Daily Links 8/3/2011: PA Auditor General knocks $66.6 million Oracle ERP project for Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board

Samsung Is Said to Examine InterDigital Patents (Bloomberg)

Google Slams Patent Foes’ ‘Hostile, Organized Campaign Against Android’ (paidContent)

Oracle ERP project 'a waste of taxpayer money' (PC World)
PA Auditor General knocks $66.6 million Oracle ERP project undertaken by Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board.

Intel Labs Invests $30M in the Future of Cloud and Embedded Computing with the Opening of Latest Intel Science and Technology Centers (Business Wire)
To be located at Carnegie Mellon; researchers at Penn, Princeton will also be involved.


CLWR Off On Deeper Q2 Loss; Plans To Add LTE
(Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)


Avista, Cinven among bidders for Reuters' Kondor: sources (Reuters)

Comcast to beef up technology in Vail (Vail Daily)
Its very important for cable companies to keep customers happy in places like Vail, Martha's Vineyard.



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Daily Links 8/2/2011: Comcast's diversity progress questioned

Apply to Open Angel Forum Philly II (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)

Web 1.0 Winners Aim For Lucky Strike #2 With Internet of Things Startup, ThingWorx (Read Write Web)
ThingWorx is based in Exton.

Kenexa Announces Financial Results for Second Quarter 2011 (Business Wire)

SevOne Continues Strong Growth and Expands Product, Partnerships and Leadership Team (Marketwire)

Earnings Preview: Comcast to report 2Q earnings tomorrow (AP via Bloomberg Business Week)

Comcast-NBCU Under Fire for Not Moving Fast Enough on Diversity
(The Wrap)

NBC's Robert Greenblatt: 'It's My Schedule for Better or Worse' (Hollywood Reporter)

Does Cable Have a Wireless Plan B? (Light Reading Cable)

FiOS dominates as FCC measures actual Internet speeds (Ars Technica)

Edison Ventures Completes 16th IPO with Tangoe (Nasdaq: TNGO)
6X Return Reinforces Edison’s SaaS Leadership
(PR Web)

VectorLearning Completes $24 Million Investment from LLR Partners to Support Continued Growth & Acquisitions
Leading online education provider VectorLearning has received funding from private equity firm LLR Partners.
(PR Web)

Turntable.fm closing $7.5M round led by Union Square Ventures (VentureBeat)
First Round Capital was an early backer.

Vishay Reports Results for Second Quarter 2011 (Business Wire)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2011 Results (Business Wire)

Donald Farmer’s Take on Business Discovery (The QlikView Blog)

RES Software Achieves 185 Percent Growth in Target Markets and Accelerates Expansion within Key Geographies
50 Percent Overall Year-Over-Year Growth and Record First-Half Bookings Realized, RES Poised for Aggressive Second-Half Growth
(Business Wire)

Christie: Technology investments a priority in NJ
(AP via NJ.com)



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Guggenheim Venture Partners is now Alara Capital, and other Philly area VC news

Guggenheim Venture Partners, based in King of Prussia and Austin, is now Alara Capital, the firm has announced, and is no longer affiliated with Guggenheim Partners, LLC. Guggenheim Venture Partners managing directors Mike Burns and Eric Rothfus will lead Alara's operations.

Alara said it will continue its strategy of investing in undercapitalized technology companies with practices in distressed venture capital, early stage ventures and technology spin-outs, and will expand that focus into growth equity and active value investing with future private equity funds. Alara will manage Guggenheim Technology Ventures I, a fund begun in 2008 with a total today of $65 million in capital and stakes in nine technology companies. It is also raising money for a new fund; Pensions & Investments reported in March that PennSERS (Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System) had committted up to $10 million to Guggenheim Technology Ventures II.

GVP's portfolio has included Bethlehem-based Ciclon, which was spun off out of Agere Systems and acquired by Texas Instruments in 2009; it also includes social commerce platforms provider GreenLink of Wayne.

Mike Burns was a co-founder of Traffic.com and and was with Agere Systems and TL Ventures; Eric Rothfus was CEO of Agere and was also with TL Ventures.

The State of Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority (BFTDA) has approved a $30.6 million investment to support the four regionally based Ben Franklin Technology Partners, it was
announced on Friday
. Of that amount, $16.6 million will focus the on development of alternate energy start-ups and new product innovations. It appears that the apples to apples comparison for the regional funding (excluding the alternative energy part) is $3.5 million next year vs. $4 million the past two years and $6.9 million per year before that.

DreamIt Ventures is currently working to finalize its selections (15 including 5 in the Comcast Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program) for its Fall 2011 Philadelphia class. Kickoff Weekend will held on September 9-10.

CloudBees, a Boston-based startup providing a Cloud Platform as a Service for Java Web Apps, raised $10.5 million in Series B funding, bringing its total investment to $14.5 million. Philly area entrepreneur (Bluestone, JBoss) and angel Bob Bickel was an early investor in CloudBees and is a board member.

John Martinson, founder and Managing Partner of Lawrencevile-based Edison Ventures, and his wife Eileen Martinson, are bringing minor league hockey back to Trenton after the recent demise of the Trenton Devils. The new team will have the name of Trenton's old hockey team, the Titans, and will be affiliated with the Flyers. Eileen Martinson is the CEO of Sparta Systems, a Holmdel-based software company. The investment is a personal one, not related to the venture firm.

Edison Ventures announced today that it is investing $5 million in Salsa Labs, a DC-based fundraising software firm.

Cross Atlantic Capital Partners of Radnor has participated in a in $12 million Series E Funding in Interactions Corporation, a Massachusetts-based provider of interactive voice response (IVR) systems for customer care. Cross Atlantic led Interactions' Series C Round last year.



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Daily Links 8/1/2011: Versus to become the NBC Sports Network

Versus set to become the NBC Sports Network (USA Today)

Versus Will Fly NBC Sports Colors (Multichannel News)

With Universal, Comcast hopes to make a big splash in movies (Philadelphia Inquirer)

NBCUniversal starts to overhaul its TV studio (LA Times: Company Town)

Apple Announces A Full Assault On The Cable Box With The Streaming Of Purchased TV Shows (TechCrunch)

Rue La La launches local deals in Chicago, challenging Groupon (Chicago Tribune)
Rue La La, formerly part of GSI Commerce, is now majority-owned by former GSI Commerce founder Michael Rubin's holding company.

Windstream to Buy Paetec for $891 Million (New York Times: DealBook)

Skillshare Expands to San Francisco; Next Stop Philly (BetaBeat)

Appirio CEO talks Workday, SaaS momentum, IPO (ZDNet Blogs)

Amazon Start-Up Challenge goes global (Gigaom)



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Easing shift from paper to computer
Delaware is the national leader in push to electronic medical records - thanks to Beth Schindele and staff.
(Philadelphia Inquirer)


The Long Reach of Oracle’s Larry Ellison (All Things Digital)

SAP And Oracle Battle, Customers Avoid Choosing Sides (Information Week)

Why Amazon Should Buy Hulu (Read Write Web)


Quality Systems, QlikTech earnings reports

What are probably the two hottest publicly traded tech companies with a major presence in the Philadelphia area announced quarterly results yesterday.

Quality Systems, Inc. is not actually based here, but in Irvine, CA, though virtually all of its revenue generating business comes out of its Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare unit. NextGen provides electronic health record (EHR) systems to health practices and hospitals, though it has historically gotten most of its business from smaller practices. It has benefitted from the up to $19 billion in subsidies offered through the HITECH Act (part of the stimulus package) that go to physicians who convert to electronic records and achieve what the government defines as "Meaningful Use".

In its Q1 2012 results reported yesterday, Quality Systems announced its first $100 million quarter, as revenue grew 21% and net income increased 57%, beating estimates. The company also announced that its Board had approved a two-for-one stock split. Quality Systems is now trading at $89.30, giving it a market value of $2.6 billion.

The other significant announcement yesterday is that Quality Systems' President (and former NextGen President), Patrick B. Cline, is retiring at the end of the year. Cline, who is a fairly young guy, said during NextGen's conference call that his only plans for now were to spend more time with his family, although he might consider taking on something else in the future. Cline co-founded Clinitec, based in Horsham, in 1994; it was acquired by Quality Systems two years later and became the foundation of NextGen Healthcare. Cline is widely respected in the industry. No successor has been named.

QlikTech, the Radnor-based in-memory Business Intelligence vendor that did its IPO a year ago, announced that revenue grew 45% in its second quarter to $74 million. The company posted a small GAAP loss (and a tiny non-GAAP profit) as it continued to push the accelerator down to achieve growth. Headcount is now at 967, up 49% from a year ago, of which over 100 are based in Radnor, a company spokeperson says. (QlikTech was started in Sweeden before moving its headquarters here).

QlikTech now has 21,000 customers, up from 15,000 a year ago, and is seeing more deals in excess of $100,000, from both new and existing customers. As it moves more into the core of the enterprise, QlikTech has needed to enhance its higher level sales resources. It announced yesterday that it had named Joe DiBartolomeo as President of the Americas. DiBartolomeo was a long-time Oracle exec who most recently was heading a unit at Dun & Bradstreet.

QlikTech raised its revenue guidance for 2011; it now expects revenue in excess of $300 million. However, QlikTech also raised its full year operating expense outlook. While it is aggressively spending and expanding to go after the large market opportunity it sees, there are certainly some analysts who have concerns about the expense growth rate and think that maybe a $300 million software company ought to be showing a little more profit.

QlikTech is now trading at over $30, up about 5% on the day, and its market value is $2.45 billion.



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How people watch Hulu, Netflix (Nielsen)

Data recently released by Nielsen show starkly the differences in how people use Netflix versus how they use Hulu. Probably not a big surprise to people, but interesting nonetheless.

An overwhelming majority of Hulu viewers watch it directly on a computer, while less than half of Netflix viewers do. Also, notably, a whole lot more Neflix users connect via Wii, PS3 or Xbox Live.




Hulu users watch mostly TV shows, while Netflix viewers watch more movies.




Source: Nielsen Blog.


Judge threatens to hold up Comcast-NBCUniversal antitrust settlement

Judge Threatens to Hold up Comcast-NBCUniversal Merger Approval (Hollywood Reporter)

Actually, Federal Judge Richard Leon is threatening to hold up court approval of the antitrust
settlement that allowed the merger to go forward. His primary concern is that content producers can't appeal the outcome of binding arbitration with Comcast. At first glance, this may force some
minor modifications if necesaary, but probably won't be too big a deal.