Links 11/13/2013: IBM to acquire Blue Bell-based Fiberlink Communications; NBC buys out Sprout partners

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IBM to Acquire Fiberlink Communications, Transforming the Mobile Management and Security Market (PR Newswire)

IBM buys Fiberlink (Philly Deals)

With Fiberlink acquisition, IBM gets serious about mobile device management (VentureBeat)


RightCare Solutions Raises $5.0M in Series B Round Led By Domain Associates and Compass Partners (Business Wire)

NBCU Buys Full Ownership Of Sprout (Multichannel News)
Sprout is based in Fort Washington. NBC bought out partners PBS and HIT Television Ventures to get 100% control.



Clearleap Raises Additional $20 Million to Accelerate TV Everywhere Deployments (Videonuze)
Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity leads round in Atlanta company.


Hulu in talks with Time Warner, Comcast, and others about possible cable bundling deals: WSJ (The Verge)

Netflix Gives Most, but Not All, of Its TV Viewers a New Look (All Things D)


Verizon Cloud Video Unit Snaps Up Multiscreen Startup
(Multichannel News)

Brand.com launches a program for deleting false Web pages on Google, Yahoo and Bing (The Next Web)
Brand.com is based in Philadelphia.

Veeva Systems Introduces Mobile CRM and CLM Solution for Windows 8 (Business Wire)



Alteva Reports Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Marketwire)

Companion Property & Casualty Plugs in Acrometis’ CLAIMExpert to Drive Down Claim Costs (Business Wire)
Acrometis is based in Chesterbrook.



Amazon Launches WorkSpaces, A Virtual Desktop Service On AWS
(TechCrunch)

HP Chromebook 11 disappears from retailers everywhere without explanation (GeekWire)
The withdrawal was apparently due to overheating chargers.

Daily Links 4/3/2013: Leno out, Fallon in next year

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Leno Blesses ‘Tonight Show’ Succession Plan (New York Times)
Changeover to take place next year.

Readying For An IPO, Enterprise SaaS Integration Platform Mulesoft Raises $37M From NEA, Salesforce And Others (TechCrunch)
Although different in some aspects, a principal competitor to Dell Boomi.

Tableau Software Files to Raise as Much as $150 Million (Bloomberg)

A Tableau IPO could validate the big data visualization push — or not (Gigaom)

SAP Accused of Inflating HANA Hardware Numbers (All Things D)

Oracle: ‘CloudWorld’ Positive, but Pricing a Mystery, Says CLSA (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Verizon, New York City to Test Way to Spread Fiber Network (Bloomberg)

Comcast unit wants to run Pa. Convention Center (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Credit Karma raises $30M in funding (Silicon Valley Business Journal)
Round co-led by Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity.

Using Visual Story Telling To Build Stronger Relationships With Consumers (Adotas)
Contributed by Curalate CEO Apu Gupta.



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Philly Tech News Facilities Roundup: Who's moving or expanding? (4/9/2012)

Tom Paine

Real estate decisions (leases, expansions, new buildings or offices) are often a good indicator of what's happening within a company or industry. This periodic Philly Tech News feature is a roundup of recent facilities news involving Philly area tech firms.

NextFab Studio, Philadelphia 's high-tech workshop and prototyping center featuring 3D printers and other design and fabrication tools, will be holding a preview party for NextFab2, its larger second location on April 19 from 6 to 9pm. The building, at 2025 Washington Ave in the Southwest Center City / Graduate Hospital neighborhood, was formerly a custom ironwork shop which is being reconfigured by Philadelphia architecture and design firm inHabit. The new studio will feature more advanced and a greater variety of equipment, private studios with 24/7 facility access, and a cafe at street level. The original NextFab studio in University City will continue to operate and there may be expansion plans for it, a spokesperson for the organization indicates. NextFab2 plans to open in July. Tickets for the preview party are available here for a small fee.

Technically Philly's Yael Borofsky took an insightful look at the exploding co-working, incubator and accelerator scene in Philly and asks whether some of it, at least, is a sign that a bubble is emerging.

NJTechWeekly.com's Esther Surden (a Philly Tech News contributor) has an article on Synchronoss' move to a larger headquarters in Bridgewater, NJ. Synchronoss, the company that helps many consumers activate their smartphones and tablets, resisted overtures from other states to stay in New Jersey, CEO Stephen Waldis told NJTechWeekly.com. The publicly traded company has moved to an 88,000-square-foot space vacated by pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Aventis in the Bridgewater Crossing office park. Though Waldis said “typically our engineering is done out of our [Bethlehem] Pa. location and offshore”, they are also beginning to build an engineering team in New Jersey. The company has 1,000 employees worldwide, and a market capitalization of over $1 billion.

A bit further north in Jersey, HR SaaS vendor iCIMS has moved to a new headquarters in Matawan, NJ, just up the road from its previous location in Hazlet. iCims, which says it currently has 200+ employees, plans to increase staff by almost 25% in 2012. The company announced a $35 million minority investment from Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC (SGE) earlier in the year.

On Thursday April 12th at 11:30 AM, the Free Library of Philadelphia will launch its new Techmobile “Hot Spot on Wheels” at Rowan House in West Philadelphia, with the help of Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter and Adel Ebeid, The City of Philadelphia’s Chief Innovation Officer. The Free Library Techmobile is a 25-foot van outfitted with six computers, all necessary broadband equipment, and a trained assistant who will provide computer training classes as well as one-on-one assistance during open-access time. The Techmobile will help the Free Library reach areas of the Philadelphia community that are not close to a library branch or one of the six stationary hot spots the library began launching last April. It was made possible by funds from the Federal Broadband Technologies Opportunities (BTOP) grant.

Micro Strategies says it is in the final stages of completing the certification process to establish a Microsoft Experience Center in its Malvern office, as well as in Denville, NJ. Micro Strategies descibes Microsoft Experience Centers as giving "Business and Technology Decision Makers the opportunity to test-drive the Microsoft business productivity platform in a real-life environment. Designed to enhance an understanding of available Microsoft technologies, the hands-on sessions offer the best way to learn about Microsoft business productivity tools and technologies without any sales pressure, long demos, or redundant presentations".



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$35 Million Investment in iCIMS Means More Monmouth County Jobs: Minority investment made by Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity

Esther Surden


Hazlet-based iCIMS received a $35 million minority investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) last month. The company, which provides human resources software as a service (SaaS), says it sees tremendous growth in the small and medium business market and will use the investment to address that market.


According to Susan Vitale, chief strategic officer, iCIMS plans to use some of the investment to hire in New Jersey. The company now has about 200 employees across its operations, with approximately 140 in N.J. By the end of 2012 it expects to add 85 more positions, 75 percent of them in N.J., Vitale said. The firm is looking to add software engineers and marketing and product management personnel.

Vitale said company headquarters will remain in Monmouth County, although "I can't commit 100 percent to staying in Hazlet, because we are bursting at the seams", she noted. Much of the company's talent pool consists of New York commuters tired of traveling to the city. "iCIMS does a lot of college recruiting as well. We do a really good job of bringing in young, hungry talent from Monmouth County who may have gone to school elsewhere … We have a great corporate culture,” which makes iCIMS competitive for software engineers, she added.

iCIMS experienced explosive growth in 2011, adding an average of one new customer every business day, Vitale said. The firm was included in the Inc. 500|5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies for the sixth consecutive year. Profitable and privately held since 2003, iCIMS had been pouring money back into its operations. “There is a huge opportunity right now. Ours is an $11.1 billion dollar industry, and among small- and medium-sized businesses there is a lot of greenfield [opportunity] out there in terms of folks who do not yet have a system. We felt this was the right time to approach the market aggressively,” Vitale said.

Colin Day, iCIMS president and CEO, said while the company could have achieved growth on its own, the investment “will help us dramatically accelerate our aggressive expansion plans. We look forward to offering deeper and broader services and support to our users.”

SGE's Scott Feldman, Amir Goldman and Jonathan Klahr will join the iCIMS board of directors. All three currently serve on the boards of multiple software companies. iCIMS was represented in the transaction by Raymond James & Associates.

(Editor's note: iCIMS reported 2010 revenue of $25.6 million, according to its listing in Inc. Magazine's 2011 Inc.500/5000 issue.)


Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of   New Jersey Tech Weekly , and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in New Jersey Tech Weekly.



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Daily Links 1/11/2012: Susquehanna Growth Equity invests $35 million in NJ SaaS HCM provider iCIMS

iCIMS, Leading SaaS Provider, Secures $35 Million Minority Investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (PR Web)
iCIMS is based in Hazlet, NJ.


Comcast Completes DNSSEC Deployment (Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)

Comcast’s new set-top streams live TV to DLNA devices (Gigaom)

Universal Sports Transitions From Multicast Distribution, Inking Deals with Six Providers (Multichannel News)
Comcast's NBC Sports Group owns a minority stake in Universal Sports.

Comcast coughs up refunds, revelations of service fee
(WTOP)

Motorola Home Gateway puts your entire home in the cloud, almost (CNET Blogs)


Exclusive: Microsoft Web TV subscription plan on hold (Reuters)

Dell’s Acquisition Strategy: Right On Target? (The VAR Guy)

Oracle Makes Big Data Appliance Move With Cloudera (Information Week)

UniTek Global Services, Inc. Announces Changes to Senior Management and Board of Directors (Globe Newswire)
UniTek Global Services CEO and chairman resign; shares plunge; former CEO staying on the board (AP via Columbus, Indiana Republic)
Changes seem somewhat sudden; wonder what's going on there? Company wasn't doing too badly, it seems.UniTek is based in Blue Bell.

Coursekit Taps The Hate With #EraseBlackBoard Campaign (BetaBeat)

Smart Grid Monitoring Gets Smarter with Sensei Solutions and ThingWorx Partnership (Business Wire)

Rajant Corporation Enhances Advanced Diagnostic, Monitoring and Administrative Capabilities for Kinetic Mesh Networks (Business Wire)

Integromics announces the release of SeqSolve 2.1 (Press Release via PharmaLive)



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Daily Links 8/9/2011: QVC revenue up 8%; Strong international growth

Liberty Media Reports Second Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)
QVC revenue up 8% (stronger internationally) and operating income up 4%; Liberty hopes to complete split-off of Liberty Capital and Liberty Starz in 3rd quarter after Bank of New York's appeal is heard in the Delaware Supreme Court in mid-September.

WVT Communications Finalizes $17 Million Acquisition of Alteva
New Organizational Structure Established (Marketwire)

Tax issue spurs PhillyCarShare to sell to Enterprise (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Clearwire: Merrill Now Sees Going Concern Risk; Target 50 Cents (Forbes: The Tech Trade)

Dish Network Lost 135,000 Subscribers in Second Quarter

 (Hollywood Reporter)

HSBC in Talks to Sell Credit Card Portfolio (New York Times: DealBook)
Prospective buyer said to be Capital One, which agreed to acquire Wilmington-based ING Direct USA in June. HSBC has already phased out its credit card operations in Delaware.

A Career Venture Capitalist Responds To Criticism From BI Commenters (Business Insider)
By First Round's Charlie O'Donnell.

Great Hill Partners Acquires Plimus for $115M USD (Business Wire)
Exit for Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity.

This App Could Save Your Life (Wired: Epicenter)

Deacom to Begin Testing Its Newly Developed SaaS Based CRM System (SBWIRE)

NetSuite stops selling to smaller businesses. Congratulations (ZDNet Blogs)

Dell, NextGen Team On Cloud-Based Services
Dell will sell NextGen's suite of healthcare applications and provide hosting as it targets the EMR marketplace. (Information Week)

HITECH Act Blocking Smaller IT Firms
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act prevents some small and midsize IT services firms from pursuing new healthcare business opportunities, says a CompTIA report. (Information Week)



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Daily Links 7/1/2011: Comcast Shutters NBC Universal Digital Studio

Comcast exec David Cohen raises at least $1.2 million for Obama (Washington Post)

Google Inc. among those in preliminary talks to buy Hulu (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast Shutters NBC Universal Digital Studio
Eleven Positions Affected; Third Season Of American Family Insurance Series in Limbo (Ad Age)

Providence Equity to Buy Blackboard for $1.64 Billion in Education Deal (Bloomberg)
Providence Equity was part of the consortium that lead the LBO of SunGard in 2005, and has other interests in the Education market. Its not inconceivable that Blackboard eventually could end up
being combined with SunGard Higher Education, if that makes strategic sense.

Salesforce places bets on HTML5 (ZDNet Blogs)

InterDigital Rallies Following Strong Nortel Patent Auction (Forbes: The Tech Trade)

Verizon 'Evaluating' Usage-Based Pricing for FiOS, DSL
Still Leaving the Door Open to the Idea (Broadband Reports)

TiVo $2.4B Takeover Seen After Fight With Dish (Bloomberg)

Fiserv Acquires Payments Provider CashEdge for $465 Million (Bank Systems & Technology)
Exit for Bala Cynwyd's Susquehanna Growth Equity.

D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc. to Brew Up Process Automation with Integrated ERP Software (PRLog)
Implements system from Wayne-based Deacom.


LLR Partners Leads a Recapitalization of Bristol-based Strategic Distribution, Inc. (LLR Press Release)



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Daily Links 4/18/2011: Do Ebersol and Comcast disagree on Olympic strategy?

Olympic$ hurdle for Ebersol and Comcast (New York Post)

Key SaaS Software Executive Leaving SAP (PC World)

SAP denies acquisition rumours (v3.co.uk)
SAP moving closer to HP in market value, Bill McDermott notes.

MoneyTree: Venture funding up significantly in Philadelphia area (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Susquehanna Growth Equity Acquires MediMedia Information Technologies, LLC (PR Newswire)

New Invite Media Sales Chief, Bruce Falck, Discusses The Road Ahead For Google’s Demand-Side Platform Business (AdExchanger.com)

SavingStar Brings Coupon-Clipping Into Digital Age (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
First Round Capital invests again in $7 million second round for Massachusetts company.

Exclusive: Flipboard Confirms $50 Million Funding at $200 Million Valuation (All Things Digital)
Comcast Interactive Ventures a new investor.

Liberty Sets May Date for Spin-Off Vote
Spin Would Make Liberty Interactive Asset-Backed Stock (Multichannel News)

MRO Corp. Acquires Release-of-Information Services Vendor Keystone Management Solutions (Business Wire)



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Daily Links 10/22/2010: Comcast invests in the sFund

Safeguard Scientifics Partner Company Clarient to Be Acquired by GE Healthcare for $587 Million or $5 Per Common Share (Business Wire)

Verizon Net Beats Estimates as Smartphone Ranks Grow (Bloomberg)
Verizon Adds 226k FiOS Users, Loses 165k DSL Users
As profits fall due to voluntary (and not so voluntary) layoffs (Broadband Reports)

Kleiner Perkins and Partners Create $250 Million ‘Social’ Fund (New York Times: Bits)
Comcast, Liberty Media among those participating in fund.

Offers.com Raises $7 Million To Help Track Down Good Deals (No, Not Like Groupon) (TechCrunch)
Texas firm backed by Susquehanna Growth Equity.

LLR Partners Invests in Lightspeed Financial (Business Wire)

SAP and consumer healthcare (ZDNet Blogs)

Global CIO: SAP Shares Corporate Treasure With Customers (Information Week)

SAP's mobile strategy, the SI perspective (ZDNet Blogs)

Hulu Plus, Take Two: How’s $4.95 a Month? (All Things Digital: MediaMemo)

FCC starting to wade into Fox-Cablevision battle (LA Times: Company Town)




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Daily Links 9/7/2010: Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC and Brad Galle Acquire JK Group

Resurrecting Mark Hurd: Larry Ellison's War With IBM (Information Week: Global CIO)

Can Oracle, Hurd topple HP, IBM without services? (ZDNet Blogs)

HP Sues Mark Hurd For Violating Severance Agreement (By Joining Oracle) (Silicon Alley Insider)

QlikTech looking at major expansion in India (Economic Times of India)

Susquehanna Growth Equity, LLC and Brad Galle Acquire JK Group (PR Newswire)

Allbritton Cites Comcast Harm (Multichannel News)

It's Not Always Sunny for Philadelphia and New York Sports Fans (Huffington Post)

Fall to bring Google TV, just in time for Apple TV faceoff (Ars Technica)

DVIRC Awarded $300,000 National Science Foundation Grant to Connect Regional Assets and Spur Innovation
Project will explore how visual analytics software can help to organize and connect STEM assets in the tri-state area (Business Wire)

Web Host MyHost Expands Name Server Infrastructure to Europe
(Web Host Industry Review)




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