Comcast has to sit on its hands while Hulu drama plays out (LA Times: Company Town)

Google Health Creator Adam Bosworth On Why It Failed: “It’s Not Social” (TechCrunch)

User Research : The Academic - Practitioner Divide (Henken Bean)
Report on last week's PhillyCHI meeting.

Computerworld's "BEST PLACES TO WORK IN IT": UPenn #6

Computerworld's annual BEST PLACES TO WORK IN IT issue is out, and it pretty much includes the usual suspects. I sometimes wonder whether they just take the previous year's list and rearrange it slightly to make it look different; actually Computerworld describes its selection process as being rather methodical, including survey responses from almost 30,000 employees in the top 100 companies. UPenn ranks 6th, Computerworld citing its benefits program and its "Models of Excellence" employee-recognition program.


Other Philly area companies/organizations include the Lehigh Valley Health Network of Allentown (20), The Vanguard Group of Malvern (29), which has over 2200 IT employees, Heartland Payment Systems of Princeton (30), which a couple of years ago was the victim of what was perhaps the worst hacking breach in history but has worked hard since to become a leader in cybersecurity issues, American Water of Vorhees (43) and Temple University of Philadelphia (67). Verizon Wireless (5) has many Philly-area employees and is headquartered not too far away in Basking Ridge, NJ. Penn National Insurance (96) is based in Harrisburg.


Alternatively, Computerworld offers a forum where people can discuss the "worst places to work" in IT.



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Daily Links 6/24/2011: Google to shut down Google Health

What's next for Hulu? (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast Added To Goldman Conviction Buy List; Shrs Rise (Forbes: The Tech Trade)

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban on Data-Mining (Sorrell v. IMS Health) (MedPage Today)

Corporates outbid private equity for good assets (MarketWatch)
Says SunGard is bidder for Thomson Reuters' Kondor, names several area companies as possible bidders for Thomson Reuters' healthcare info business.

Oracle Declines After Reporting Unexpected 6% Drop in Its Hardware Sales (Bloomberg)

HANA Is HERE: 4 Things to Consider (ASUG News)

Two SMBs take different paths to SAP ERP (SAP Watch)

Google Shuts Down Medical Records And Health Data Platform (TechCrunch)
Google Blog Post

AppLabs to hire 1,000 software testing engineers (Business Standard)
Company expects about 50% revenue growth for year.

Struggling Nokia revamps ops, reels in Navteq (Reuters)
Possible implications for Navteq's Traffic.com operations in Wayne?

Lockheed Martin to Develop Automated System for Intelligence Analysts (Marketwire)

Fitch Upgrades Liberty Media and QVC IDRs to 'BB'; Outlook Stable (Business Wire)

Lawmakers Want to Block LightSquared Approval (PC World)



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ISTE 2011 coming to Philly beginning Sunday

The ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) will hold its 2011 Conference beginning this Sunday and running through June 29 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The ISTE describes itself as the "premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in advancing excellence in learning and teaching through innovative and effective uses of technology". More than 17,000 attendees are expected this year, the group says.


"Unlocking Potential" is the theme of this year's conference, which is held in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology (PAECT). Philly's Chris Lehman, founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), will give the Closing Keynote on school reform on Wednesday afternoon.


You can check out other upcoming Philly Tech events here.



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Daily Links 6/23/2011: Supreme Court rules for IMS Health in Vermont data case

Supreme Court rules for IMS Health in Vermont data case (Medical Marketing & Media)

Digitas Health, Razorfish Health to share new leadership, global team, in efficiency-driven reorg (Medical Marketing & Media)
No immediate staff reductions indicated, despite rumors.

Oracle net tops views, but shares sink
Decline in hardware sales misses company’s earlier forecast (MarketWatch)

Oracle Reports Q4 GAAP EPS Up 34% to 62 Cents; Q4 Non-GAAP EPS Up 25% to 75 Cents
Q4 Software New License Sales Up 19%, Q4 Total Revenue Up 13% (Marketwire)

Fidelity National in Talks to Buy U.K.’s Misys (Bloomberg)
SunGard, which bid on Misys in 2006, not said to be involved in talks now.

Exclusive: Top ISPs poised to adopt graduated response to piracy (CNET News)

Viacom files suit against Cablevision over iPad application (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast Praises Republican Regulatory Reform Effort
Joins Verizon and others in weighing in on FCC reform hearing (Broadcasting & Cable)

Up for Another Round of “Where’s Léo?” Why HP’s Lawsuit Is a Gift for Oracle. (All Things Digital)

Cloud World Forum: Dell outlines its controversial cloud strategy (computing.co.uk)
Dell Boomi's Bob Moul addresses Cloud World Forum in London.

Dell Acquires Cloud Memory Startup RNA Networks (ReadWriteCloud)

With Terremark, Verizon’s cloud isn’t “one size fits all” (Gigaom)

How Jack Abraham Is Reinventing EBay (Fast Company)
Wharton student whose startup Milo was acquired by eBay last year.

EBay Plans Fulfillment Service for Sellers (Wall Street Journal: Digits)
Still confused as to what parts of GSI Commerce's fulfillment business eBay actually acquired.

We Have Winners! The Monetate Open Source Prize goes to… (Monetate Blog)

Amid Reports Of IPO Plans, Chegg Acquires Lecture Note Marketplace Notehall [a DreamIt Ventures-backed company] (TechCrunch)



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Daily Links 6/22/2011: Hulu is looking for buyer; McKesson to acquire Portico Systems for $90 million

Source: This Hulu/Yahoo Story Is BS (TechCrunch)

Who Might Buy Hulu? Let the Guessing Begin! (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)
Update: Hulu puts itself up for sale, retains investment banks (LA Times: Company Town)

Safeguard Scientifics Announces That McKesson Will Acquire Portico Systems for $90 Million
Sale of Healthcare IT Company Expected to Generate 4x Cash-on-Cash Return for Safeguard (Business Wire)
Another in a string of successful exits for Safeguard. Blue Bell-based Portico Systems was co-founded by CEO Ned Moore and CTO Scott Fraser.

McKesson to Acquire Portico Systems for $90M – Represents Safeguard’s Fourth Exit Transaction in Six Months (Safeguard Scientifics Blog)

Octagon Research Solutions, Inc. Expands – Adding 100 Jobs in the US, EU and Asia Pacific Regions (Octagon Research Solutions Press Release)

[Camden-based] Real Estate Mobile App Developer Smarter Agent Raises $6 Million (TechCrunch)

Interview: SAP Ventures to Add to India Portfolio (Wall Street Journal)

The SEC defines 'venture capital' (Fortune)

Radnor's Milestone Partners Plots New Fund (PE Hub)

Reid’s top aide got $1.2M from Comcast (Politico)
After he left Comcast and joined Reid's office (as part of exit agreement).


AT&T Targets Comcast In S.F. Bay Area With 1 Million U-verse Homes Passed (Multichannel News)

Comcast Targets FiOS Frontier Customers
Comcast Ads Accuse ISP of 'Pulling the Plug' (Broadband Reports)

The Human Genome—Now on an iPad® Near You (PR Newswire)
New app from CHOP.



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Radnor's Cross Atlantic Capital Partners invests in RootStock Software, is raising new fund

Radnor-based VC firm Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, which I profiled last year, announced earlier this month it had invested in RootStock Software, a San Ramon, CA-based developer of SaaS (Software as a service) manufacturing software for the mid-market. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.


Founded in 2008, RootStock's principal go to market strategy to this point has been through a partnership with SaaS Cloud ERP vendor NetSuite. Cross Atlantic was also an investor in NetSuite prior to its going public, although that relationship is not how its investment in RootStock came about, according to Cross Atlantic (XACP for short) Chairman, CEO and founder Donald Caldwell. Rootstock currently has 12 employees and 24 customers, according to Pat Garrehy, its founder & CEO. NetSuite has been actively marketing it as a "white label" solution under the Netsuite umbrella for about six months.


While its relationship with NetSuite has limited the amount of resources RootStock has had to invest so far on client-side activities, Garrehy says the company is definitely looking to expand to other SaaS platforms, including those of Salesforce and possibly Workday. Caldwell says Cross Atlantic probably would not have invested in RootStock if it wasn't for the additional opportunities these other platforms offer.


Rootstock provides applications such as manufacturing requirements planning (MRP) and other functions related to production management for discrete manufacturers. Its principle (more) established competitor in the SaaS manufacturing space is Plex. Other more traditional competitors coming from the on-premise side are trying to make the transition to SaaS, with varying degrees of success. Of course, SAP AG, with its Business ByDesign platform, would like to become a major factor there. But everything I'm hearing about SaaS indicates that the pace of adoption is quickening, even in mission critical applications, despite the skepticism of some (see Is SaaS the key to cloud revenues? ).



Rootstock's value is in its very specific manufacturing expertise (Garrehy previously founded ERP software firm Relevant Business Systems, which was later acquired by Consona). Although Rootstock has been marketed through Netsuite, it built its own proprietary SaaS technology, one that "pushes a lot of data in-memory", Garrehy says. Although many applications probably don't do as much work in-memory as is sometimes implied, he says, in-memory techniques
have helped Rootstalk significantly reduce processing times for many tasks.


Although an article in Forbes early this year had listed Cross Atlantic among "Zombie Venture Capital Firms" because it had not announced a fund raise since 2005, Caldwell is at work on the early stages of raising a new fund. Pension & Investments reported (registration required) this month and Caldwell confirmed that a previous partner, the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (PennSERS) has committed up to $20 million to Cross Atlantic Technology Fund III.


Two Philly-area portfolio companies worth watching are Voxware of Hamilton, NJ and InsPro Technologies of Eddystone, PA. Voxware, which provides a voice-picking application for warehouses, had gone public and perhaps expanded too quickly before its market was ready, so Cross Atlantic took it private again late last year, scaled it back and invested an additional $2 million. It remains a promising venture. InsPro Technologies grew out of an insurance agency for health, life, and annuities insurance; the company developed a SaaS platform to manage the sales/service process and eventually jettisoned the agency to focus on marketing the technology.


As for the "bubble" question, Caldwell thinks there may be signs of that in the social media and green tech sectors, but Cross Atlantic focuses mostly on the enterprise sector which has been relatively immune to this point.



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Daily Links 6/21/2011: Comcast says it will cut waits for cable service

Is the NJ Data Center Market Facing Oversupply? (Data Center Knowledge)

SAP's HANA in-memory analytics engine now available (Computerworld)

HANA is here...innit? (ZDNet Blogs)

Comcast Will Slash Wait Times for Cable Repair After ‘Worst’ Designation (Bloomberg)

Comcast CEO: “Jury is Out” on Netflix’s Impact (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Speaks Out on Bloomberg FCC Complaint, NBC News (MediaBistro: TVNewswer)

(Report):Hulu Considering Selling Itself After Receiving An Offer (Silicon Alley Insider)

Hulu weighs sale options after approach: source (Reuters)
LA Times headline says Yahoo is the bidder, though article isn't so clear on that.


NextDocs Announces Creation of Life Sciences Scalability Lab
New lab to allow Microsoft clients and partners to test scalability and reliability requirements of solutions prior to deployment (Business Wire)

Poptent Opens Brazil Office, Surpasses $2 Million in Creator Cash Payments during Dell Video Advertising Campaign (Business Wire)

Bulletin: Gannett announces 700 newspaper layoffs (Gannett Blog)

IBM's Netezza rolls out large-scale analytic appliance (Computerworld)

University of Pennsylvania/MAGPI to Provide Advanced Networking, Applications, Demonstrations at ISTE 2011 Conference (Penn News)

Daily Links 6/20/2011: eBay completes GSI Commerce acquisition

eBay Inc. Completes Acquisition of GSI Commerce (Business Wire)

eBay + GSI Commerce. Deal Closed! (GSI Commerce Blog)

ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million in Series B Financing Led by Kaplan Ventures
Kaplan EduNeering concurrently forms strategic reseller partnership with ProtonMedia (Business Wire)

Virtual World Technology Developer ProtonMedia Raises $4.5 Million (TechCrunch)

iControl raises $50M from Intel, Cisco, Comcast, Kleiner (Gigaom)

Comcast Digs In at 30 Rock: Communal Toilets, Buffet Dining and Where's G.E.? (The Wrap)

The NBC News/CNBC Exodus, Why Is So Much Top Talent Leaving The Network? (Mediaite)

Powell: Comcast/NBCU Merger Net Positive for Industry
Not sure how having both under same NCTA tent will shake out (Broadcasting & Cable)

Comcast Using Juniper, Ciena Metro Ethernet Gear
MSO Offers Services Aimed at Midsize Businesses in 20 U.S. Markets (Multichannel News)

What's Wrong with Enterprise Software Anyway? (Read Write Web)

Is SaaS the key to cloud revenues?
(Gigaom)

New Oracle Health Care Platform Provides Unified View of Drug Trial Data (eWeek)

New technology to fight Medicare, Medicaid fraud announced in Philly (Philadelphia Inquirer)

DuckDuckGo: popular search engines don’t offer true search results
(Geek.com)



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SageTV HTPC software acquired by Google, next stop Google TV? (Engadget)

Pharma digerati push for online guidelines (Medical Marketing & Media)

Philly Tech People News 6/19/2011

University City Science Center Names New Board Chairman (Business Wire)

Unisys Elects Alison Davis to Board of Directors (PR Newswire)

JackBe Names Former QlikTech Business Intelligence Executive as New CEO (Business Wire)

Environmental Tectonics Corporation Selects Robert L. Laurent, Jr. to Succeed Duane D. Deaner as Chief Financial Officer (PR Newswire)

Agilence Names Mike Mitchell VP of Customer Service
Retail software services veteran to direct all customer support (Business Wire)