This week in Philly Tech History 2004: Comcast makes surprise $66 billion bid for Disney

Tom Paine


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On February 11, 2004, Comcast launched a surprise, unsolicited $66 billion bid (including debt) for Walt Disney Corp., coming in a period in which Disney CEO Michael Eisner was under mounting criticism for his management of the fabled company. Many observers felt that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' primary motivation was to get control of Disney's ESPN, which was becoming an increasingly important but costly source of programming for cable operators (a trend that has continued up to this day).

Comcast dropped its bid in late April after the value of Comcast's shares (and thus the value of its bid) fell in the interim and Disney's board declined to respond to the offer. In the mean time, though, Disney removed Eisner from the Chairman's post.

Comcast finally got its multimedia giant a few years later on January 29, 2011, when it completed its $30 billion merger with GE's NBCU.




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Links 8/22/2013: Comcast says TorrentFreak cease & desist a mistake; CBS/Time Warner Cable standoff approaching three weeks

Tom Paine

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Comcast Says It Threatened TorrentFreak By Mistake (Multichannel News)

Disney’s ESPN Holds Preliminary Talks for Web-Based TV (Bloomberg)

Les Moonves Can’t Understand Why Time Warner Cable Won’t Pay CBS What Verizon Just Did (All Things D)
CBS blackout on TWC approaching three weeks.

Nasdaq Market Halts Trading (New York Times: DealBook)

Uber Filing in Delaware Shows TPG Investment at $3.5 Billion Valuation; Google Ventures Also In (All Things D)



SAP introduces flexible on-premise licensing and possible maintenance termination (Computerworld UK)

Amazon tightens grip on cloud market, report shows (The Register)


HIMSS: Extend MU Stage 2 Deadline (Information Week)


QlikTech Challenges Data Enthusiasts, Developers, and Designers to Use Public Data to Change the World
“Take Action Open Data Challenge” encourages global participants to use QlikView to create insights that inspire positive change and could win them up to $10,000 (Business Wire)



Software AG snaps up JackBe for fresh analytics and visualization push (Gigaom)

Daily Links 2/11/2013: ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms

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First Round Has the Most Exits of Social Business Startups – By a Nose (PE Hub)

Nomi Raises $3M To Help Retailers Understand Their Customers, Online And Offline (TechCrunch)
Founded by Buddy Media & Salesforce.com vets; round led by First Round Capital.

It Took Only 13 Days For Former Salesforce Execs To Raise $3 Million For Their Startup, Nomi (Silicon Alley Insider)


“Buy When There’s Blood in the Streets” and Other Lessons from Venture Capitalists Fred Wilson and Josh Kopelman (Wharton Entrepreneurship Blog)

NBCUniversal, Esquire To Launch New Channel (Broadcasting & Cable)

Comcast May Add Video Subscribers, First Since '07 (Investor's Business Daily)

ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms
(Bloomberg)

New call for AWS spinoff (IT World)



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Daily Links 8/28/2012: News from VMworld

Unisys Rolls Out Updated Private Cloud Solution (CRN)

Devon IT Selected By Acer As Software Provider For Its New Line Of Thin Client Solutions (Press Release)

VMworld shows a VMware in flux (Gigaom)



Active in Cloud, Amazon Reshapes Computing (New York Times)

Time Warner Cable Boosts New York Speeds as Google Project Looms (Bloomberg)
Don't really consider this comparable to Google Fiber, as that project is consumer-oriented and TWC's is business-oriented. Comcast has done a couple of limited buildouts like this in small parts of certain cities (Boston, Seattle, I believe), but don't know if they have anything planned for Philly.

Comcast's ThePlatform Opens Window On Video Storefronts
Commerce Extension for MPX Enables Multiscreen Transactional Content Purchases (Multichannel News)

ESPN shells out $5.6 billion to keep Major League Baseball (LA Times: Company Town)
Double ESPN's previous deal per annum. We (consumers) will pick up most of the tab through ever increasing cable prices. NBC still looking to get foot in MLB door.

Takeaways from three years of angel investing (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)

Daily Links 1/27/2012: Datatel says 'fewer than 40' cuts after SunGard HE deal closes

Datatel cuts 'fewer than 40' after deal with SunGard Higher Ed closes (Washington Business Journal)

Motorola Mobility's Cable Sales Fall 11% In Q4
Set-Top Shipments Down 3% in Fourth Quarter But Up 6% for Full-Year 2011 (Multichannel News)

Like Sports On Cable? Pay Up. Don’t Like Sports On Cable? Pay Up, Anyway (Peter Kafka/All Things D)

Comcast's Split-Personality Problem (Jonathan Takiff/Philadelphia Daily News)

SAP Takes On Oracle Database, Salesforce Cloud
(Information Week)

SAP Extends Offer For SuccessFactors While Government Entity Investigates (CRN)

Ametek Q4 beats Street, sees strong 2012 (Reuters)
Also acquires O'Brien for about $175 million from Industrial Growth Partners.


Investors bet $16 million on growth in application delivery market (Computerworld)
On Kemp Technologies, New York-based firm in which Edison Ventures just led $16 million round.

The Neat Company Is Putting Paperless in the Cloud [Macworld / iWorld 2012] (Cult of Mac)
Neat's soon to be launched Cloud services may open new opportunities for it.

More Venture Capital Dollars Flow To Health IT (Information Week)

FiOS Being Installed in East Mt. Airy (Mt. Airy Patch)


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Daily Links 4/7/2011: Dell, IBM announce Cloud Computing plans

Dell Plans to Spend A Billion Dollars to Build 10 New Data Centers (All Things Digital: NewEnterprise)
Implications for Boomi?

Dell Cloud Computing Spending Spree Nears $2 Billion (CRN)

IBM Seeks to Make Cloud Computing More Palatable to Businesses (Bloomberg)

Safeguard Scientifics Leads $45 Million Financing for PixelOptics
Disruptive Technology Revolutionizes Standard of Care for Eyeglass Wearers (Business Wire)

Federal Judge OKs Rico Suit Against IBM Execs (The Legal Intelligencer)
Suit filed last year by King of Prusia-based thin client vendor Devon IT.


Bentley Launches New Lineup of Bentley Map 3D Desktop GIS Software for Infrastructure (Business Wire)

SunGard Acquires Toronto based Stratix Consulting (TechFinance.ca)

Cisco: What Should They Sell? (Forbes: The Tech Trade)
Many analysts recommending that Cisco sell its set top box business. Who would the potential buyers be?

ESPN Pipes Live TV to Apple Devices (Light Reading Cable)

Time Warner Cable Seeks Court Ruling To Approve iPad App For Viacom Nets
Viacom Responds With Countersuit Charging MSO Is Violating Terms of Distribution Agreement
(Multichannel News)
We Filed A Request For Declaratory Judgment With Viacom This Afternoon (Time Warner Cable Untangled)

Motorola Mobility Blends Community and Entertainment With Launch of SocialTV Companion Service for Tablets and Mobile Devices (PR Newswire)

In Surprise Appeal, TJX and Heartland Hacker Claims U.S. Authorized His Crimes (Wired)



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Daily Links 10/19/2010: Urban Outfitters' social marketing strategy

SAP's In-memory Analytics Boxes Set for November Release (PC World)

SAP Brings Customers More Choices to Benefit From Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructures (PR Newswire)

Why An SAP Press Conference Actually Held My Attention (Read Write Cloud)

Unisys lights up Xeon-based mainframes (Channel Register)

Bentley Systems #BeInspired 2010 Event Opens with Congratulations to “Resilient” Users of Infrastructure Solutions (Directions Magazine: All Points Blog)


Comcast Has Answers for FCC
Responses concerned with distribution agreements, rates, proprietary info (Broadcasting & Cable)

Comcast Campaign Giving Jumps by Half as U.S. Weighs NBC Deal
(Bloomberg)

Lockheed sees contract cuts, delays hurting 2011 (Reuters)

ESPN.com Launches New Shop Experience (GSI Commerce Press Release)
In collaboration with GSI Commerce.



Four Ways to Build Customers Into Your Brand (ClickZ)
Monetate board member Sam Decker on Urban Outfitters' social marketing strategy.

Unvarnished Has More Money and a New Name: Honestly (Gigaom)
First Round Capital's latest investment, San Francisco-based Honestly, has some doubters.


10 things: Handicapping Gartner's top technologies for 2011 (ZDNet Blogs)

Cadient Group Launches REVEALSM at 4th Annual Digital Pharma East on October 18-21, 2010 in Philadelphia (Business Wire)

Novartis Pharmaceuticals AG Selects Veeva CRM for Global Deployments (Business Wire)




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News from The Cable Show: 5/12/2010

Brian Roberts’ Regret: Didn’t Go For Content Early Enough (paidContent)

Comcast ready for its close-up
Media conglomerate is looking better all the time (Variety)

ESPN lands new 3-D channel on Comcast cable systems (LA Times: Company Town)

Most of Pa. delegation signals support for Comcast-NBC merger
(The Hill)
Rep. Sestak's signature not on letter, though.

Comcast Demos Prototype iPad App For Controlling Your Cable Box (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Verizon FiOS To Launch 'TV Everywhere' With Time Warner Inc.
Telco Also Working on Video Services With Fox News, CBS, MTVN, Others (Multichannel News)




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