Daily Links 2/10/2010: SunGard Availability Services' CEO resigns

GSI Commerce Reports Fiscal 2009 Year and Fourth Quarter Operating Results (Business Wire)
GSI Commerce Q4 profit lags market, sees strong Q1 rev (Reuters)

BioClinica Announces Fourth Quarter and Year End 2009 Financial Results (Business Wire)

SunGard Availability Services' CEO resigns (Continuity Central)

An Open Letter To SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner (Information Week: Global CIO)

What SAP Needs After Apotheker (Business Week)

SAP to Split User Conference Between Europe, US (PC World)

Google Plans Ultrafast Internet Broadband
The search giant say it'll build experimental 1-gigabit-per-second broadband networks in a small number of test locations.
(Information Week)

T-Mo’s HSPA+ Upgrade to Hit the Coasts First
(GigaOM)

Motorola Ventures Invests in Zenverge
Zenverge secures funding to support production launch of industry's highest-performance transcoder integrated circuits
(PR Newswire)

Where Should We Hold The Next peHUB Shindig? (PE Hub)
Philadelphia is one of the 10 choices you can vote for online.

$7.2 Billion For Broadband Is Largely Unallocated
(WBUR Boston)

Karen Heller: In Norristown, sizzle gives way to substance (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Fiberlink Introduces MaaS360™ Visibility Service for Handhelds
New Offering Enables Unified Management of Blackberry® Devices
(Business Wire)

Our website just had a makeover (The TickekLeap Blog)

IMS Health 4Q profit shrinks (Associated Press via Google News)




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More on SAP Executive Changes

News Analysis: SAP’s CEO Léo Apotheker Resigns (Enterprise Advocates)

SAP: the challenges ahead (ZDNet Blogs)

Changes at #SAP (Next Gen Enterprise)

Short on strategy, SAP needs Plattner's charisma (Reuters)

Ex-local SAP official to be firm’s co-CEO (Philadelphia Inquirer)

SAP Swoons On CEO Change (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)




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Breaking: Apotheker to resign immediately as SAP AG CEO

SAP AG said today that the SAP Supervisory Board has reached a mutual agreement with CEO Leo Apotheker not to extend his contract as a member of the SAP Executive Board, and that Apotheker has resigned as CEO and member of the SAP Executive Board effective immediately.
SAP will function now with two CO-CEOs; Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott, head of field organization, and Jim Hagemann Snabe, head of product development.
The implications of this announcement are astounding, frankly. SAP has had some problems recently, but I've never heard a clue of anything like this going on, and it is so unusual for SAP to make a change like this that isn't planned out over a long period of time.

Press Release

SAP CEO Apotheker steps down after seven months (Reuters)

SAP: Apotheker gone, co-CEO's appointed
(ZDNet Blogs)
Dennis Howlett not very surprised.

SAP: New leadership, same old story? (ZDNet Blogs)



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IMHO: ‘Thank You For Calling Comcast…’ (New York Times-The Local-Maplewood Blog)

SAP's Proof of Concept for Augmented 'Corporate' Reality (ReadWriteEnterprise)


4th Quarter 2009 Philly VC Investments; Not too much for IT

The PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree detailed report on 4th quarter 2009 VC investments is out (free registration required).

Total investments in Philadelphia Metro were $142 million. But after subtracting $61 million for Biotech, $43 million for Medical Devices, and $25 million for Industrial/Energy, that only leaves about $13 million for investments that might primarily be considered IT-related, spread over 13 deals.

Most of these I have reported on before, including MobileMD, MuseAmi, PackLate, Agilence, and Timsesight Systems. Other investments revealed in the report are Core Solutions of Wayne ($500,000), which supplies electronic health record (EHR) systems for behavioral healthcare, Alphion Corporation of Princeton Junction ($1 million),which develops and manufactures integrated photonic components, and NearVerse of Philadelphia ($1 million), which provides mobile IP network application services.



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Daily Links 2/5/2010: Air Products goes after Airgas

Air Products Offers to Acquire Airgas for $60.00 Per Share in Cash (PR Newswire)

USA Technologies and SAVE Announce Settlement of Proxy Contest (Business Wire)

Rich Hofmann: Technology completes the sports spectator experience (Philadelphia Daily News)

Democrats Question Comcast on NBC Deal (New York Times)

Top Issues at Comcast-NBCU Hearings: Jobs, Competition, Broadcast TV and Online Video (Comcast Voices)

DT Considers T-Mobile USA IPO, Spinoff (Telecom Ramblings)


IBM Acquires Initiate Systems: Five Key Takeaways
(Spend Matters)

Studio out of Studio Centre plan (The Reporter Online)

What Is Printmaking Today? Philadelphia Dares to Ask (New York Times)

Advanta veterans launch MultiFunding for small businesses
(Philadelphia Business Journal)
Founded by Ideablob guy Ami Kassar.

QSI: Sales Up, Profits Flat, Stock Down (Health Data Management)
Quality Systems' NextGen Healthcare Information Systems is based in Horsham.

SunGard Acquires Inmatrix (PR Newswire)

EduCon 2.2 — A ProfHacker Perspective (ProfHacker)




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Daily Links 2/4/2010: Comcast's big day on the Hill

Comcast/NBCU Hearings on
Capitol Hill
(CSPAN)

Republicans: Don't Let Regulators, Others Sidetrack Comcast/NBCU (Multichannel News)

Comcast says no big job cuts from NBC deal (Reuters)

From Here To Xfinity: Comcast Rebranding Starts Next Week (paidContent)


Unisys Announces Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2009 Financial Results (PR Newswire)

Marlin Equity buys certain segments of Unisys
* Forms new co called Burroughs Payment Systems Inc
(Reuters)

Kulicke & Soffa Reports Results for its First Fiscal Quarter 2010 (Business Wire)
Kulicke & Soffa FY Q1 Crushes Ests; Stock Jumps (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

SAP Launches a Google Wave for the Enterprise (Mashable)

Software AG 2009 Profits Rise 22%; Predicts Growth in 2010
(Bloomberg via Business Week)
Includes results from recently acquired IDS Scheer.

Technitrol Reports Q4 and FY09 Results, Board Declares Dividend
Results Reflect Continued Operating Profit Improvement
(Business Wire)

QlikTech Positioned in the Challenger Quadrant Based on Review of its QlikView Product in 2010 Business Intelligence Platforms Magic Quadrant (PR Newswire)

U.S. lawmaker seeks probe of Pa. Turnpike aide's firing (Philadelphia Inquirer)

BioClinica Inks Multi-Year Outsourcing Deal with Leading Biopharmaceutical Company
Company will Standardize Electronic Data Capture and Global Data Management for Frazer, Pennsylvania-based Cephalon, Inc.
(Business Wire)

Lancaster's Illuminex expects $2M equity investment (Keystone Edge)




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Daily Links 2/3/2010: Tough times? Don't worry about Comcast, as earnings more than double

Comcast's profit more than doubles (MarketWatch)

2010: The Year Comcast Embraces Convergence (GiagaOM)

Comcast Launches XFINITY (Comcast Voices)

NBC affiliate board chair wants conditions on Comcast - NBC Universal deal (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast to Acquire New Global Telecom
(Light Reading: Cable Digital News)

Monster to Acquire HotJobs Business and Enter into Multi-year Traffic Agreement with Yahoo! (Business Wire)
It will be interesting to see what impact this will have on the Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium of which Philadelphia Newspapers is a part, although Philly.com has been using Monster rather than HotJobs.

Kenexa Swoons As Outlook Misses (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Janney Montgomery Scott Downgrades Kenexa (KNXA) to Neutral; Lowers Estimates & PT on Increased Risk Profile
(StreetInsider.com)


IBM Buying MDM Vendor Initiate Systems (PC World)

Clarifying the Future of NetWeaver PI (Feeding the SAP Ecosystem)

SAP Questions Gartner BI Magic Quadrant Ranking
The report on business intelligence platforms places SAP behind Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, SAS, and Microstrategy on ability to execute.
(Information Week)

MedQuist Agrees to Purchase Domestic Assets of Spheris
Stock and asset purchase agreement would provide Spheris' customers with access to industry-leading technology platform and transcription services.
(PR Newswire)

NJ Judge Issues Mixed Order on Use of E-Voting Machines
(IDG via New York Times)

Ben Franklin provides loans to Bethlehem startups (Easton Express-Times)
Viddler is one of them.




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