Showing posts with label Sprint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sprint. Show all posts

Links 12/13/2013: Charter said to prepare offer letter for Time Warner Cable








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Charter Said to Prepare Offer Letter for Time Warner Cable (Bloomberg)

Charter Prepares Takeover Offer for Time Warner Cable (New York Times: DealBook)


DirecTV CEO Talks Online Video Plans, Dish Deal Hurdles (Hollywood Reporter)

DirecTV Said Near Renewal of Deal for NFL Sunday Ticket (Bloomberg via Ad Age)

Sprint reportedly preparing bid to purchase T-Mobile in 2014 (The Verge)

Verizon In Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Internet TV Unit (Variety)



Time Warner Cable to drop Comcast's NECN (FierceCable)



The worst IT project disasters of 2013
The Healthcare.gov rollout leads a pack of painful projects including one from Australia
(CIO.com)

The Indian SMB gold rush (Information Week)

Deals of the Week: GSK's Stealth Move To The Coasts (IN VIVO Blog)

Nimble Storage soars: Stock up 49% following IPO (VentureBeat)

A younger version of PA Society (Philadelphia Daily News)








Links 8/14/2013: Comcast's Roberts plays golf with President on Martha's Vineyard







Tom Paine



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Apple Scoops Up Matcha.tv To Pack More Smarts Into Apple TV (TechCrunch)

President Golfs with Comcast Chief
(Broadcasting & Cable)

OLEDs Get Lift From New Devices, TVs (Wall Street Journal: Digits)
Highlights new products from Universal Display.

Battle for fed cloud work heats up: IBM, one of ten winners, claims the big prize
(Gigaom)
Unisys, Lockheed Martin also among qualifiers.


Has the mobile balance shifted in T-Mobile and Sprint’s favor? UBS thinks so (Gigaom)

How ModCloth Went From a College Dorm to $100 Million a Year (Mashable)

InsPro Technologies Corporation Announces Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Business Wire)

MVP Interactive Receives Additional Funding from Seven Crowns USA to Spur Expansion into Retail and Entertainment Markets (Business Wire)

How East Coast Tech Startups Became a Downtown Phenomenon (The Atlantic Cities)
Philadelphia not mentioned in article; only comes up in comments.

Dissed by Google, Baltimore eyes new broadband strategy (Baltimore Business Journal)

CBS Radio move will bring 100 employees to Philadelphia (Philadelphia Business Journal)






Daily Links 7/31/2013: Comcast profit beats estimates; Dow to open Collegeville innovation lab









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Comcast Profit Tops Estimates on Subscriber Additions
(Bloomberg)

More customers, more revenues: For Comcast, broadband is gift that keeps giving (Gigaom)

Comcast CFO says M&A possible, but not at debt levels John Malone is comfortable with (FierceCable)


Sprint extends LTE coverage to 41 new markets (CNET News)
Including Philadelphia.

Doylestown's Brick Simple building apps for wearable Google Glass computers (phillyBurbs.com)

Uh oh: SEC questions if IBM’s cloud math is water vapor (Gigaom)

Pennsylvania won't renew IBM computer system contract after study finds problems (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Dell's buyout teeters as it rejects voting change (Reuters)

SAP’s partner paradox – race to the cloud (Diginomica)


Air Products Faces Modern Form of Hostile Takeover (New York Times: DealBook)

Dow Inaugurates Northeast Technology Center Innovation Hub (Business Wire)
Huge Collegeville facility will support innovation efforts for Dow's Advanced Materials
businesses.

CardioNet, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Globe Newswire)
BEAT shares up 38% today after results reported late yesterday. Tomorrow corporate name becomes BioTelemetry, although ticker symbol remains the same.



T-Mobile formally launches 4G LTE in Philadelphia, speeds up MetroPCS integration




Tom Paine



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T-Mobile announced today in New York that its 4G LTE network is now live in Philadelphia, along with several other newly launched major markets. The company says its 4G LTE network now reaches 157 million (potential) users in 116 metro areas across the US, and that it would reach than 200 markets by the end of this year.

I'm not sure exactly what T-Mobile's 4G LTE coverage is in the Philadelphia area right now, but the company said in a statement that "T-Mobile 4G LTE covers a large portion of the Philadelphia area and landmarks including: Liberty Bell, Constitution Center, Declaration House, Betsy Ross House, and Geno’s and Pat’s cheesesteak restaurants."

Some T-Mobile customers reported seeing 4G LTE live in Philly as early as late May. There are many others reporting picking up Sprint 4G LTE around Philly, although a formal launch hasn't been announced here yet. Of course, Verizon and AT&T already provide 4G LTE in the market.

T-Mobile is also accelerating the integration of recently acquired MetroPCS into the T-Mobile network in Philadelphia and other markets.

Also today, T-Mobile introduced JUMP!, a new program that allows T-Mobile customers to upgrade their phones when they want, up to twice per year. The program also includes total protection against device malfunction, damage, loss or theft, for $10 per month.

I thought it would be interesting to look back on where T-Mobile stood last year when I wrote this post compared to where they are today, and how they have addressed some of their strategic issues (but alas, no more Carly Foulkes).




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Daily Links 7/10/2013: Coursera raises another $43 million; Sun Valley conference prelude to cable deals?








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Arena now the SAP Center — and a few words from owner Hasso Plattner after today’s official name change (San Jose Mercury News)

Coursera, an Online Education Company, Raises Another $43 Million (New York Times: Bits)
UPenn had invested in a previous round and is an active participant.

Malone, Cable Deals in Spotlight at Sun Valley Conference (Reuters via CNBC)

Microsoft switches up CRM Online licensing model, aims at Salesforce.com (PC World)

iControl Sues Alarm.com
Comcast, Cox, TW Cable and Rogers are Among iControl’s Top MSO Clients
(Multichannel News)

The SoftBank deal is done: Sprint, Clearwire officially turn Japanese (Gigaom)


Andesa Services Positioned in the Challengers Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for North American Life Insurance Policy Administration Systems
Evaluation Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute
(Business Wire)




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Daily Links 6/19/2013: Unisys to help Dept of Interior move SAP ERP to cloud





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Telecom Industry Could See Biggest Merger Spree Since ’06 (Bloomberg)

Dish Says It Won’t Submit a New Offer for Sprint Ahead of Deadline (New York Times: Dealbook)

Special Report: Bad Karma: How Fisker burned through $1.4 billion on a 'green' car (Reuters)

Unisys nabs $44M task order to move Interior financial system to the cloud
(Washington Technology)
Involves moving Interior's SAP-based ERP system to cloud, partnering with cloud-hosting firm Virtustream.

Pindrop Security raises $11M from A16Z and others to help prevent phone fraud (PandoDaily)
Based in Atlanta, but also has people in Philly and Boston.

Fab.com Raises $150 Million, Valuing Retailer at $1 Billion (Bloomberg)
First Round Capital was an early investor.

MemSQL makes it easier to import historical data and query it all under one roof (Gigaom)
This is an interesting company. Based in San Francisco; investors include First Round Capital and New Enterprise Associates.

Chinese businessman gets 12 years for software piracy
(Philadelphia Inquirer)
Targets included Exton-based Analytical Graphics.



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Comcast still has stake in Clearwire, as Dish raises bid




Tom Paine



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A few weeks ago, I did a brief piece on Comcast's history in the wireless business. In it, I stated that Comcast had sold its 9% stake in Clearwire. Although I understood that to be their intent, it hasn't happened yet. Thus Comcast has a role to play, albeit small, in the current Dish/Softbank battle to acquire Sprint. Getting control of Clearwire (Sprint currently owns 50%) is considered an important part of the endgame for both bidders.

Dish raised its offer for Clearwire to $4.40 per share yesterday, a 29% premium over Sprint's $3.40 offer, ahead of an expected vote at Clearwire's shareholder meeting on Friday (the Friday meeting has since been postponed). Prior to this bid, Comcast was supporting the Sprint offer, according to Sprint. Many analysts expect Sprint to come back again with a sweetened bid for Clearwire.

Comcast, Intel, and BrightHouse collectively own 26% of Clearwire. I would doubt that Comcast's primary interest here is maximizing profits on its Clearwire stake; it is peanuts for them. Rather, it is likely Comcast would be more than happy to keep Clearwire and Sprint out of competitor Dish's hands, although there may be other angles to consider.

Dish offered $25.5 billion to buy Sprint last month. Japan-based Softbank agreed in October to acquire 70% of Sprint for $20.1 billion, and also provide Sprint with a cash infusion of $8 billion to handle Clearwire-related expenses.

Also, in my earlier report I said that Comcast invested $1.5 billion in Clearwire, but Comcast's 2008 announcement said its investment was $1.05 billion, and as far as I know that was the extent of its direct investment although there may have been some other expenses it incurred related to its effort to market Clearwire services.



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Daily Links 4/18/2013: Zonoff raises $3.8 million; Mashery looks like good exit for First Round, others





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[Malvern-based]Zonoff gets $3.8M to connect the smart home with super software (Gigaom)

Mashery Sale Looks Promising for First Round, Formative, OpenView, Others (PE Hub)

Arris Unveils New Leadership Team
Former Head of Motorola Home Marwan Fawaz to Exit; Robinson and McClelland Tapped to Lead New Home Devices and Network & Cloud Units
(Multichannel News)

Verizon posts gains on mobile, Fios growth (PC World)

Verizon Continues to Build FiOS TV, Internet Subs in Q1
Telco Adds 169,000 Video, 188,000 Broadband Customers in Period
(Multichannel News)

Citing security concerns, Dish claims it's a better buyer for Sprint than Japanese carrier Softbank (The Verge)

SAP's first quarter: The key questions (PC World)

Philly Fed Disappoints as Indicators Point to Economic Rut (Reuters via CNBC)

Visit Philly Lets Locals Create Content (ClickZ)




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Daily Links 4/15/2013: Dish offers $25.5 billion for Sprint





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Dish offers $25.5B for Sprint, outbidding Softbank by $5B to become a wireless player (VentureBeat)

Verizon offers Clearwire $1.5 billion for spectrum leases, says WSJ (The Verge)

More Cracks Undermine the Citadel of TV Profits (New York Times)

How a Simple Press Release Reveals AT&T’s Anti-Competition Hypocrisy (Wired)


Seven Questions for Workday CEO and Greylock Partner Aneel Bhusri (All Things D)

Best Practices for SAP HANA Data Loads (John Appleby/SAP Community Network)
Probably more detail than most readers need, but I thought the description of the approach, process, and results was very interesting.

Why the cloud is threatened by unprofitability (USA Today)
Not sure if author truly understands cloud economics, accounting issues, long-term recurring revenue streams.

News organizations protest exclusion from Philadelphia bond meeting (Philadelphia Inquirer)
"Asked what might be said that would be inappropriate for the public to hear, Dubow declined to speculate, saying there wasn't enough space for reporters anyway."
Specious logic. They certainly could have reserved room for a small pool of reporters if
they had chosen to.

Blue Bell company fires CFO due to investigation
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

Government Shouldn’t Be In The Accelerator Business (FeldThoughts)

PANL[Ewing, NJ-based Universal Display]: Low TV Set Opportunity Offsets Mobile, Says Canaccord (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)



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Daily Links 11/26/2012: First Round Capital launches new holiday e-commerce website for portfolio companies





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First Round Capital Rounds Up E-Commerce Deals From Its Portfolio Companies On New Website (TechCrunch)

NBCUniversal and DirecTV near new distribution deal
(LA Times: Company Town)

NBC, Verizon Strike TV Everywhere Deal
Deal covers TV stations, cable nets and the Internet
(Broadcasting & Cable)

Why the Cost of Sales Gap is Shrinking between SaaS and Legacy Software Vendors (Sandhill.com)

Michael Hinkelman: Green and powerful (Philadelphia Daily News)
Viridity Energy's Audrey Zibelman.

SAP Moves Upstream (IDC Insights: Intelligent Oil & Gas)

NextGen Healthcare and Microsoft Corp. Join to Deliver Consumer-Based Healthcare Information Technology Solution
New Mobile Application Designed for Windows 8 Platform
(Business Wire)


Will Surescripts Become De facto NwHIN? (Chilmark Research)
NextGen Healthcare partners with Surescripts for its open HIE solution.

Bright House Buys Telovations (Multichannel News)

Sprint launches 11 new LTE markets; maintains small-city focus
(Gigaom)
Philly said to be on the list to launch in a few months.

IBM and Google to Discuss the Future of the Cloud at Wharton BizTech Technology Conference (PR Web)



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Daily Links 10/16/2012: SAPTeched 2012, SCTE Cable-Tec Expo kick off



The Enterprise: I’m Not Sexy And I Know It (TechCrunch)
Very good article on current limitations of the Cloud in the enterprise.

After Larry Ellison Keynote, I Can’t Wait For SAPTeched 2012, Las Vegas (Vijay Vijayasankar/Vijay's thoughts on all things big and small)

SAP puts its HANA in-memory database on Amazon Web Services (Computerworld)


SAP Pumps Up Mobile Analytics Power (Information Week)

Edison data center company attracts $90M investment from venture group (NJBiz)

Cable-Tec Expo: Motorola Transcoder Spits 3 Billion Pixels Per Second
Vendor Claims GT-3 Provides 10 Times Density of Server-Based Transcoders
(Multichannel News)

Boxee Looks to Reinvent Itself with Cloud-Based DVR Box (All Things D)

Comcast trademarks DEEPDRIVE, AIRBASE for network DVR product (FierceCable)



Sprint Said Not to Plan Buying Clearwire After Softbank Deal (Bloomberg)

Uber quietly shutting down taxis in New York after fight with regulators, cabbies say (The Verge)

Deacom Invests in Mid-Tier Process Manufacturing
(PR Newswire)

PHD Virtual Announces Record Revenue Growth With 40 Percent Increase Year Over Year (Business Wire)
Also adds to management team and board.



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Daily Links 10/12/2012: Workday skyrockets on opening





Workday Raises $637 Million in IPO, Pricing Shares Above Range (Bloomberg)

Workday shares debut stunningly higher than IPO price (San Jose Mercury News)

Workday Takes Off Like a Rocket, and CEOs Like Its Model (All Things D)

Exclusive: FTC moving closer to Google antitrust case - sources (Reuters)


Exclusive: Comcast casts its lot with OpenStack
(Gigaom)

Motorola's Fawaz: Customers Not 'Distracted' By Google Takeover
Ex-CTO of Charter Focuses on Bulking Up Professional Services, Software Integration
(Multichannel News)

FCC Votes To Lift Ban On Basic Tier Encryption (Multichannel News)

Eyeing Sprint, Softbank in $23 billion loan talks: sources
(Reuters)



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Daily Links 10/11/2012: Comcast warned on Huawei; Softbank may buy Sprint?



House report urges Comcast to stop using Chinese supplier (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Comcast’s Laggard NBC Network Turns Leader in New TV Year (Bloomberg)


Sizing Up a Softbank Takeover of Sprint (Wall Street Journal: Corporate Intellignce)

Workday Commands IPO Premium With Web Challenge to Oracle (Bloomberg)

Workday may be valued at 20X trailing revenue.

Digital Ad Growth Slows, but Mobile Doubles (Peter Kafka/All Things D)

Unisys Rolls Out More Intel-Based ClearPath Mainframes (eWeek)



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Daily Links 10/10/2012: UPenn Nursing-founded RightCare raises $1.75 million


Barclays Prepares First U.S. Card ABS Deal in Bid to Grow Funding (Dow Jones Newswires via Fox Business)

Barclays' US Card business is based in Wilmington.

Memo To Oracle, SAP: Listen To P&G's Language (Information Week)

HR Technology Conference: D’oh, the humanity! (SAP Watch)

DELL: Investors Underestimate Enterprise Prospects, Says UBS (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

RightCare Solutions Raises $1.75M Series A Financing Round (PR Newswire)
Built on research at UPenn's nursing school, RightCare was the winner of the 2012 Wharton Business Plan Competition.

A Quirk in Time Warner Cable’s New Modem Fee (New York Times: Bits)

Cisco, Humax & Technicolor Join Comcast's Crew (Light Reading Cable)

Sprint Said to Hold Off on MetroPCS Counterbid for Now (Bloomberg)

Business Rx: Advice on getting customers for suggestion box start-up (Washington Post)
On DreamIt Ventures Philly startup Betterific.

Philly: Lots of television and radio deals
Top-10 market is healthy but not tight
(Media Life Magazine)

Federal Reserve’s ‘Beige Book’ shows economy growing (Philadelphia Inquirer)



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Daily Links 10/4/2012: Sunoco's Philadelphia legacy; SAP CTO rebuts Ellison's HANA comments


Sunoco leaves a legacy of spin-offs in Philadelphia area (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Including SunGard Data Systems.


Informatica Warning Hits QLIK, TIBX, SPLK, Others (Forbes)
Replay of last quarter. QlikTech down 9% so far today.

SAP's Creepy New Retail Software Uses Big Data To Make You Buy More Stuff (ReadWriteWeb)

Setting The Record Straight - SAP HANA v. Exadata X3 ( Vishal Sikka/Experience SAP HANA)

That multi-tenancy discussion revisited (Curt Monash/DBMS2)

Ariba and SAP: Integration, Planning and Solution Roadmaps (Part 1) (Spend Matters)

Sprint Said to Eye MetroPCS Bid to Rival T-Mobile Offer (Bloomberg)

A bird’s eye view of a combined T-Mobile-MetroPCS(Gigaom)

Dish Network: FCC too slow on wireless approval (Washington Post: Post Tech)

Is Fisker, as Romney suggests, a loser? (Wilmington News Journal: First State Politics)

Digi Integrates ThingWorx Application into the Industry’s Leading Internet of Things Cloud – The iDigi Device Cloud (Business Wire)




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More LTE choices coming to Philadelphia (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile)



Tom Paine

Up until now, Verizon Wireless has been the only LTE choice for most mobile device users in the Philadelphia area (it says its currently covers more than 70% of the Philadelphia region). Metro PCS also has LTE available in parts of the area, but its speeds have reported to be limited by the narrow slice of spectrum it currently has available. Now additional options are on the way.

On Friday, AT&T announced that it has officially turn on 4G LTE in the Philly area . Many in the area had reported picking up LTE signals from AT&T for some time during the pre-launch phase. And Philadelphia is on Sprint's recently released list of 100 cities that will receive Sprint's 4G LTE service "in the coming months". (Word is that Sprint will begin lighting up Boston and Chicago this week.) T-Mobile is expected to launch its LTE during 2013; it should be enhanced in the Philly area by its swap/purchase of large blocks of AWS band spectrum from Verizon as part of Verizon's effort to smooth the path for regulatory approval of its deal with cable operators, which was received from the DOJ and FCC last month.

Clearwire hopes to begin moving away from WiMAX and launch its own LTE network by 2014, but despite a wholesale purchase commitment from major shareholder Sprint its ability to accomplish that is in question. Cricket's LTE expansion plans (it is currently live in one market) are also uncertain.

For AT&T and Sprint, as well as Verizon Wireless, the introduction of the LTE capable iPhone 5 is a key to the timing for launching or enhancing LTE. T-Mobile is not directly offering the iPhone 5, but does plan to offer a SIM card for unlocked iPhone 5s by October, although there will be limitations for a while in some areas due to network incompatibility issues.



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Patent wars: Comcast sues Sprint, returning fire



Tom Paine


In what is probably a direct response to Sprint's lawsuits against Comcast and other cable companies filed in December, Comcast filed suit on Friday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennslvania against Sprint, alleging infringment of four of its patents.

The patents are US 6,112,305, Mechanism for dynamically binding a network computer client device to an approved internet service provider, US 5,987,323, Starting a short message transmission in a cellular communication system, US 6,885,870, Transferring of a message, and US 7,684,391, Communications system for delivering multimedia internet protocol packets across network boundaries.

Being neither a communications technology or IP expert, I have no idea what the significance of these specific patents might be, but this is not an unusual response in this type of patent dispute. Sprint's lawsuits were filed shortly after Comcast and other cable operators announced they were selling their wireless spectrum to and entering into a joint marketing agreement with Verizion Wireless, a deal that could alter the competitive landscape in the communications market. That move also signaled the ending of Comcast's reselling agreement with Clearwire, in which it still holds a minority stake. Sprint holds a majority stake in Clearwire.

The case number is 2:12-cv-00859. More information can be found on Pacer (registration required and fees may apply).



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