaged,” said Stephen Wood, instructor of Animation & Game Arts. “The program is growing rapidly. When I took over the program in 2014, we had about eight students who were declared majors and today we are close to 30.”

This is also the first year that junior AGA majors (Moore, traditionally a two year school, hss sdded a BFA option) will seek out and complete their required summer internships. The Game Changers event is one way for students to start making industry connections, Wood said. “It’s very important to me that the students get out of their comfort zone and speak to professionals working in the field. Game Changers has always been a part of that goal. It’s a great experience for our students.”





PANELIST BIOS

Alison Carrier (Moderator) is currently a UI/UX Designer for Red Crow Austin, a mobile game studio created by Electronic Arts (EA). Known for her passion to deliver world-class user experiences, she has worked in EA’s mobile sphere on several projects, including her most recent work, The Simpsons: Tapped Out. http://www.gameongirl.com/podcast-posts/tag/red-crow-studio

Nicole Klineis busy as an analog game designer, writer and editor. She is half of the analog board game design team Cardboard Fortress Games, creator of the game RESISTOR_. Kline wrote the story for Monsters! by Quadratron Games, copy edited Grimm Bros.'s Dragon Fin Soup and has penned more video and board game reviews than she thought possible. She is the Senior Editor at Warp Zoned, a contributor at Geekadelphia, the co-founder of the Game Makers Guild Philadelphia, Gameloop Philly and Girl Geek Dinners Philadelphia. http://www.cardboardfortressgames.com

Amanda Renfroe is Production Manager and 3D Character Animator at Steamroller Studios in Central Florida. She is currently managing a nine-person team at Steamroller working towards the release of Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse (Kickstarted back in April). She is also animating on various contract work from studios like Volition, Edios, and other game/movie contracts at Steamroller. Renfroe received her B.F.A. a the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2013 and has a true love for facial animation.

Kat Webster is a 3D character artist currently working at BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic. She has been in the video games industry for nearly three years and has worked as a general 3D and environment artist, as well as having done her fair share of random design work. Webster received her Bachelor’s degree in Game Art and Design from the Art Institute of California in September 2012 and enjoys multiple aspects of art and design, but creature and character work is where her passion lies.
www.kat3d.weebly.com


.


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Phorum 2016 Demo Pit, with new format, seeking applicants through March 1

Tom Paine



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This year’s Phorum 2016 will be held on April 14 at The Fillmore Philadelphia.

Applications for this year's Phorum Demo Pit are open until March 1. The theme for this year's conference is "Systems of Insight," which is intended to examine how companies collect data about markets, customers, and businesses, convert that data into usable information, and apply institutional experience to turn information into knowledge or insights.

Since it was initiated in 2012, Phorum has served to energize the Philly area's Enterprise Systems community, bringing together the best and brightest minds from both in town and elsewhere. Many significant associations and ideas have grown from that.

The Demo Pit has been a launching pad or proving ground for some of the region's most promising ventures, including Curalate, Clutch, iMomentous (now Phenom People), and last year's winner Tesorio.

The Phorum 2016 Demo Pit competition will take a new, more interactive approach than in past years. Participants will now appear on stage in one of two sessions and will have an opportunity to pitch their companies to a panel of judges and the audience.

Nate Lentz, Managing Partner of Osage Partners will serve as the lead judge for the Demo Pit sessions and competition.

The Demo Pit committee is looking for startups with established products and/or services in the following areas: analytics (machine learning, natural language processing and predictive analytics), information management (big data) and cloud technologies.

Those interested can find the application form (pdf) here.


at 6:13 PM 0 comments

What Google Alerts show about Uber

Tom Paine



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Like many people, I rely on Google Alerts to track businesses and other topics I want to follow. I've got a few hundred of them, and though they aren't often the sources of my most important stories, some offer neat clues which lead eventually to great stories.

Since at the moment I've got most of my alerts in the same subsection of feedly, the reader I use, I see them all at the same time. And over the past couple of years, my Google Alerts have increasingly been dominated by Uber-related items.


Here is a sample of what my Uber Google Alerts showed over a period of a few hours today (press on text to highlight):






Its not a stream, its a torrent, and they tend to cover almost every aspect of society and most of the globe. I am sure there are people who do nothing but monitor these and other information streams about Uber.




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TierPoint: Local presence important part of national data center strategy

Tom Paine



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One of the early acquisitions by a small St Louis-area data center operator was the former Philadelphia Technology Park at the Navy Yard in 2014. At the time, it didn't seem to make sense that a small company would reach so far from its territory.
Jerry Kent /
TierPoint website
J
But TierPoint was not just any small startup. It was founded by cable pioneer Jerry Kent, who was behind giant Charter Communications and later Suddenlink, another cable operator that was recently acquired by Altice for $9.1 billion.

Kent decided that it was time for him to move out of cable and is focusing his attention on growing TierPoint. In fact, he's bought several top managers from Suddenlink over to help run TierPoint.




TierPoint acquisitions /
TierPoint website






In the Northeastern market, TierPoint further upped its holdings by acquiring Xand in late 2014. Xand had acquired Bethlehem-based DBSi in 2012, adding three premium raised floor facilities in Pennsylvania. Two other southeastern Pennsylvania locations came through a later acquisition.

TierPoint's strategy is to focus geographically on Tier 2 (generally midsized) markets because "they continue to be emerging markets and provide the most opportunity for growth," said TierPoint Senior Vice President of Operations Bob Hicks. It hasn't invested much in mega datacenters, rather preferring small to medium-sized facilities with room for expansion when possible.

Bob Hicks is a Lehigh Valley native who came to TierPoint via DBSi and Xand. Until the day after I sopke with him last month, he was responsible for TierPoint's 6 local sites. But in late January, Hicks was named a Senior Vice President of Operations, with responsibilities for local operations and data centers in Arkansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

Hicks said that when TierPoint entered the Philly-area market it was considered undeserved - demand outstripping capacity. Of course, capacity isn't a single dimension, but depends upon which market segment your talking about, in TierPoint's case the enterprise market. Now Hicks thinks its more back in balance, but not without its opportunities. TierPoint is for now looking mostly at expanding existing facilities. Last year it wrapped up a large expansion in Valley Forge -a 17,000 square foot POD. At TekPark (Allentown), its adding a 13,500 square foot POD slated to go live by the end of September.

Expansion at the Navy Yard is still a future possibility, Hicks tells me, but there are some constraints. One he cited is the way energy distribution, managed at the Navy Yard by DTE Energy, is handled.

I mentioned to Hicks that one reason technology rollups such the kind that TierPoint
is attempting fail is a lack of integration planning and execution. Different locations are running a variety of legacy systems, and its not so easy to get them running on the same page. Hicks says 2016 is the year to achieve that integration, and a number of very knowledgeable people are identifying and sharing best practices and technologies.

TierPoint's acquisition strategy is nationwide in scope and has not slowed. The largest deal, as far as I know, is its October 2015 deal to buy the data center operations of Windstream Communications for $575 million. Windstream had acquired D&E Communications of Ephrata, PA a few years ago, but spun most of those assets off into a separate company prior to its Tierpont deal. But two Windstream data centers in the area from its 2011 acqusition of PAETEC, one in Conshohocken and one in Bethlehem, were included in the TierPoint transaction.

TierPoint has strong backers. In addition to local investors like the aptly named Redbird Capital (think baseball), it has regional powerhouse Stephens Inc (think Walmart IPO), the huge Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and most recently PE giant TA Associates.

The larger question here is what's the endgame? Can what TierPoint is doing fundamentally effect data center economics?  One example could be large enterprises that want centralized but geographically distributed and differentiated applications. But isn't that what the Cloud, or Amazon Web Services, can already do?  Or is it to simply build a strong national brand with local points of presence?




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Labels: , , , , , ,

Links 2/16: Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna Joins First Round Capital as First Female Partner

Birchbox Co-Founder Hayley Barna Joins First Round Capital as First Female Partner (Re/code)

 Visible change in First Round leadership ranks /
FRC website




Uber CEO Travis Kalanick: Don’t Regulate Us to Death Like the Jitney (Re/code)

Things Uber CEO Travis Kalanick May Have Said In His TED Talk Today (Gizmodo)


Comcast floods the Twittersphere with X1 tweets (Philly.com)



Venmo crosses $1B monthly transfers for the first time (The Next Web)


Randall’s Take (CableFax)
(AT&T chmn/CEO Randall Stephenson’s tske on FCC's chsnces in court.)


SAP Brings Advanced Analytics to More Fingertips, Buys Roambi (CMS Wire)


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Vanguard: An investment leader that keeps streamlining (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Why Vanguard is about to engulf the financial planning industry (Investment News)


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Comcast outage map is all lite up like a Christmas tree

Comcast outage map is all lite up like a Christmas tree.





Comcast Struck by Widespread Outages
(Fortune)


Comcast TV Outage Hits Much of US, but Problem Mostly Fixed (AP via ABC)


at 12:44 PM 0 comments

Sunday Highlights: AT&T prepares workers for change; NBCUniversal Launches Reality Streaming Service Hayu in U.K., Ireland, Australia



Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else (NY Times)

Comcast NBCU Aims For Film, Theme Park Synergies; Taking On Disney
(Investor's Business Daily)

NBCUniversal Launches Reality Streaming Service Hayu in U.K., Ireland, Australia (Variety)
Could this small step be the beginning of a broader international OTT strategy for Comcast NBCU? Don't know, but I thought this was a direction it might try.

For Analysts, Loving LinkedIn Was Wrong (Bloomberg)


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Ssturday Highlights: FAA tech center drives AC area economy; AWS Bolsters HPC Offering With NICE Acquisition







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AWS Bolsters High Performance Computing Offering With NICE Acquisition (TechCrunch)

Tech center drives aviation research, local economy (Press of Atantic City)

Wipro to acquire HealthPlan Services for $460M (NJBIZ)

IBM Hits 52-Week Low as Watson Branding Flails (24/7 Wall Street)


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Rovi Soars On Q4 Earnings; Focus Shifts To Comcast, Dish Renewals (Investor's Business Daily)

/ (Data Center Knowledge)


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Yodle, founded at Penn with early backing by MentorTech Ventures, acquired by Web.com for $300 million plus $42 million in future payments

Tom Paine



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Web.com announced an agreement today to acquire Yodle, a digital marketing firm focused on local marketing. The price is $300 million in cash, plus $42 million in future payments to be paid out over the two years following the purchase.

New York-based Yodle has 1,400 employees and over $200 million in annual revenue, according to Web.com's release. It was founded by John Berkowitz, Nathaniel Stevens (both from Penn) and Ben Rubenstein in 2005 at Penn. Only Berkowitz appears to still be with the company. Stevens left the company in 2010 to finish school at Wharton.

MentorTech Ventures was an early investor, and as MentorTech's Brett Topche tweeted last night:




Yodle filed for an IPO in 2014, but postponed it.

Web.com Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: WEB), based in Jacksonville, is a provider of Internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses. It said in a statement that on a combined basis for 2015, Web.com would have had over $765 million in non-GAAP revenues with 50% of its revenue generated from faster growing value added digital marketing solutions.




at 11:05 AM 0 comments

Links 2/11/2016: Netflix now 100% on AWS; Qlik misses Q4 2015, soft guidance for 2016







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TV Auction View: AT&T, VZ Top Bidders; Comcast In; Google, AMZN Out (Investor's Business Daily)

Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure (Data Center Knowledge)


REVZILLA, CYCLE GEAR AND THE ROAD AHEAD (Revzilla Blog)

Dreamit Health will use Blackstone Foundation grant to expand accelerator class (Med City News)


Qlik misses Q4 2015, soft guidance for 2016. What’s going on? (Diginomica)



NBA Bolsters Partnership With SAP To Bring Natural Language Queries To Stats Site (TechCrunch)


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Carpenter Technologies moving headquarters from Readng area to Philly, Reading Eagle reports


Tom Paine



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One of Berks County's largest employers, Carpenter Technologies, which produces and distributes premium alloys, including special alloys, titanium alloys and powder metals, is moving its headquarters to Philadelphia, the Reading Eagle reported today.

Spring Township-based Carpenter expects that the new Philadelphia location will ultimately be home to about 100 positions. About 2,300 Carpenter personnel will remain in the Reading area, and the company says it employs 3300 statewide.

“Carpenter is positioning itself for continued growth,” Carpenter President and CEO Tony R. Thene said in a statement. “As we have expanded our manufacturing footprint and sales presence over the past decade, it has become more important to raise our visibility, broaden our talent pool, and improve access to our customers and partners.

The exact timing of the move hasn't been determined.

I'm sure Berks will not be happy about losing one its largest headquarters.

Carpenter Technology is traded on the NYSE (CRS). In its most recent fiscal year ending June 30 2015, it reported revenue of $2.2 billion and net income of $59 million. Its market capitalization is almost $1.2 billion.



at 1:22 PM 0 comments

4 takeaways from yesterday (2/10)

The $20 billion market you didn’t know existed (Marketwatch)

Comcast begs Atlanta customers not to switch to Google Fiber (Ars Technica)

SAP slaps patch on leaky factory software (PCWorld)

Apple May Push Into Corporate Cloud Computing Vs. Amazon, Microsoft (Investor's Busness Daily)


at 10:42 AM 0 comments

Philly Tech People News 2/10: New iPipeline President enters as predecessor gets big job; Who's left watching your money at PA SERS?




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iPipeline Announces Appointment of Andrew Damico as New President (Businss Wire)


Melchiorre, former President of Exton-based iPipeline, gets big job with unicorn Anaplan


Paul Melchiorre, former President of Exton-based iPipeline , was appointed global Chief Revenue Officer of San Francisco-based Anaplan today. Melchiorre’s appointment follows Anaplan’s recent announcement that it raised $90 million in a funding round.

Prior to iPipeline, he served as Global Vice President for Ariba, the B to B supply chain software company acquired by SAP  in 2012. Before that, he was an executive with SAP.

A graduate of Villanova (undergrad) and Drexel (MBA), Melchiorre has been omnipresent on the Philly Tech scene, working with numerous startups such as ExpenseWatch, ListenLogic and VC firm MissionOG.

One former SAP associate said on LinkedIn: "The way it was told to me, Paul basically built Ariba ... Actually I know Paul much better from his many years with SAP, where not only did he lead the company in sales but did so while being a hell of a nice guy."

Ariba was an early competitor to Malvern's Verticalnet, and both crashed in the 2000 era tech bust. But Ariba came back to survive and prosper, while Verticalnet barely hung on.

Anaplan, which calls itself "the enterprise planning cloud company", announced a $90 million round at a valuation of S1.09 billion post funding in January, and hired a new CFO. It definitely indicated it is planning for an IPO. It competes with older-line companies such as SAP, as well as other new-breed SaaS business planning startups.

Melchiorre left iPipeline after it was acquired by PE firm Thoma Bravo last year.



Moul becomes CEO at Philly-based Cloudamize; Founder Shah to serve as chief evangelist & board chair



Bob Moul, former CEO of Boomi (sold to Dell) and Artisan Mobile (acquired by TUNE) has been named chief executive officer of Philadelphia-based Cloudamize, effective February 1. Cloudamize is a leader in cloud infrastructure analytics and cost optimization.

Khushboo Shah, who has led the company as founder since its inception, will continue to serve as chief evangelist and will chair its board of directors.

“I am thrilled that Bob has agreed to join the company,” said Shah in statement. “He has been a close advisor for many years and brings deep insights into our market, our customers, and our partners. With his proven 35-year track record in hi-tech, he is ideally suited to take Cloudamize to the next level and to achieve our vision as the leader in maximizing cloud value for our customers.”

Moul has also been a visible leader in Philadelphia's tech community. And he gave an honest self-assessment of his missteps at Artisan, which reportedly sold for less than the amount invested in it.

Cloudamize is venture-backed by MissionOG, DreamIt Ventures, and Gabriel Investments. It has received $1.2 million in venture capital, according to CrunchBase. There's been no indication yet that additional funding is tied to Moul's new role.

Moul described in a separate blog post how he met Shah four years ago when he was coaching her in an incubator program, and has worked with her ever since.

I profiled Shah and Cloudamize a
Khushboo Shah / LinkedIn
little more than a year ago, I was very impressed with what they where doing, but wondered about the company's ability to scale up in a rapidly exploding market. Moul's entry is intended to address just that.

There are so many companies named 'Cloud' around, I think it needs some explaining. Cloudamize may be complementary to CloudNexa and shares a common investor, but is not a direct competitor (at least that's how it appeared a year ago). Cloudmine and Cloudamize share some common investors and might be helpful to each other, but are really two different businesses.

First Round Capital is an investor in a Portland-based company called Cloudabilty, that's raised $16 million and does appear to be in the same space as Cloudamize.

A year ago, Cloudamize seemed focused solely on cost optimization and tracking for Amazon Web Services customers. AWS was at a $10 billion annual run rate in the 4th quarter. But Shah's plan was to expand its range of services to other clouds, It appears to have expanded to cover Microsoft Azure, the second most popular public cloud.



Drexel President John Fry named chairman of Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce (Philadelphia Business Journal)

The Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports that TE Connectivity (Berwyn) Chief Financial Officer Robert Hau would resign next month, and the company has begun a search for his replacement.

Thomson Reuters Buyouts reported (subscription) that PE officer Brandon Halm is leaving PA SERS as of February 26. The System has lost three PE professionals since last year, and is unable to fill vacancies because of a statewide hiring freeze, Buyouts reports.

He was an early Seamless employee, sold his next company for $100 million, and became a VC — now he's launching a food delivery startup    (Business Insider)


Milestone Partners Announces Promotions and Addition to Senior Team (Milestone Partners)

Lovell Minnick Partners beefs up team with three new hires (PE HUB)

TierPoint Appoints Morrison, Morales, Hicks and Markley to Technology and Operations Leadership Positions (Business Wire)
Bob Hcks, who has headed TierPoint's six Philly-area data centers, takes on broader role.

AMETEK Chief Financial Officer Robert R. Mandos, Jr. To Retire (PR Newswire}


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Labels:

Links 2/10: The $20 billion market that the writer apparently didn’t know existed: SAP slaps patch on leaky factory software







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The $20 billion market you didn’t know existed (Marketwatch)
The writer mistakenly refers to Motorola as a major set-top box maker; of course that business now belongs to Arris.

Comcast begs Atlanta customers not to switch to Google Fiber (Ars Technica)

SAP slaps patch on leaky factory software (PCWorld)

Ready to cook Amazon's Lambda? Google releases preview of Cloud Functions (The Register)

The world doesn’t need another Tableau (VentureBeat)


Twitter growth grinds to a halt (USA Today)


Apple May Push Into Corporate Cloud Computing Vs. Amazon, Microsoft (Investor's Busness Daily)

'Mac is key for any modern enterprise' -- SAP (Computerworld)



Private Equity's IHeart Radio Chokes on Debt Load It Can't Repay (Bloomberg)

FanDuel shuts down Florida game studio and lays off 55 (VentureBeat)


at 2:31 PM 0 comments

Llnks 2/9: Ametek's two buys; NewSpring - bigger's not always better






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Amazon Is Building Global Delivery Business to Take On Alibaba (Bloomberg)

NewSpring: More, not bigger
(Philly.com: Philly Deals)


Comcast to shell out $250 million for new Telemundo headquarters (Philly.com)

Microsoft – the modern ERP arms merchant (Brian Sommer/Diginomica)

The cloud breakdown: Amazon, Microsoft, and everyone else ( Business
Insider)

AMETEK buys Knightdale tech firm for $130M (Triangle Business Journal)

AMETEK Announces Two Acquisitions (PR Newswire)

DraftKings loses its exclusive ESPN ad deal (Engadget)




at 11:46 AM 0 comments

Verizon!–Yahoo! takeover! inches! ahead! (The Register)

The hot software-as-a-service startups of the last couple of years are getting murdered
(Business Insider)

StubHub Becomes the Philadelphia 76ers' Official Ticketing Service (Fortune)



at 10:47 PM 0 comments

phillytechnews bytes 2/7



at 11:41 PM 0 comments

Sunday Highlights: TE Connectivity pushes into medical devices with Creganna buy; Malone-funded health tech research center opens at Hopkins






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New York City, PSC Staff Wary of Cablevision/Altice Deal (Multichannel News)
New York doesn't want the French any more than they wanted Philadelphians.


TE Connectivity pushes into medical devices with Creganna buy (Reuters)
TE Connectivity is run from Berwyn, though its headquarters is in Switzerland.

New interdisciplinary center at Johns Hopkins aims to reshape medical care (Hub/Johns Hopkins)
Funded by alum and cable pioneer John Malone.

SAP’s CEO Has Big Plans for Fixing Health Care With Software (Re/code}


Critiquing the Gartner BI and analytics MQ
 (Diginomica)


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