Daily Links 5/16/2011: SunGard CEO Cristobal Conde steps down

SunGard Announces Chief Executive Officer Transition (Business Wire)
SunGard emphasizes that this is a long-planned transition for Cristobal Conde which has nothing to do with the company's sluggish performance in recent years. Some speculate, though, that it might be a step towards preparing for an exit (IPO or split-up?) for the PE firms involved.

City of Philadelphia Selects eClinicalWorks for Electronic Health Records (Business Wire)

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011 Greater Philadelphia finalists announced (Business Wire)

WSJ: data caps keep Netflix from "swamping the network" (Ars Technica)

Dish Network CEO Resigns (Light Reading Cable)
Charlie Ergen will remain as Chairman.

Greenblatt: NBC Will Add New Brian Williams Show to Schedule as 'Soon as It's Ready' (Hollywood Reporter)

The Uncertain Future of '30 Rock' (The Atlantic Wire)

Report: Comcast Wants Ron Meyer to Stay at Universal -- For Now (The Wrap)

Comcast Aims Metro Ethernet At Midsize Business
Services Portfolio Provides Capacity Up to 10 Gbps (Multichannel News)

RCR Wireless News global tour set for Philadelphia (RCR Wireless News)

One Small Start-Up’s Plan To Get Customers To Notice: An IPO
(Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
Israel-based WhiteSmoke, maker of English grammar software with US headquarters in Wilmington, plans IPO on the NASDAQ.

India owner sells Blue Bell software firm to Cerberus for $137M (Philly.com: Philly Deals)


Temple Opens Vault on Hybrid System (HPCwire)



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SAP annual conference kicks off in Orlando today

SAP's big annual confab, SAPPIRE NOW 2011 AND THE ASUG ANNUAL CONFERENCE, kicks off today in Orlando and runs through the 18th. Although it is not in as turbulent environment as last year's conference, which followed in the wake of CEO-level changes (Leo Apotheker out, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe in) and occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Sybase acquisition, there are several key issues industry analysts will be watching closely:



One year after the Sybase acquisition, where does SAP's mobile strategy stand?

What tangible progress can SAP show for its Business ByDesign SaaS product line?

The positioning of other SaaS offerings such as Sales on Demand, which are intended to work in tandem with its on-premise ERP systems. Also, any indication of management direction in this area in the wake of John Wookey's recent departure.

Offering a more complete explanation of its strategy for its HANA in-memory database analytics technology.

How will SAP position the relational database technology it acquired through the Sybase acquisition?

An update on SAP's software maintenance strategy and related plans for "key performance indicators".

Observers will also be watching closely to see how in-sync top management team members appear to be with each other.



Another anticipated highlight will be Sting's live performance on Wednesday night.

Philly Tech People News 5/15/2011

NFTE Philadelphia to Honor Michael G. Rubin at Annual Visionary Gala on November 17th (Business Wire)

NBCU Ups Dunleavy, Rosenbloom (Multichannel News)

Veeva Systems Hires Paul Shawah as Vice President of Multichannel Strategy (Business Wire)
Joins Veeva from SAP.

CRF Health Appoints John Larson as Chief Operating Officer (Business Wire)

Leading Social Journalist Steve Buttry Joins Journal Register Company (Journal Register Press Release)

Marc Keller Joins Advanced Call Center Technologies as Chief Compliance Officer (Business Wire)

Comcast is king of its empire (Cherry Hill Courier-Post)
A couple of newsworthy quotes from Comcast EVP David Cohen's South Jersey speech. Perhaps an NBC-type version of "60 Minutes"is coming.

Pac-12 TV deal: The ESPN-Fox partnership (San Jose Mercury News)
How they kept Comcast locked out.

3 Things to Expect From Hulu’s New Content Deals (Gigaom: NewTeeVee)

Daily Links 5/13/2011: SAP Told to Pay $345 Million for Infringing Versata Patent

SAP’s Plattner Courts Coca-Cola With Data-Analysis Software (Bloomberg)

SAP North American President Bob Courteau on Teamwork and Technology (ASUG News)

SAP Told to Pay $345 Million for Infringing Versata Patent (Bloomberg)

NetSuite under the microscope (ZDNet Blogs)

Aria Systems Announces Connector SuiteApp For NetSuite's SuiteCloud Computing Platform
Greater Configurability and Billing Sophistication Now Available for NetSuite Customers (Business Wire)

FCC’s Meredith Baker goes on the defensive (Washington Post: Post Tech)
Responds to criticisms over move to Comcast.

Netflix: ISPs Kill Web Freedom, Suck All Profits (Gigaom)

Verizon chief sees 3 big wireless firms in future (Tampa Tribune)
Lengthy, informative interview with incoming CEO Lowell McAdam.

Motorola Mobility Buys SunUp Digital Systems
Fourth Acquisition Since December 2010 (Multichannel News)

Tough Questions To Ask Cloud Service Providers (Information Week)



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The Pirate Bay Blocked by Comcast? ISP Says 'No' (PC World)

Philly Fed's Plosser Says Federal Reserve Should Tighten in ‘Not-Too-Distant Future’ (Bloomberg)


Case Study: Saving Money by Analyzing Trends (MIT Technology Review)
Highlights one organization's use of QlikTech's QlikView.

Cloud computing pioneer Martin Odersky takes wraps off his new company Typesafe (San Jose Mercury News)
Startup to support Scala programming language.

Pace Snatches Moto's Set-Top Crown (Light Reading Cable)

Clearwire Shares Getting Pounded on Intel Sales (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)

Managing software hairballs NetSuite style (ZDNet Blogs)

SAP and Verizon Expand Agreement to Jointly Market Verizon's Managed Mobility Platform (PR Newswire)

SAP HANA - Adapt or Die? (Bluefin Solutions Blog)

Platform, Partners Key to NetSuite's Future (PC World)

Comcast annual meeting lasts 35 minutes (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Republican FCC Commissioner Baker Expected to Leave Post [and join Comcast] (Wall Street Journal: Washington Wire)

Comcast taps FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker for D.C. office (LA Times: Company Town)

Kerry asks FCC to review Boston cable TV rates (Boston Globe)

Comcast Outlines the Rapid Growth of Online Video (Streaming Media Magazine)

AT&T, T-Mobile chiefs grilled on merger plan
(Washington Post: Post Tech)

InterDigital Issues Financial Guidance for Second Quarter 2011 (Business Wire)
Lowers forecast, largely due to Japan earthquake impact and change in one customer's license terms.

An army of techies waging war on spam (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Daily Links 5/10/2011: Ally Financial looking to acquire ING Direct

Comcast defends its local rates for cable TV
City’s FCC plea could have minor effect (Boston Globe)

YouTube Finally Opens Up Its Movie Rental Store For Real (Sort Of) (All Things Digital)
To include content from Comcast's Universal.

Comcast Self-Install Kits Let Subs Connect Without Truck Roll
Operator Charging $9.95 Shipping and Handling for Kits (Multichannel News)

DreamIt Ventures Announces Its First Batch Of NYC Startups (TechCrunch)

Ally Financial wants to buy ING Direct, Post reports (Delaware Online: Delaware Inc)

PANL Drops 15%, But Even Bears See Bright LED Future (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
Universal Display is based in Ewing, NJ.

NetSuite aims at enterprises with 'unlimited' ERP push (Infoworld)

NetSuite Challenges Salesforce.com Software, Signs Groupon Deal (Bloomberg)

USA Technologies, Inc. Reports Results for Fiscal 2011 Third Quarter
Recurring Revenue - License and Transaction Fees - Up 79%, Total Revenue Up 50% (Business Wire)

Angel Investment Tax Credit Proposed for Pennsylvania (TECHburgher)

Patent Litigation Comes To The Interactive TV Sector (MediaPost)

Rowan University gets grant to do virtual work for Camden and Vineland (Gloucester County Times)



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The small, highly interconnected world of Home Shopping Channels: QVC, HSN, ShopNBC (and Comcast)

Liberty Media, which announced quarterly results on Friday, also said it expects to complete its long planned split-offs of both Liberty Starz (the movie channels) and Liberty Capital (which includes the Atlanta Braves and most of Berwyn-based TruePosition, among other holdings) this summer. This follows a favorable ruling the week before last in Delaware Chancery Court against bondholders challenging the split-offs; a vote for shareholder approval is scheduled for May 23.


That will leave Liberty Media with what is now called Liberty Interactive, consisting largely of West Chester-based cable shopping channel giant QVC. Liberty Interactive will then become an asset-backed company, instead of a "tracking stock" like Interactive, Starz, and Liberty Capital are now. A tracking stock is a strange financial device (in my mind) that has mostly gone out of fashion in which the holder does not actually own a legal share of the underlying assets of the company, but rather a sort of virtual share that reflects its value.


This transition has several implications, but one of them is, in the view of many analysts, that it will be more likely that Liberty will try to acquire the other two thirds of HSN (parent of Home Shopping Network) that it does not already own and integrate it with QVC. Liberty Chairman John Malone and CEO Greg Maffei have both suggested in the past that this might be a logical outcome at the right price. HSN has annual revenue in the $3 billion range and a current market capitalization of about $2 billion (see Home Shopping Network On Comeback Trail) ; QVC's annual revenue is about $7 billion and Liberty Interactive's market cap is over $13 billion.


What are Comcast's interests in this market? It owned a majority of QVC from 1995 until 2003, when it sold out to Liberty Media. Now, through NBCU it controls about 13% of Minnesota-based ValueVision, which operates under the brand name ShopNBC through a license from NBC. ValueVision, which was struggling not too long ago, has been doing better recently and has become a sort of "QVC West" as it has imported much of its top management team from QVC (including CEO Keith Stewart). ValueVision is still a relative minnow, with under $1 billion in revenue and less than universal cable distribution. Comcast has not commented on what intentions it may have for ValueVision. Some speculate that Comcast may seek to increase its stake or even try to take control of ValueVision, so it has a hedge against the domination of a possible QVC/HSN combination in the category and a way to participate more directly in the emergence of interactive ecommerce applications delivered through Cable TV.



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Daily Links 5/9/2011: Comcast Scraps TiVo Set-Top Deal, But Will Open VOD Tap

GSI Commerce Announces End of “Go-Shop” Period, Early Termination of Antitrust Waiting Period and Record Date and Meeting Date for Special Meeting of Stockholders (Business Wire)

eBay Gets Closer To Closing $2.4 Billion GSI Commerce Acquisition (TechCrunch)

Dan Gross: Spielberg's in town for fundraiser (Philadelphia Daily News)

Comcast Xfinity On Demand Coming To TiVo Premiere DVRs (CrunchGear)

Comcast Scraps TiVo Set-Top Deal, But Will Open VOD Tap
Cable Operator Will Help Promote TiVo Premiere DVR Solution With Retail, Marketing Support (Multichannel News)

Dish Network to launch wireline broadband soon (Denver Business Journal)

SAP has some explaining to do at Sapphire (Computerworld)

Why SaaS should not frighten megavendors (ZDNet Blogs)

Bentley Systems expands Dublin operation
110 new jobs in shared services, sales and marketing (TechCentral.ie)

QlikTech Expands with new European Centre
New Hub Focuses On Growing Small & Medium Sized Customers. (QlikTech Press Release)

Manage The Mayhem Of Mobile BI (Information Week)

Deloitte Buys Oco for BI, Analytics (PC World)

Event Report: Dell’s Annual Analyst Conference Highlights Enterprise Software Future (Forbes Blogs)

AMETEK ACQUIRES COINING HOLDING COMPANY (PR Newswire)
For $148 million.

Careerminds grabs capital and a chairman (Delaware Online: Delaware Inc)



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Philly Tech People News 5/8/2011

ERT Announces Appointment of New President and CEO (PR Newswire)

MEDecision Announces Executive Promotion
Carole Hodsdon Named Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (Marketwire)

Jim Walker Named Technology CEO of the Year
Award presented during the PACT 18th Annual Enterprise Awards Banquet (Globe Newswire)

Analytics unit of Wolters Kluwer to get new CEO (Medical Marketing & Media)

Universal production shake-up: Debbie Liebling out; Peter Cramer, Jeffrey Kirschenbaum promoted (LA Times: Company Town)

Maiden Media Group Welcomes Four New Hires (PR Newswire)

Activant Solutions Promotes Getty to Vice President, Product Development (PRLog)

BioLeap Names Keith Mackay as Vice President for Sales in Next Step to Further Commercialize Novel Molecular Design (Business Wire)

The Cline Group Expands Leadership Team with Appointment of David Andrew Goldman as Vice President of Global Communications and Practice Leader for Technology and Cleantech (Business Wire)

MTI Names Allison Tittle Director, Strategic Service (Business Wire)