Daily Links 10/5/2010: NBC Universal invests in Invidi

NBC Universal Invests in Addressable-Ad Concern Invidi (Ad Age)
This will give Comcast a stake in Invidi once the Comcast/NBCU deal is done (Comcast had already run tests with Invidi in Baltimore).
Invidi has its engineering offices in Princeton.

Comcast-NBC Universal merger review hits FCC speed bump (Washington Post: Post Tech)

Comcast Homes In on Security Services (Light Reading Cable)

Why it's often sunny in Philadelphia (The Deal)
I think its a pretty accurate article.

Health Benefits Direct Announces Agreement to Raise $5.4 Million in Private Placement (Business Wire)

Verizon To Unveil LTE Plans Wednesday (Broadband Reports)

SAP's McDermott Says Apotheker Can `Really Help' HP: Video (Bloomberg)

Rant: Thoughts of SAHP are insane (ZDNet Blogs)


SAP launches Business ByDesign for iPhone
Future apps planned for Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 platforms (V3.co.uk)

Software Leader SAP Launches Global Brand Campaign with a Call to Action for Business: 'Run Better' (PR Newswire)


Microsoft Helps Appnexus Raise $50 Million Third Round (paidContent)
First Round Capital participates again.

Schneider exit clouds Newspaper Consortium (REFLECTIONS OF A NEWSOSAUR)
Philly.com was a major backer of the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, under former Philly.com President Eric Grilly (now with Comcast).

GSI Commerce to open new Louisville facility (Business First of Louisville)

Cloud Computing Company Offers Document Exchange and Collaboration Between Amazon S3, Google and Microsoft SharePoint (PR Newswire)




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The Léo Way (The Economist)

HP-SAP Merger Talk Considered Far-fetched (PC World)

T-Mobile probably will ink deal with Clearwire, but not for WiMAX (FierceWireless)

Righting wrongs: Verizon refunding (up to) $90M to customers for unjust data charges (VentureBeat)

Final newspaper contracts reached (Philadelphia Inquirer)

An Award, Criticism and Perils for Comcast (New York Times)

Industry backs Robert Greenblatt to run NBC (Hollywood Reporter)

Google TV Announces Its Programming Partners (New York Times)

Qualcomm Giving Up On FLO TV (GIGAOM)

Medquist secures $310M in financing deal (CMIO)

Philly Tech People News 10/3/2010

Adam Miller Joins Comcast Corporation (Business Wire)
A somewhat mysterious announcement. More of an explanation here:
Deal P.R. Adviser Joins Comcast (New York Times: DealBook)

Rodale Inc. Promotes Mary Murcko to EVP, Group Publisher (Business Wire)

Integromics Appoints Dr. Michael J. McManus as President & CEO (PharmaLive)

Project Management Institute Names Executive Vice President and COO Mark A. Langley as New President and CEO
(PR Newswire)

Oxford Communications adds Bob Quintana as director of interactive services (Philly Ad Club News)

Larry Ellison ‘Speechless’ Over New CEO of H-P (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Eniac Ventures formed to seed Mobile Apps

The name Eniac should ring a bell for most Philadelphians, since that was the name of the first true computer that was developed at Penn's engineering school. Now four former classmates at the
school have joined together to form a small seed fund named, aptly enough, Eniac Ventures, that will focus completely on mobile applications. It was founded by Hadley Harris, Nihal Mehta, Vic Singh and Tim Young, and has raised $1.6 million, according to TechCrunch. Mehta is a serial entrepreneur who was an angel investor in AdMob, which sold last year to Google for $750 million. They expect the typical investment size to be in the $25,000 to $100,000 range.

The one Philly-area startup the fund is already invested in is NearVerse. Others in their portfolio are Localytics (in which area entrepreneur/angel Gabriel Weinberg also invested), MightyMeeting , and Philo.

Note: On its Twitter account, Eniac gives its location as "NYC/Cambridge".

New H-P Chief Experienced With Board Feuds (Dow Jones Newswires via NASDAQ.com)

H-P shares slip as new CEO fails to impress Street
Apotheker stresses more focus on software and IT services (MarketWatch)

HP’s Apotheker Appointment Sparks Talk of Closer Ties With SAP
(Bloomberg)

T-Mobile Says 4G Can Wait, Clearwire WiMax Is ‘Niche’ (Bloomberg)

Could Coax Hit 20 Gigabits Per Second? (Multichannel News)

QVC Launches Fifth Global Market (PR Newswire)
Italy.

History in 3-D
Welcome to Liberty 360, a circular theater telling the American tale. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

HP names former SAP CEO Apotheker as its CEO

This is strange (I've used that word twice today). Gets booted (pretty much) at SAP, goes on to a bigger job.

HP Names Former SAP CEO Léo Apotheker As Their New CEO And President (TechCrunch)

Surprise! HP names Leo Apotheker CEO; Can he rewrite his legacy? (ZDNet Blogs)

Edison Venture sells two stakes

Edison Venture Fund of Lawrenceville, NJ, announced yesterday that they have sold their stake in CambridgeSoft, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based provider of software for the life sciences industry, back to the company. Edison says it received $40 million on a $5 million investment; 11x its initial investment and 3x a follow-on investment in CambridgeSoft. The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch dicusses Edison's exit strategy.

This follows an announcement earlier this week that Edison portfolio company TrueCommerce of Cranberry Township PA (near Pittsburgh), a supply chain software firm, had been acquired by HighJump Software of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. In that deal, the terms were not disclosed, but Edison said it received (pdf) a 4X return on investment and achieved a 30% IRR, which in VC terms is OK but not outstanding.




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Daily Links 9/30/2010: Sprint Execs quit Clearwire board

Plosser Opposes More Fed Bond Buying, Sees Small Deflation Risk (Bloomberg)
Plosser goes to Vineland (of all places).

The John Malone-Barry Diller throwdown (Hollywood Reporter)

Sprint Leaders Quit Clearwire Board (IDG via New York
Times)
Apparently due to Clearwire's antitrust concerns, though strange since Sprint owns a majority of Clearwire. One possible explanation of what's really going on from Light Reading Mobile.

Comcast: We will meet our IPv6 deadline
ISP to release more open source code, begin test of standard this fall (Network World)

Comcast takes free anti-botnet service nationwide (CNET News)

Comcast Interactive Shifts Fandango’s Budkofsky To Run Mobile Ads (paidContent)

Snarls in labor talks with key unions at papers (Philadelphia Inquirer)
The Inquirer's latest update sounds more optimistic.

Nicusa Capital Calls for Leadership Changes at BioClinica
(PR Newswire)
BioClinica's response

SAP Torn Between the Old World and the New (CIO.com)

Global CIO: Tibco Surges And CEO Flips Off IBM, Oracle, And SAP (Information Week)


Announcing the Winners of the $10,000 Grant! (Gigabit Genius Grant)




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Daily Links 9/29/2010: SunGard Higher Ed getting into course management software

Course-Management Software Deal Marks a First for SunGard (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Software firm seeks to close road in Upper Uwchlan corporate park (Daily Local News)
Bentley Systems looks to expand.

Cisco to Unveil an Affordable Home TelePresence Product for Consumers Next Week (All Things Digital: BoomTown)
May start rollout with Comcast, Verizon.

NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker on Content, Convergence, Comcast -- and Conan (Knowledge@Wharton)

Motorists on N.J. Turnpike, Garden State Parkway to get high-tech traffic 'forecasts' (Newark Star-Ledger)

Clearwire throttling at-home WiMAX users? (Engadget)
Clearwire Unclear About Customer Throttling
Many users still confused about Clear's definitions of "unlimited," "excessive" (Broadband Reports)

SAP to buy Sage? (AccMan)

TruePosition talks up commercial proposition for mission-critical LBS (Total Telecom)

Off-Site Options for Mission-Critical Data (Signal Scape)
On the opening of the Philadelphia Technology Park.

PAETEC’s risky business (Inorganic Growth)

Oracle, Sun Labs Form Health Sciences Institute (eWeek)




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Daily Links 9/28/2010: Venmo introduces Gifi

The Wall Street Journal today has a story on the difficulties SAP has faced in getting Business byDesign off the ground (subscription required).
Also, the SAP acquisition rumor de jour centers on British-based Sage Group, which provides Financial and CRM software to the SME market.
MARKET REPORT: Sage chief looks to a future fight
(Mail Online)


Gifi lets you hide money for your friends to encourage Foursquare check-ins (VentureBeat)
Venmo's new app introduced at TechCrunch Disrupt.

TechCrunch Scooped Up By AOL
(Wired Blogs: Epicenter)

NBC Universal-Comcast prep Olympic bid (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)

FCC denies delays in Comcast-NBC Uni review
Tells THR: 'We have not announced a timetable' (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast Shakes Up Speed Tiers
16 Mbps users get 20 Mbps upgrade, 22 Mbps tier goes away (Broadband Reports)

Canoe's Verklin: National ITV Ads Are Here Now
MSO Ad Venture Targeting 25 Million Households By End Of 2010 (Multichannel News)

HDNET Coming To New Comcast Markets This Week? (Zatz Not Funny!)

The Long Goodbye: Xmarks Tried to Sell Twice, Before Closing Down With Class (All Things Digital: BoomTown)
Xmarks had been backed by Mitch Kapor; First Round Capital was also an early seed investor.

Evidently IBM bought Cast Iron Systems for $190 million (DBMS2)
I wonder what this implies for the valuation of Cast Iron competitor Boomi of Berwyn.

SDI plans on high job growth over time (Philadelphia Business Journal)


Connectify Releases Version 2.1 - Extends Wi-Fi Sharing to Major Gaming Systems (PR Newswire)




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