Philly Tech People News 11/8/2010

GSI Commerce Elects David Rosenblatt to its Board of Directors
(Business Wire)

FTC names Princeton computer security expert as first chief technologist (Washington Post: Post Tech)

Code for America taps two with Phila. ties (Philadelphia Business Journal: Technology Blog)


Anexinet Hires Joe Romello as Vice President of Delivery (Business Wire)

RES Software Appoints Chris Hammans as Director of Business Development, Strategic Alliances, EMEA (Business Wire)

Amazon reported to be acquiring Diapers.com

Amazon to Acquire Diapers.com for $540 Million [REPORT] (Mashable)

Several Wharton connections with Diapers.com, including early backing from Penn-related MentorTech Ventures.

Read Business Week article.

SAP to get its shot at Ellison in high-stakes trial (Reuters)

Hulu Closes Yet Another Google TV Loophole (Gigaom: NewTeeVee)

Daily Links 11/5/2010: Clearwire to cut 15% of Employees

Clearwire To Cut 15% Of Employees
Broadband Wireless Company Expects 4 Million Subs by Year-End (Multichannel News)

Clearwire Digs its Foxhole to Fight for its Life (Gigaom)

Comcast announcement soon
Cabler racing to put post-merger NBC U plan into place (Variety)

Comcast Calls Bloomberg TV “Naïve” in FCC Filing (MediaBistro: TVNewswer)

Google TV Users, Fancast.com Is An Open Back Door To The Hulu Estate (CrunchGear)

Starz, QVC Lift Third Quarter for Liberty Media (The Hollywood Reporter)
QVC revenue up 7%.

Dell to Acquire Boomi (The Boomi Blog)

Oracle-SAP Trial: Phillips Says SAP Owes "Billions," Oracle Can't Find Apotheker (Information Week)

ERP Woes (SAP) Blamed for Lumber Company's Bad Quarter (PC World)

SAP to add StreamWork collaboration application to Business Suite modules (SearchSAP.com)

RecycleBank CEO: We Will IPO In 2013 (TCTV) (TechCrunch)
RecycleBank started off in Philly before its HQ to New York, but still has operations here.
I remain somewhat skeptical of its long-term business model.

LMCO Ships GPS III Simulator to Aerospace Corporation, Maintains Program Schedule Lead (Inside GNSS)

How to Create a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Community (PE Hub)
How the Foundry Group's Brad Feld says it happened in Boulder.

Entercom's Q3 revenues grew 3%, and the CEO is not happy about it (Radio-Info.com)




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Daily Links 11/4/2010: MetroPCS launches LTE in Philly Area

Panic buying spree hits cloud integration (ZDNet Blogs)

MetroPCS Launches First Commercial 4G LTE Services in Los Angeles and Philadelphia Metropolitan Areas (PR Newswire)

SAP and NEC collaborate on cloud services (Computerworld)

Orace v SAP: Courtroom Diary (Information Week)

Oracle’s Ellison to Testify Nov. 8 at SAP Trial (Bloomberg)

Netsuite CEO Zach Nelson on his relationships with Salesforce and Larry Ellison (CIO UK)

ICG Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results (Globe Newswire via MarketWatch)

Motorola: More Devices, Screens Coming To A Home Near You (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Big Cable Is Bleeding: 500K+ Subscribers Lost In Q3 (Gigaom via New York Times)

AT&T’s Bet on Health Technology (New York Times)

Universal Display Corporation Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results (Business Wire)

ERT Reports Third Quarter 2010 Results (PR Newswire)

BioClinica Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results (Business Wire)




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Daily Links 11/3/2010: SunGard considers spinoff of Availability Services unit

SunGard considering Availability Services spin off (Philadelphia Business Journal)

QlikTech Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Revenue up 39%.

AT&T, Verizon, Comcast May Fend Off Web Rules Under Republicans (Bloomberg)

Boomi boss: Why we sold to Dell Computer (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

2 hidden gems in Dell's acquisition of Boomi (CustomerThink)

Safeguard Scientifics Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Heartland Payment Systems Reports Third Quarter Financial Results (Business Wire)

Oracle buys ATG for $1 billion (Internet Retailer)

Will The Oracle-HP Alliance Survive The Oracle-SAP Trial? (Information Week: Global CIO)

SAP agrees to pay $120 million to Oracle: sources (Reuters)

McDermott Says SAP `Very Happy' With Sybase Performance (Video: Bloomberg via Washington Post)

Middle Market Investment Banking Firm FOCUS LLC Completes Growth Financing for Tribridge from LLR Partners (Business Wire)
I first reported on this deal yesterday.

NextGen Partners with InstaMed to Offer Healthcare Providers Payment Assurance through Enhanced Patient Collections (Business Wire)

CardioNet, Inc. Announces National Reimbursement Rate for Mobile Cardiovascular Telemetry (Business Wire)
Doesn't sound like too much of an improvement.

AMETEK Announces Stock Split and Dividend Increase (PR Newswire)

Penn Museum Sweeps ici Mobile App Award Competition (PR Web)




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Dell to acquire Berwyn Cloud Integration vendor Boomi

Dell has announced today that it is acquiring Cloud-integration vendor Boomi of Berwyn. Boomi enables companies to integrate multiple cloud applications, or integrate cloud apps with on-premise apps. It is widely used in Salesforce and NetSuite environments, for example.

It is difficult to tell how large Boomi is now or what price Dell would have paid for it. Boomi's only reported VC raise was $4 million from FirstMark Capital in 2008. IBM purchased competitor Cast Iron Systems in May for a price reported to TechCrunch as $190 million by its VC backer Sequoia (though I think Cast Iron was probably a bigger company overall).




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Daily Links 11/2/2010: Oracle acquires eCommerce platform provider Art Technology

Oracle Buys eCommerce Company ATG For $1 Billion (Silicon Alley Insider)
Possible implications for GSI Commerce.

Oracle begins opening statement in SAP trial
* Apotheker will testify at trial-lawyer (Reuters)

SAP’s Tab in Oracle Case: $120 Million and Counting
(All Things Digital: Digital Daily)


Accenture Acquires Knowledge Rules, a Leading Provider Of Pegasystems’ Business Process Management Services (Business Wire)


Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces Third Quarter 2010 Results
(Business Wire)
Lowers guidance. Checkpoint shares down 14% so far today.

Vishay Reports Results for Third Quarter 2010 (Business Wire)

Kenexa Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter 2010 (Business Wire)

Philly-Based Red Tettemer Acquires Stick & Move (Ad Age)

Tribrige, a Tampa-based provider of IT services and consulting, has received backing from Philly PE firm LLR Partners, according to this Tribridge press release (pdf), though I haven't seen it anywhere on the wires yet.

Under The Oracle-SAP Radar: Can Workday Scale Into Financials? (Information Week: Global CIO)

DirecTV drops Comcast's G4 in latest tussle between media giants (LA Times: Company Town)

Here's The REAL Reason AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui Left Google (Silicon Alley Insider)




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Daily Links 11/1/2010: Philly Facebook Apps Maker Stuzo acquired by Dachis Group

Dachis Group Acquires Stuzo
Dachis Group Adds Facebook Preferred Developer Services and Facebook Social Marketing Platform to Firm's Global Social Business Offering (Marketwire)
Dachis Group Acquires Social Marketing Applications Developer Stuzo (TechCrunch)


For Broadband Carriers, Startup Ushers In A Cloud-y Future (Gigaom)
Comcast and Verizon invest in ConteXtream.

Cablevision-Fox Blackout May Raise Hurdles for Comcast-NBC Deal (Bloomberg)

Is Comcast’s Steve Burke About To Be The Most Important Name In Hollywood? (Forbes: Moneywood)

Where Are All The Cord Cutters? (Zatz Not Funny!)

Verizon Installs Moto's MediOS for TV Everywhere (Multichannel News)

Sprint CEO: Our 4G Strategy Is WiMAX, Full Stop! (Gigaom)

Dutch company flourishing in Tredyffrin office (Philly.com: Philly Inc)


Quality Systems Reports Fiscal 2011 Second Quarter Results
(Business Wire)
Quality Systems 2Q earnings rise but miss Street (AP via Business Week)
Quality Systems' principal business is NextGen Healthcare of Horsham.

Oracle finally gets SAP to trial, and maybe HP CEO (Reuters)

Oracle Seeks $2.3 Billion in SAP Download Trial (Bloomberg)

Three Reasons Why Venture Capitalists Are Investing in New York Startups (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

First Internet Guidelines from FDA Likely to Address Space Limitation Issue
(Pharma Marketing Blog)

Behind the Scenes: The Comcast Holiday Spectacular 2010 (Comcast Voices)



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Philly Tech People News 10/31/2010

John Sider Named Managing Director of Statewide Initiatives for Ben Franklin Technology Partners (Business Wire)

Web Host SunGard Availability Services Names New COO (Web Host Industry Review)

Rue La La Strengthens Leadership Team with Two Executive Hires
Steve Davis Appointed President and Ira Melnitsky Named Chief Merchandising Officer (PR
Newswire)


Beyond.com Names Joshua Akers as Director of Enterprise Sales

Acsis Appoints Nick Angelucci to Director of Professional Services (Business Wire)

CherryPad shipping delays cause headaches for Zecozi

For Philly-based startup Zecozi, which provides an ecommerce site focused on environmentally sustainable products, its agreement to be the exclusive US online distributor for California-based Cherrypal's CherryPad, a 7" energy efficient Android tablet priced at $188, was a big deal. But by late October, people who had placed orders and were expecting imminent delivery saw no sign of the product, nor could they find any tracking information on the shipments. Considerable noise was made on Internet forums, a few major blogs picked up the story, and some were questioning whether the CherryPad actually even existed since no one reportedly had seen one. Zecozi took much of the heat for this, even though it was not their job to ship the orders. The problem was heightened by a percieved lack of communications from CherryPal as to what was going on.

Although this was not Zecozi's fault (and they did their best to ameliorate the situation), what happened to them in this case is an inherent business risk if you are going to take orders for a product that you don't keep in inventory or don't have any control over the supply chain, particularly for a new and unproven product that is just coming off the the line for the first time.


Now, according to tweets and blog posts, shipments of the CherryPad are beginning to flow and be received by customers. There have been several initial reviews; some fairly positive, some not so positive, although the major complaint that it is pretty stripped down is not surprising given its price. But the product does exist and in general appears to be functioning properly. At this time, though, Zecozi is no longer showing the CherryPad as being available for order from its online store (not sure why).

Zecozi recently graduated from GoodCompany Ventures' incubator program and has raised $370,000 in venture capital, according to the FormDs website that tracks SEC filings (if I understand the filing correctly). It calls itself a "shared shopping" site which emphasizes interaction and information sharing among its users. Philly entrepreneur Deana Zelenka is founder & CEO.




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