Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System (New York Times)

SAP, Sybase plan iPhone, Windows Mobile software (Reuters)

Comcast says it's now No. 3 US home phone provider (Reuters)

Ben Franklin Technology Partners stakes 11 companies (Philadelphia Business Journal)

DormNoise Helps College Students Plan Events and Manage Personal, Student Group, and Campus Schedules from One Location
Integrates with Mainstream Calendar and Mobile Applications; Ad Revenue Split with Colleges (Business Wire)

Red Tettemer Creates ScapeNation, Then Invites Tweens to Save it (PR Newswire)

Rodale's Best Life Folds (Media Bistro: Fishbowl NY)

InterDigital Announces $100 Million Stock Repurchase Program (Business Wire)

Oracle's Golden Goose, Maintenance Revenue, Contains Flight Risk (Dow Jones via CNN Money)

Salesforce.com Smells Blood, Hunts Bigger CRM Prey: Enterprise Cloud Customers (CIO.com)

The Reinvention of Innovation Works (Pop
City)
What Ben Franklin Technology Partners is up to on the other side of the state.

SMI Health and InfoSlate Partner to Educate Patients with Interactive Touch Screens in Physicians’ Offices (Business Wire)

XO Communications Deploys Ethernet Over Copper Services for DCANet (Marketwire via CNN Money)

Delaware Law Weekly Launches New Web Site Design, with Expanded Content and Complete Access to Case Digests and Archives (Business Wire)

Working Off The Tab (Forbes)
On Drexel's co-op program.

Spotlight on Creativity March 2009
(Innovation Philadelphia)



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5 Questions for David Lincoln of Element Partners (PE Hub)

Herley Industries up for sale-sources (Reuters)
Herley Industries is based in Lancaster. Its stock price is
up 15% today.

Clearwire Announces New CEO (Business Week: The Tech Beat)
Wolff out, Morrow in as Clearwire CEO (MuniWireless)

IDS Scheer Appoints Dr. Joerg Heistermann to CEO of the Americas Region
Seasoned Executive to Lead Growth of the Operation in Support of Increased Demand for ARIS-Based Offerings (Business Wire)

Franklin Electronic Publishers Slashes Operating Costs (PR Newswire)

Tim O'Reilly: 'You don't know the future, but you can rise to meet it' (The Guardian: Technology Blog)

New job for the man who exposed Comcast's P2P throttling (ars technica)

Area districts using technology to increase school security (Bucks County Courier Times)

Computer technology fingers illegal aliens
Bucks, Montgomery already scan prints to determine residency. (Allentown Morning Call)

Sarnoff Iris on the Move® (IOM) Iris Recognition System Selected by Schiphol Airport for Biometric ID Testing (Business Wire)

Wharton's Learning Lab Hosts Learning Symposium on March 13, 2009 (Technology at Wharton)

HostMySite Builds World's Fastest Server (Web Hosting Industry News)



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One Little Comment on Facebook gets Eagles Employee Fired

Facebook post gets worker fired (ESPN)

Rohm & Haas Reaches Deal with Dow

Still don't understand all the details. More later.



Dow reaches tentative deal on Rohm & Haas: WSJ
(MarketWatch)

Dow Reaches Agreement to Close Rohm and Haas Acquisition
(PR Newswire)

Dow Chemical and Rohm Settle a Dispute Over $15.3 Billion Merger (New York Times)

So here is the deal as I understand it:

-Rohm & Haas shareholders get their $78 per share-the original acquisition price.
-The Haas family and another major investor in the company agree to purchase up to $2.5 billion in "perpetual" preferred Dow shares, which pay a cool 15% interest rate.
-Dow also has a call option to have these R & H investors also purchase $500 million in Dow common stock.
-Buffet and Kuwait still major investors.
-Dow plans sale of about $4 billion in assets, including Rohm & Haas's Morton Salt unit.
-The deal closes April 1.

I haven't done the math so I am unqualified to say whether Dow will be able to maintain an investment grade rating under these terms.

Merck and Schering-Plough in $41B merger
Drugmaker to keep Merck name, and Merck CEO Clark will take reins. (CNN Money)

Circuit City shuts down after 60 years (Associated Press via Google News)

Nokia Stumbles in Patent Dispute (Wall Street Journal: Digits)
A small victory for InterDigital.


Lockheed Martin GPS III Team Progressing On-Schedule In Preliminary Design Review Stage (PR Newswire)

Leap Brings Cricket Service to Philadelphia (Wireless Week)

VC trickles into small firms (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Vitalize Buys r3 Health Partners (PE Hub)
Vitalize Consulting Solutions' operations office is located in Kennett Square.

ICG Commerce says business up 50% since Sept. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Staying Strong? Outsell Reports on “Big Three” STM Publishers (Library Journal)

A Search Engine for Seekers of Venture Capital (New York TImes: Bits)

Penn Hosts Conference on Virtual Worlds for Education: The Future of Technology Use in Learning (Media Newswire)

IBM unlikely to bid for Satyam stake: sources (Reuters)

SAP: Sustainability, supply chain and profits (Computerworld UK)

Broadband Growth Slows
(Multichannel News)

Integrating with social media on the horizon (Fierce Health IT)
On HealthCampDC



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Philly Tech Events

Goodby Does Impossible, Cures Comcast Affective Disorder
(Advertising Age: Garfield's Ad Review)

OwnerSense

One of the best ways to spot new, early stage startups is when they begin to search for their first outside hires and post advertisements on job boards. A company called OwnerSense, based in Devon, is advertising for a developer who can do, well, just about everything. OwnerSense describes itself as a "web service that helps families make better household purchasing decisions, by saving them time, money and inconvenience". They say they closed a seed round in January and are actively building their team. The site appears to allow people to sign up to participate in a private beta.

Former St Joes Prof runs leading baseball stats site

Interesting interview in the NY Daily News with Philadelphian and former St Josephs math professor Sean Foreman, who left teaching a few years ago to focus full time on his website Baseball-reference.com. Its a cool website which I use all the time. Just glancing at it, I'm not sure how much monetizing they've been able to do so far, but eventually it will probably end up being bought out by ESPN or Stats Inc like almost everything else in the sports info business.

People News 3/8/09

Monihan The Man At Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia
Ad Sales Executive Succeeds Smith As RSN's General Manager (Multichannel News)

Comcast Interactive Media Appoints IAB Co-Founder and Media Veteran Scott Schiller as SVP of Advertising Sales for Fandango, Fancast, Movies.com and Plaxo (PR Newswire)

Unisys Names Suresh Mathews Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (Business Wire)

Razorfish Names William Flaiz General Manager of Global Solutions Group (Philly AD Club News)

NJTC Names J&J's LaVerne Council '2009 CIO of the Year' (PR Newswire)

Progressive Business Publications Proudly Announces Its New Chief Operating Officer, Tom Schubert of West Chester, PA (Business Wire)

Morning Call Editor Ardith Hilliard stepping down (Allentown Morning Call)

Acuity Systems Names Glenn Waehner President and CEO (PR Newswire)

Universal Capital Management Names President/ Chief Operating Officer (PR Newswire)



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Philadelphia Inquirer to launch publishing site for Saint Joseph's
(The Hawk)

Rohm & Haas a prized asset among chemical makers (Associated Press via Google News)



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