Skype to acquire First Round Capital-backed GroupMe

Skype buys GroupMe & adds group messaging (Gigaom)
First Round Capital was an early backer.

Why HP needs to merge with SAP/a> (VentureBeat)
Not sure if I agree with this perspective, particularly from SAP's point of view, and they would probably have the upper hand in any talks right now.


Thinking big with a modest $7.5 million (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Opinion by Philadelphia councilman Bill Green.

Verizon Workers End Strike, Though Without New Contract (New York Times)

SAP says strong demand defies talks of crisis-paper (Reuters)

Philly Tech News VentureWatch: 8/19/2011

Tom Paine


With companies such as QVC, GSI Commerce, Urban Outfitters and Monetate, the Philly area has a strong E-commerce ecosystem. And it is a sector that seems to be generating a good deal of startup activity, with a particular recent emphasis on "social shopping".


ChoozOn, a startup with offices in King of Prussia and Bellevue, Washington, recently reported raising $3.2 million. ChoozOn provides its members with a single platform where they can track deal and coupon offers available to them, and also offers social tools for members to communicate with each other about deals.

ChoozOn was founded by ex-Yahoo execs; one of them, Nick Weir, formerly Yahoo’s VP of Data Strategy, is a ChoozOn co-founder and its CEO, based in King of Prussia. Although ChoozOn is still in Alpha, it currently has 40 employees and expects to have about 50 by year end. King of Prussia houses what a company spokesperson told Philly Tech News by email is "a significant part of our business and product development team", which also includes June Oakes, Director of Product Management. The spokesperson also said that ChoozOn opened a King of Prussia office in part because Nick was already located in the area and also because it provides excellent access to key East Coast markets.

                                                ChoozOn CEO Nick Weir



Snipi, the Philadelphia-based social shopping app which helps users track down and compare price infomation, recently reported raising $530,00 out of a total offering of $1.5 million, according to an SEC filing. I hadn't really heard that much about Snipi in a while.

Keystone Edge's Joe Petrucci has a piece on co-founder Brandon Yoshimura and his Philly/Wilmington-based startup Loffles, which provides awards to consumers for watching promotional videos. The Loffles team has been coached by Morgan Lewis' Stephen Goodman and has raised $500,000 in seed funding.

Villanova grad and ex-IBM E-commerce developer Todd McNeal has a new startup, Snapline. It helps retailers reach and taget customers using Facebook data and other demographic sources. Consumers can opt in through Facebook Connect. Snapline features a SaaS platform built using Python and other open stack tools. McNeal, who does some of his work out of Indy Hall, said in a conversation with Philly Tech News that he hopes to get some testing done with major e-retailers during the Holiday season and then use those results as a basis for ramping up.

Two area startups seek to make it easier to manage clinical trials. Philadelphia-based myClin, founded in 2008 by James Denmark, helps physicians and their staffs to facilitate patient particiapation in clinical research. MyClin uses Amazon Web Services, among other tools, in its cloud stack. GreenPhire, of King of Prussia, just announced in an SEC filing that it had raised $1.5 million. GreenPhire, founded in 2007, has a system for managing electronic payments to clinical trial participants.

GreenLight Technologies of Flemington, NJ (not too far down the road from Washington Crossing), announced it had closed Series A expansion funding led by Storm Ventures; the amount was not disclosed. GreenLight makes GRC (Governance, risk management, and compliance) solutions that run in environments like SAP and Oracle.



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Daily Links 8/19/2011: HP down 20% on day; What are implications for SAP?

Europe Losing Autonomy to HP Signals Software Boom as SAP May Be Targeted (Bloomberg)

HP Tumbles as Shift Undermines Confidence (Bloomberg)

Does Apotheker need an apothecary? Why HP is exiting the PC business (Ars Technica)

Public sector is turning to SaaS while SAP and Oracle dither (Cloud Pro)

SAP Business ByDesign strengthens channel efforts (SearchITChannel.com)

SAP going mobile: How big ERP is embracing small technology (ZDNet Blogs)

Will Google Be Good for Cable? (Light Reading Cable)

Comcast Drops Its Lawsuit Against DirecTV After Just Two Weeks (paidContent)

Datatel Acquiring SunGard: T+10 and Counting (The Higher ED CIO)

NewSpring Capital Leads Mezzanine Investment in Emtec, Inc. (NewSpring Press Release)

Dow’s success helping Newark (Newark Post)

Infradapt Launches Next-Generation Cloud Computing Solution for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses (PR Newswire)



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Sprint considering Clearwire buyout; Comcast reported involved in talks

Sprint Said in Talks About Clearwire Buyout (Bloomberg)
Confusing article. Its not clear what kind of transaction they are considering or how Comcast would be involved. I had been under the impression that Comcast really didn't want to sink any more money into Clearwire.

A deal for Clearwire could be a wireless tipping point (Gigaom)

Daily Links 8/18/2011: Philly Fed report not good; Big changes ahead for HP

Philly Fed Firms See Much Weaker Manufacturing Activity
(Business Wire)

Philadelphia Fed index slumps, home sales fall (Reuters)

HP to Spin Off PCs, Eyes Software Purchase (Bloomberg)

HP Confirms Discussions with Autonomy Corporation plc Regarding Possible Business Combination; Makes Other Announcements (HP Press Release)

Liveblogging HP’s “Everything Including the Kitchen Sink” Conference Call (All Things Digital)


SunGard HE and Blackboard Acquisitions: Compare and Contrast (e-Literate)

QlikTech to roll out social updates to business intelligence platform (V3.co.uk)

Salesforce.com Announces Fiscal Second Quarter Results (PR Newswire)
Revenue up 38%.

Salesforce Posts Record Quarterly Revenue Of $546M; Raises Guidance (TechCrunch)


Liberty Considers Range of Options for Barnes & Noble (New York Times: DealBook)
Update: Liberty Media buys stake in Barnes & Noble.

Accelerators & Incubators: Ben Franklin Values Ingenuity (Portfolio.com)

Drexel's Baiada Center set for expansion, to add lab for entrepreneurial focus groups (Keystone Edge)

First Annual Geek Awards Coming to Philadelphia (AP via Fox News)


GSI Commerce's Rubin has a new company ... and it's hiring (Philadelphia Business Journal)



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Daily Links 8/17/2011: DuckDuckGo named one of Time Magazine's Top Websites of 2011

Turn Off Verizon's FiOS, ActiveVideo Says After Winning Suit (PC Magazine)

Cable execs wary as Google acquires Motorola boxes (Reuters)

After Googorola, Cisco Could Get Some Set-Top Mojo Back (Multichannel News)

Apple, Qualcomm, others eye InterDigital: sources
Auction said to be postponed until after Labor Day.

DuckDuckGo Honored As One TIME’s Top Websites Of 2011; Google+ & Quora, Too (Search Engine Land)
Gabe Weinberg explains in his blog how DuckDuckGo made it in.

Monetate CEO Brussin On Monetate’s Expansion Beyond eCommerce And Strategy Ahead (AdExchanger.com)


Sniffing Out Possible Buyers for MarketAxess (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)
SunGard cited as one potential bidder.

NBC 10 Philadelphia To Deliver Local News via Foursquare (Mashable)

More drug companies close Facebook pages as Walls open (Washington Post)

Anthropologie telling the story of Urban Outfitters Inc. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Maryland to hold first "Entrepreneur Expo" in November (Baltimore Sun: BaltTech)



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Daily Links 8/16/2011: More on the Google/Motorola deal

NRG Energy to Acquire Philadelphia-based Energy Plus Holdings, Adding Immediate Scale and Unique Sales Channel to Expanding Northeast Retail Business (Business Wire)

4-year-old West Philly energy marketer sold for $190 million (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Apple Covets RIM, NOK, InterDigital Assets In Patent ‘War,’ Says Jefferies (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company? No, It Says (New York Times: DealBook)

THE VERDICT: Google-Motorola Will Be A Colossal Disaster* (Silicon Alley Insider)

Google’s Motorola Mobility Takeover May Survive U.S. Regulatory Scrutiny (Bloomberg)

Time Warner Cable’s future is in broadband, not TV (Gigaom)

Skillshare raises $3.1M to make every person a teacher (Gigaom)

Accelerating Product Innovation: Introducing CIM Lab Week (Comcast Voices/ Official Comcast Blog)

SCTE, WICT Launch ‘Women's TechConnect' Initiative
Effort will work to encourage women engineers and technologists in cable (Multichannel News)
The SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) is based in Exton.

Quality Systems, Inc. Acquires CQI Solutions, Inc. (Business Wire)
Will become part of Quality Systems' Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare.

Appearance: PPUG meets Saturday in Philadelphia (ZDNet Blogs)

Astea Reports Second Quarter 2011 Results (PR Newswire)

Workday launches Workday 14, wins Thomson Reuters deal (ZDNet Blogs)



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News and Views on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility

There are a broad range of views on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, which was announced today. Among the issues:

• Was it a good deal for Google ? ( I've seen few question whether it  was a good deal for MMI)
• Was it  primarily for the patents?
• What will Google do with the handset business?
• How will it effect others in the Android ecosystem?
• What will Google do with the Horsham-based Motorola Home business? (cable/video products)
• What will it mean for Google TV? 
• What is the fallout for King of Prussia-based InterDigital, since this may means the collapse of its deal prospects with Google?

Here is a selected sampling of reactions and analysis:

Motorola + Sprint = Google's AT&T, Verizon and Comcast Killer (Forbes)

With Motorola, Google TV just got a huge shot in the arm (Gigaom)

On Motorola and Google TV (Zatz Not Funny!)

Motorola Could Get Google Closer to Your Living Room — If the Cable Guys Play Along (All Things Digital)

Why Google Is Spending $12.5 Billion to Acquire Motorola Mobility (Hollywood Reporter)

Google Plays Favorites With Moto Buy (Light Reading Mobile)

Quick and easy fix for all Android patent problems. Google should buy Motorola (Unwired View)
This writer predicted the deal two weeks ago.

Microsoft Was About To Do A Major Patent Deal With Motorola Before Google Came Swooping In (Silicon Alley Insider)

Everyone Who Thinks Google's Just Going To Spin Off Motorola's Lousy Hardware Business Needs To Consider Another Scary Possibility... (Silicon Alley Insider)

Editorial: Engadget on Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition
(Endgadget)


6 Products that Could Come from the Google-Motorola Deal (PC World)

InterDigital skids after Google goes for Motorola Mobility (Reuters)



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Daily Links 8/15/2011: Breinigsville, PA-based Cyoptics files for $100 million IPO

CyOptics files papers for $100 million IPO (MarketWatch)
CyOptics, which makes optical components for broadband applications, is based in Breinigsville, PA; Radnor's TL Ventures holds a 5% stake. Obviously, the rocky market conditions may impact timing.

The inside story of DreamIt Ventures’ first New York City accelerator (The Next Web)


New Jersey looks to nurture tech startups (NorthJersey.com)
Looks to DreamIt Ventures as a model.

DDC Secures Seed Funding from Robin Hood Ventures (PR Web)

TicketLeap Launches World's First Socially Integrated Mobile Ticketing Platform (PR Web)

Time Warner Cable To Purchase Insight For $3 Billion In Cash
No. 2 MSO Bolsters Mideastern Presence (Multichannel News)

How Comcast SportsNet Plays The Social Media Game (Information Week)

Urban Outfitters Jumps After Earnings Beat (Barron's Blogs)

Roku grabs $8M, weeks after releasing Roku 2 (VentureBeat)



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Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion

Google announced today it has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a 63% premium over Friday's closing price. See Larry
Page's post on Google's blog.

The deal has direct implications for the Philly area:

-Google is buying Motorola Mobility (many say) primarily for its trove of wireless patents. This sounds like a bypass of King of Prussia-based InterDigital, which had been reported to be in serious discussions with Google. That doesn't rule out someone such as Samsung acquiring them; it just takes one huge bidder off the table.

-What does this mean for Motorola Mobility's Horsham-based Home business, which provides equipment to the cable industry? While Google has made some so far unsuccessful forays into parts of this market (Google TV), it is not clear what their strategy would be for this unit, though Larry Page said in his statement that Google is "excited" to work with it as it transitions to IP.

Motorola split into two separately traded companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions, at the beginning of this year.

Motorola’s home division reported a profit of $62 million on revenue of $907 million in the 2nd quarter of 2011.

Update: InterDigital is down 290% so far today.

TechCrunch live blogged Google's conference call discussing the deal.



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