CIA CTO Gus Hunt joins LLR Partners

Tom Paine

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Ira A. (Gus) Hunt

Back in March of this year, Ira A. (Gus) Hunt, Chief Technology Officer of the CIA, was slated to be a keynote speaker at the 2nd annual Philly Phorum event. This was to be briefly after news broke that the highly security-obsessed CIA was recommending Amazon Web Services for a huge private cloud contract over IBM. Hunt was said to be a key supporter of the Amazon bid, so there was considerable interest in what he might say.

Then a "last minute emergency" prevented Hunt from attending Phorum. IBM would vigorously contest the contract being awarded to Amazon, but the protest was denied and it appears that the contract with AWS will go forward.

Today, Philadelphia-based PE firm LLR Partners announced that the long-time CIA employee would be joining the firm's emerging Washington-based Security, Defense & Government Services practice as an operating partner.

“Gus transformed the intelligence community's use of technology. He was the first to understand the value that commercial innovations could bring to the U.S. government and led the adoption of game-changing technologies at the CIA, including the switch to cloud-based infrastructure,” said Jason Rigoli, principal at LLR Partners, in a statement.

No doubt the NSA will still be keeping close tabs on Mr. Hunt's communications.

Links 10/30/2013: Comcast reports earnings; will stream 35 live channels to mobile apps outside home

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COMCAST REPORTS 3RD QUARTER 2013 RESULTS (Business Wire)
Comps depend on whether Olympics and Super Bowl are included or excluded. Earnings decline
compared to prior year's quarter which included Olympics, but do beat street expectations.

Comcast to Stream 35 Live TV Channels to Mobile Apps Outside the Home (Variety)

Comcast, Astros Reach Accord Allowing Team to Seek Network Deals (Bloomberg)

Smit: Comcast could grow Xfinity footprint by licensing X1 to fellow cable MSOs (FierceCable)

Comcast Is Better Prepared in Wake of Sandy's Wrath (Multichannel
News)


Intel May Turn Over Its Web TV Project to Verizon (All Things D)

Pricewaterhouse to Buy Booz Consulting Firm (New York Times: DealBook)

IBM gives up fight to build CIA's $600m secret cloud, hands deal to Amazon (The Register)

Qliktech Looks To The Next Generation Of Discovery Tools (PAC Blog)


Unisys Selects Virtustream to Help US Department of the Interior Migrate SAP Environment to the Cloud (Business Wire)

SAP partner builds up cloud practice (ZDNet)
Wharfedale Technologies is based in Lawrenceville, NJ.

SAP confirms 20 customers live on HANA cloud, hundreds in the pipeline (Computerworld UK)

SAP: We couldn't POSSIBLY eat BlackBerry. We're stuffed with 'mobile solutions' (The Register)


Former publisher Tierney again out of Inquirer job (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Daily Links 8/6/2013: SAP merging Hana with Hybris to boost commerce offering

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SAP merging Hana with Hybris to boost commerce offering (V3.co.uk)

Focus is key: 6 cloud startups kicking ass by going narrow (VentureBeat)

SAP’s Brand, Product Lines and Channel Partners- Reconciliation Needed (Brian Sommer/ZDNet)

VMware brain gain? SAP vet Sanjay Poonen enters to head up end-user computing (Gigaom)

Oracle Loses Top North American Sales Guy Anthony Fernicola To Salesforce.com
(Business Insider)

What the CIA Private Cloud Really Says About Amazon Web Services (Computerworld)


Liberty Interactive Corporation Reports Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Business Wire)
QVC US revenue up 3%; 30% of eCommerce orders globally from mobile devices.

Social-Commerce Channel Coming to QVC.com (Ad Week)

Artisan Mobile Experience Management Platform Powers Mobile App Growth for A View From My Seat (Business Wire)



Comcast’s plan to turn pirates into customers: breakthrough or bogus? (Gigaom)

Post-Newsweek Group, Cable One Not Part of Washington Post Sale (Broadcasting & Cable)

Charter Reports Second-Quarter Loss as Video Losses
Accumulate (Bloomberg)

Dish Posts $11M Net Loss, Sheds 78,000 Net Video Subs in Q2
Multichannel News)

UPDATE: DISH Chairman not interested in DIRECTV merger for now (SNL)

Daily Links 6/20/2013: NY Times compares RJMetrics' funding strategy to GoodData's

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Self-Finance or Raise Money? A Quandary for Start-Ups (New York Times)
Comparing Philly startup RJMetrics' approach to GoodData's.

How John Malone Could Start a War Between Broadband and Web Content (Wall Street Journal: Corporate Intelligence)

Amazon’s Invasion of the CIA Is a Seismic Shift in Cloud Computing (Wired)

Microsoft sees itself as one of the public-cloud horsemen, but time will tell (Gigaom)

Oracle Shares Fall On Weaker Than Expected Q4 Sales (All Things D)

Integration between SAP Data Services, Business Warehouse on the rise (SearchSAP)


Philly Fed Notes Rebound in Manufacturing (Wall Street Journal:
Real Time Economics)

Reed Technology Announces Launch of USPTO Public Data Dissemination Site, Expansion of Reed Tech Patent Advisor Service (Business Wire)
Reed Technology is based in Horsham.





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Daily Links 6/3/2013: QlikTech appoints new CFO, as well as Chief People Officer

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Microsoft Ponders Major Restructuring, Amid Renewed Wall Street Focus on Stock (All Things D)

Microsoft will offer Azure by the minute to take on Amazon’s cloud (Gigaom)

IBM Is Trying To Squash Amazon's $600 Million Cloud Deal With The CIA (SAI Enterprise)

QlikTech Strengthens Executive Leadership Team to Support Significant Growth Opportunity
Seasoned Chief Financial Officer and Chief People Officer bring backgrounds built on leading in dynamic markets and scaling operations (Business Wire)

SAP's Camilion Buy Fuels New Compliance-Focused Launch (Insurance & Technology)


PhillyInc: Pinning their hopes on online car sales
(Philly.com)

CardioNet to Relocate Headquarters to Class A Office Building in Malvern (Commercial Property Executive)


Sprint says Dish’s offer for Clearwire is illegal (Gigaom)




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Phorum Philly '13 Highlights: PeopleLinx wins "Best in Show"; Philly Enterprise Hackathon 2013 announced

Tom Paine

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The second annual Phorum Philly conference, held at World Cafe Live on March 21, focused this year on "harnessing disruptive technologies", specifically social, mobile and big data.

I was eagerly awaiting to hear what Gus Hunt, CTO of the Central Intelligence Agency, would say addressing Phorum on the topic of managing big data. In particular, it might have been timely for him to say something regarding reports that the CIA had reached a ground-breaking (for both parties) agreement with Amazon Web Services for AWS to provide private cloud services to the necessarily security-obsessed CIA. It was first reported by Federal Computer Weekly at the beginning of last week to be an arrangement worth up to $600 million to AWS over 10 years.

Unfortunately, in typical CIA fashion, Hunt was called away by a last minute emergency. Salesforce.com's VP and Head of Platform Research, Peter Coffee, who had given the opening address to the conference in the morning, by all accounts did a fantastic job filling in for Hunt on big data, demonstrating how versatile he is.

But on the previous day, Hunt did address the issue of big data at GigaOM’s Structure Data event, where Gigaom said he responded to a question about the Amazon connection by saying said he could not comment now but “maybe someday.” Hunt also said in his Structure address, "we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang on to it forever."

The Demo Pit at Phorum 13 was filled with a strong group of locally based ventures. PeopleLinx, the Philadelphia-based startup which builds applications that help companies better utilize LinkedIn and earlier last week announced it had received $3.2 million in funding from Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG, was voted "Best in Show" by attendees, besting fellow finalists Curalate and iMomentous, with the award being presented by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA 13). PeopleLinx' Bill Conn described the Phorum experience for the company on the PeopleLinx Blog.
MissionOG is an interesting new locally-based fund focused on BtoB, technology-oriented startups that has also invested in CloudMine and Cloudamize.

Another Demo Pit participant, Philadelphia-based enterprise app and collaboration platform WizeHive, announced during the week that it had received additional seed funding from investors including Gabriel Investments and Goldin Ventures. WizeHive also announced that DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg had joined its board.

Also at Phorum, the Philly Enterprise Hackathon 2013 was announced, sponsored by PACT and several Philly area companies. The Hackathon, which will offer prizes valued at $100,000 and incubation opportunities, will run from April 2 through April 19.




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Some breaking news items related to Phorum participants CIA & PeopleLinx

Tom Paine

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A couple of interesting breaking news items related to Thursday's Phorum Philly event, which I profiled here:

Federal Computer Week is reporting that according to its sources, the CIA has agreed to a cloud computing contract with Amazon, worth up to $600 million over 10 years. FCW says "Amazon Web Services will help the intelligence agency build a private cloud infrastructure that helps the agency keep up with emerging technologies like big data in a cost-effective manner not possible under the CIA's previous cloud efforts."

If true, this is significant for a couple of reasons. One is that Amazon Web Services primarily offers a public cloud environment, and in the past has been reluctant to get into private clouds, so this might mark the beginnings of an important change of direction for them.

CIA  CTO Gus Hunt

Secondly, CIA CTO Gus Hunt will be addressing Phorum on Big Data issues, so his remarks should be particularly timely. Hunt would not respond to FCW's request to comment on its report, but has been publicly quoted as speaking favorably of AWS. Reuters quoted Hunt as saying at a conference in February, "Think Amazon – that model really works." Hopefully, Hunt will take some questions on Thursday.

The other related news item is that Demo Pit participant PeopleLinx, the Philadelphia based startup that is building a platform that helps companies better utilize LinkedIn, announced today it has raised $3.25 million from investors including Osage Venture Partners, Greycroft Partners and MissionOG.

In my previous post on Phorum, I mentioned that Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, who many political observers think will seek the Democratic Gubernatorial Nomination for 2014, will be presenting the Demo Pit awards at Phorum.




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Daily Links 9/28/2011: Comcast testing theme-based Cable packages in Connecticut; small step towards a la carte pricing?

Updated: Amazon Stunner: New Kindle Tablet Will Go For $199 (paidContent)

The Kindle Fire Will Have A Whole New “Cloud Accelerated” Mobile Browser Called Amazon Silk (TechCrunch)

Kindle Fire will prime the pump for Amazon Video (Gigaom)

Comcast Testing Theme-Based Cable Packages In CT; A National First For Choice? (Hartford Courant)
A small move towards a la carte pricing?

SAP upbeat in face of global economy worries -paper (Reuters)

INTERVIEW: NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson On Why The Cloud Will Eat Microsoft And SAP (Silicon Alley Insider)
Nelson: "The first thing I've discovered is SAP actually doesn't work... ".

Comcast Ventures Announces Formation of CTI Towers, Inc.
Anthony F. Peduto Named CEO (Business Wire)

Connectify Secures Strategic Investment from IQT to Advance Wireless Networking Capabilities for U.S. Intelligence Community (PR Newswire)
Philly-based network tech company gets investment from CIA-backed VC firm.

USA Technologies Reports Record Full Year and Fourth Quarter Revenues (Business Wire)

NewSpring Capital cinches up $220M for mezzanine fund (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Analyzing the SAP/Crossgate Acquisition: Customer, Product and Competitive Implications (Part 2) (Spend Matters)

Online Ad Revenues Hit $15 Billion in First Half 2011 (ClickZ)

QlikView on Mobile Expands Support for Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry Platforms (Business Wire)

Kenexa and The Brooklyn Group Announce Joint Venture
Relationship Expands Kenexa's Footprint in the Australian Talent Acquisition Market (Marketwire)



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