Philly Tech People News 6/12/2011

To Meet Rapidly Increasing Demand for In-Memory Computing, SAP Appoints Christoph Kollatz Executive Vice President, SAP HANA (PR Newswire)

Archer Promotes Derins and Miller to Managing Partners (The Archer Group)

Comcast Names Johnnie Giles Executive Director for External Affairs (Business Wire)

Pervez Qureshi Named as Chief Executive Officer of Epicor
Former Chairman, President and CEO George Klaus to Retain Chairman Role (Press Release)
Epicor was recently combined with Activant, which has significant operations based in Yardley, PA.

Scott Slifer Joins ISGN as President of Sales and Marketing
(National Mortgage Professional)

Joseph M. Manko, Jr. Joins Mufson Howe Hunter & Company as Managing Director (Business Wire)

Janney Continues to Deepen Equity Research, Adding Senior Internet Analyst Richard Fetyko (Business Wire)

Catholic Health East Appoints Three Information Services Leaders (Press Release)

ShopNBC Appoints Logistics Veteran Nathan Martin as Vice President of Fulfillment (Marketwire)
Another QVC veteran joins ShopNBC.


municibid Appoints Chief Marketing Officer (municibid Press Release)

Safeguard Scientifics celebrates 40 years on the NYSE; Special Librarians invade Philly

Safeguard Scientifics, which historically had been the major catalyst behind the growth of the Philly area's tech sector and remains an important factor today, is celebrating its 40th year of being listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which it will culminate by ringing the NYSE closing bell on July 14. Safeguard is rather unique, being one of the few publicly listed firms whose primary business is venture capital.

As part of its commemoration, Safeguard has set up a special website, which will highlight 40 significant historical facts about Safeguard - one per day leading up to July 14. For example, one of those facts is that Safeguard was originally founded as the Lancaster Corporation in 1953.


The Special Libraries Association (SLA) will hold its 2011 Annual Conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, beginning on Sunday and running through June 15. Special Librarians are special people; they bring a great deal of specific knowledge and expertise to fields like business, technology, medicine and healthcare. The information business is big in the Philly area, and Drexel's iSchool has one of the best Special Library programs in the country. The Philadelphia chapter of the SLA will play a role in hosting the conference.

Daily Links 6/10/2011: IBM preparing to launch potential QlikTech competitor

The startup behind Comcast’s home service: iControl (Gigaom)

Comcast CEO’s Bet on Profitable Olympics Met With Skepticism (Bloomberg)

NBCUniversal Executives Huddle for First Retreat Under Comcast (Hollywood Reporter)

IBM at 100: Big Blue`s Top Divestitures and Spinoffs (eWeek)
SAP AG was originally a spinoff out of IBM.

IBM Readies Data Visualization Play
Cognos release could disrupt market dominated by specialty vendors QlikTech and Tableau. (Information Week)

Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain: Apple Tops, SAP Customers Abound (ASUG News)

ePayments Week: eBay's ecommerce platform (O' Reilly Radar)

Definitive Answers On Quality Score: Q&A With ClickEquations’ Craig Danuloff (Search Engine Land)
ClickEquations is based in Conshohocken.

Synergy 2011 - Interview with Joe Makoid, Devon IT (Citrix TV)



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Daily Links 6/9/2011: Roberts To Unveil Comcast's Next-Generation Video Product at Cable Show

Cable Show 2011: Roberts To Unveil Comcast's Next-Generation Video Product
CEO to Stage Demo During General Session Thursday, June 16 (Multichannel News)


Keeping Olympics was priority for NBC (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast Said to Be in Talks Over G4 Cable Channel (New York Times)

Comcast doubly blessed with wireless spectrum (FierceCable)
Discussion from yesterday's RCR Wireless conference in Philadelphia.

Carrier consolidation shifts investment strategy, VC panel says (RCR Wireless News)

Comcast CFO Discusses Comcast/NBCUniversal and the Future of Media (Video: Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce)

One Financial Analyst’s Bearish View on SAP and Oracle (ASUG News)

SAP’s Snabe Says Closer Linkup With HP on Real-Time Analytics Makes Sense (Bloomberg)

Why SAP must acquire a hardware vendor for In-Memory (John Appleby/Bluefin Solutions)

KKR Said Is to Seek a Minority Stake in ING Unit Amid GE, Capital One Bids (Bloomberg)

SunGard Implements Hara Environmental and Energy Management to Strengthen Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Initiatives (Business Wire)

Ahead of the Bell: Janney upgrades Heartland (AP via Forbes)
Could benefit from new swipe fee limits.

500 Startups Unveils 2nd Batch of 21 Startups
(TechCrunch)
Includes LaunchRock, which was originally launched in Philly.

PHILADELPHIA NAMED 2012 CODE FOR AMERICA FINALIST (City of Philadelphia Press Release)



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Daily Links 6/8/2011: Google And Invite Media One Year Later

Comcast Scales Up Home Security Push
Expands Broadband-Based System to Seven Markets, Including Philadelphia, Houston, and Portland, Ore. (Multichannel News)

How Will NBCUniversal's Olympics Deal Affect Comcast's Stock? (Hollywood Reporter)

NBC finally ‘gets it,’ will kill the Olympic tape delay (Gigaom: NewTeeVee)

GE, Capital One Said to Vie for ING Online Bank; Bids May Reach $9 Billion (Bloomberg)

Google And Invite Media: One Year Later, DSP Looks To Global Expansion (paidContent)

Online advertising a boon for Philadelphia firms (Philly.com: Philly Deals)


appMobi Acquires Hosting Platform; Launches Tech To Speed Up HTML5 In Mobile Gaming (TechCrunch)

ARAMARK Sells Stake In Online Food Ordering Service SeamlessWeb For $50M (TechCrunch)

Sprint Pares Clearwire Voting Interest to Less Than 50% (Bloomberg)

Dell Plans New VAR Cloud Certification By Year-end (CRN)

Twitter post leads to LVEDC firing
Tweet about summer hours policy contributes to employee's termination (Allentown Morning Call)

U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book: Philadelphia District (Text) (Bloomberg)



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Sabre Industries of North Wales withdraws IPO

Sabre Industries, a North Wales, PA, provider of equipment and services to the energy transmission and wireless industries, announced today it was withdrawing its planned IPO, "due to the current pricing environment for initial public offerings". It had planned to go public later this week, selling seven million shares at between $12 and $14 per share.


PE firm Corinthian Capital Group is the majority investor in Sabre Industries, whose primary products are towers and poles for wireless communications an energy transmission. Sabre reported a net loss of $9.6 million on revenues of $264.3 million for the 12 months ended Jan. 31.

Daily Links 6/7/2011: NBC wins Olympic rights; 76ers deal may be close

Comcast bids for Olympic-coverage rights (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Comcast should be finishing its presentation to the IOC right about now.

NBC wins U.S. TV rights to four Olympic Games through 2020 (USA Today)

NBC holds onto Olympics through 2020 with $4.3-billion bid (LA Times: Company Town)

Sources: 76ers sales talks ongoing (ESPN)

Clearwire, Comcast And Sprint Widen WiMax In Philly, Pittsburgh
Philadelphia 4G Network Now Covers 4.37 Million People; Pittsburgh Up to 830,000 (Multichannel News)

Liberty Media Reports Appeal in Bank of New York Bank Case (Bloomberg)

SAP Wins Court Approval of Sybase Shareholder Settlement (Bloomberg)

2011 Be Together: The Bentley User Conference ‘Keynote Report’ (Business Wire)

Cloud Expo: Talking to Rick Nucci, Boomi CTO (Dell Community: Inside Enterprise IT)

Felix Zandman: The Man Who Wouldn't Quit (EBN)

Google's Eric Schmidt Will Be Featured Keynote at Kenexa 2011 World Conference (Marketwire)

Google VP Mohan Speaks Display Ads, Invite Media At Conversational Marketing Summit (AdExchanger.com)

An Epic Morning in the Exam Room (Wrench in the System)





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Vishay Intertechnology Mourns the Loss of Its Founder, Dr. Felix Zandman (Business Wire)
"Dr. Zandman was born in 1928 in the Polish city of Grodno and in October 1941, he and his family were arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Grodno ghetto. Dr. Zandman survived the Holocaust by hiding with his uncle Sender and other people under the floor boards in the house of a Polish family for 17 months."

Comcast Buys Blackstone’s Universal Parks Stake for $1 Billion (Bloomberg)

Comcast expands IPv6 trial
Hundreds of broadband subscribers nationwide test next-gen Internet service (Network World)

Verizon Offers Mix-And-Match FiOS Bundles
Telco Lets Customers Upgrade Elements for $5 to $10 Extra Per Month (Multichannel News)

Fed's Plosser: jobs data doesn't change view (Reuters)

Salesforce.com's Benioff talks growth, Microsoft (Network World)
Benioff: "They might as well rename Azure 'Azune'. It's basically having the same level of success".

Apple launches iCloud; here’s what powers it (Gigaom)

HP shifts to purpose-built systems
Bundling servers, storage, networking, software and services is increasingly important to HP -- and the IT industry (Computerworld)

EBay acquires Magento, builds a commerce OS (Gigaom)

Olympic Rights: U.S. Networks Gear Up For Games' Auction
Comcast's NBCU, Disney's ESPN/ABC, News Corp.'s Fox SportsTo Convene With IOC In Switzerland On June 6-7 (Multichannel News)

Philly Tech People News 6/5/2011

GSI Commerce Selects Tobias Hartmann as Chief Executive Officer of GSI Commerce’s Global Operations Organization (Press Release)

ThingWorx Expands to Meet Demand for Operational Innovation Through Its Platform for a Connected World
Manufacturing, M2M and Smart Grid among the first industries to benefit from growing universe of connected devices and systems (Business Wire)


Beth Roberts Named COO, UCP & EVP, NBCU Cable Entertainment, Cable Studios
Exec Will Oversee Growth Of UCP, Business Affairs For USA, Syfy, E!, G4, Among Others (Multichannel News)

Universal Taps Nicholas Carpou as Co-President of Distribution (Hollywood Reporter)

Acclaris makes Philadelphia-area man CEO (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Tribal boss goes to SunGard (Education Investor)

TimeSight Systems Extends Management Team With Seasoned Sales Executive (Marketwire)

QuiqMeds Appoints Steven H. Kane as Chief Executive Officer (Business Wire)

Lattice Taps Noted Executive Leader To Accelerate Company’s Growth (Business Wire)

BFTP/SEP Appoints Jon E. Zelinsky, PE, Manager of GPIC Business Development (Ben Franklin Technology Partners SEP)

Comcast VC arm leads stampede to San Francisco's 1 Kearny St. (San Francisco Business Times)