Irene hits power, web infrastructure; Cell networks struggling to cope (ZDNet Blogs)

Philly Tech People News 8/28/2011

QlikTech Announces Changes within Executive Leadership Team to More Closely Align R&D and Product Strategy
Anthony Deighton to Assume Role of Chief Technology Officer
Jonas Nachmanson Appointed as Chief Product Strategy Officer (Business Wire)

PwC Appoints Barry Misthal as Leader of Global Industrial Manufacturing Practice (PR Newswire)

PwC US Appoints Dean Simone U.S. Risk Assurance Practice Leader (PR Newswire)

Mitchell Chi joins Electronic Ink as Executive Vice President of Client Strategy (Press Release)

CDI Corp. Names Robert M. Larney Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (PR Newswire)

SunGard names Leslie Barbagallo to lead energy and commodities business (Oil & Gas Financial Journal)

Mace Security International, Inc. Announces Appointment of Michael E. Smith as Chief Executive Officer (Business Wire)



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Daily Links 8/26/2011: Class action suit against Comcast can proceed, Circuit Court rules

Class Can Proceed in Comcast Antitrust Case (Courthouse News Service)

Clearwire denies report of debt restructuring (Bloomberg via Kansas City Star)

Canoe Ventures revamps senior mgmt team; new role for Orduña (CED Magazine)

InterDigital Case Against ZTE, Huawei Gets Trade Agency Review (Bloomberg)

QVC to open studio at L.A. Live (LA Times)

SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott Appears on CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer (Video: SAP News)
McDermott: "SAP is all about the Cloud". Perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but a very entertaining interview to watch. You can see why McDermott has a reputation for being a legendary salesperson.

HP’s Chief Communications Officer Put on “Special Assignment
(All Things Digital)
Bill Wohl, who was brought over to HP by Léo Apotheker from SAP, is an area native who attended the University of Delaware and served as a volunteer fireman in Chester County for many years.

For Seamless Transitions at the Top, Don’t Consult H.P. (New York Times)

Salesforce.com Backs Cloud Solution Company Appirio’s World Domination Plans (TechCrunch)

Next Gen Strategic HR Software (Enterprise Irregulars)

Boarding the SevOne Rocket Ship (SevOne Blog)
Brian Harvell on joining SevOne as Vice President of Product Engineering from Comcast.

LaunchDM Designs iPad App for Salesforce.com Users (PR Web)
LaunchDM is based in Wyomissing.



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Daily Links 8/25/2011: Comcast employees top donors to Obama campaign funds

Another Comcast tower in Center City? (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Hulu seen drawing bids from Yahoo, others: sources (Reuters)

Comcast Employees Top Donors to Obama Campaign Accounts (ABC News
Blogs: Political Punch)

Time Warner Cable’s Sling rebate: Broadband push or broadcast dig? (Gigaom)

The dumbest attack on the Netflix "free ride" you have ever read (Ars Technica)

Brightcove files for IPO, though chips are down (Boston Globe)
Brightcove competes against Comcast-owned thePlatform.

Verizon buys CloudSwitch to give itself a software play (Gigaom)

Salesforce Boosts Profits With Aggressive Accounting, Bernstein Says
(Forbes)

Despite Boom, Data Center Landlords See Lease-Up Challenges
Internet Giants Building Their Own Enterprise Facilities As Supply Swing Brings Better Balance with Demand (CoStar Group)

How We Got to Monetate 11: Incremental improvements really do add up (Monetate Blog)

Forrester Predicts Daily Deals Will Die (ClickZ)



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A look at Philly-area companies on the Inc. 5000

The 2011 Inc. 5000 is out, and here is a list of the top Philly area companies on it.

I always look at this with a grain of salt, because there are a number of ways in which a young company can generate a great deal of revenue quickly without necessarily building a sustainable business. Revenue does not always correlate with profit. But it does provide a good benchmark for measuring the progress of some of the most promising tech startups in the area.

re2g of Doylestown (formerly Solardelphia), which installs residential solar systems, was the top Philly area company - and 24th nationally. It was followed by a Philly-based company named Leadnomics, which as its name implies is in the online lead generation business for financial institutions, online schools, and insurance companies.

NextDocs of King of Prussia, which just received a large round of funding that I wrote about earlier this week, was third (it was first last year). NextDocs' revenue grew over 3,000% during the past three years to $9.8 million in 2010. It ranked ninth among all software companies.



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Daily Links 8/24/2011: Time Warner Cable to subsidize Slingboxes for subscribers

Aging East Coast infrastructure a concern after quake (Computerworld)

Comcast's Roberts hosts President Obama on Martha's Vineyard (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Moffett Rethinks TV Sector
Top Analyst Modifies Cable, Satellite Targets (Multichannel News)

Time Warner to Subsidize Subscribers’ TV Device (New York Times)

PowerBoost: A Comcast Innovation for High-Speed Internet Users (Comcast Voices /Official Comcast Blog)

COMCAST ROLLS OUT METRO E, ADDS REGIONAL PARTNERS (Channel Partners)

Drexel U scrapping plans for 2nd campus in Calif. (AP via San Jose Mercury News)

HP: Where is it going? (Dennis Howlett/Irregular Enterprise)


AT&T’s Hyperlocal Sites Show Off Network Upgrades (TechCrunch)
One of the sites is for Philadelphia.

Fallout? Pharma & The Facebook Wall (Pixels & Pills)

The Next Tech Patent Powerhouses (Forbes)
Could Ewing, NJ-based Universal Display be the next InterDigital (or more?)

Google’s acquisition of Motorola’s TV-box business worries WPP’s Sorrell
(FT Tech Hub)

Epicor Announces Cloud Computing Solution for Distributors (Marketwire)
Complementary to Epicor's Prophet 21 product line, which is based out of Yardley, PA.



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Daily Links 8/23/2011: Universal Display soars before and after new Samsung deal is announced

Samsung Mobile Display and Universal Display Announce Entry into OLED Patent License and Supplemental Material Purchase Agreements (Business Wire)
Universal Display is based in Ewing, NJ.

Universal Display Rallies Ahead Of New Samsung Supply Deal (Forbes)

Universal Display Soars 24%; Brigantine Ups To Buy (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Concerns about lack of minorities in NBC's family
Latino groups raise an issue with KNBC, and NBC's fall schedule shows a reversal from characters' ethnic diversity last season. (LA Times)

The case for holding on to Hulu (LA Times: Company Town)

Versus will expand its college football programming (USA Today)

Electronic Ink CEO finds ease in Clayton (Watertown Daily Times)
Great article about Harold Hambrose in small upstate New York newspaper.

All geeked up: Inaugural Philadelphia Geek Awards gets nuts (Flying Kite)

GenSight’s Project Portfolio Management solution chosen by Natura, Brazil’s largest cosmetics company (Business Wire)

Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners invades Philly; Backs Monetate, and now NextDocs

Upon reading this morning that the $10.3 million investement in King of Prussia-based life sciences compliance software vendor NextDocs was funded by Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners, I realized that I had heard that name before recently - in connection with another Philly area deal.

It was Monetate, in which OpenView led a $15 million round, which was announced on August 4.

I asked OpenView partner Firas Raouf in a phone conversation whether there was any connection to this geographical proximity, given that OpenView has no other Philadelphia presence in its portfolio that I can see, or whether it was mere coincidence. He said it was just a coincidence. OpenView, he says, focuses on providing expansion funding to emerging best of breed software companies worldwide (as long as they have some US operations), and doesn't have an East Coast orientation or mid-Atlantic strategy. While he managed the NextDocs deal, OpenView managing director Adam Marcus oversaw the Monetate deal, just a few miles away.

He said he had been speaking with NextDocs co-founder and CEO Zikria Syed for a couple of years, though Syed did not want to get funding too soon (and Raouf did not think NextDocs needed it yet). Syed got the business off the ground to where it is today almost entirely through bootstrapping, with no outside institutional investment.

Raouf says NextDocs can expand in several ways; by growing its customer base in the US ( NextDocs often replaces outdated legacy systems used for regulatory compliance), internationally, and also by moving into clinical trial management systems.

Raouf will join NextDocs' board. OpenView, which has $240 million under management, was the sole participant in this round, he says.

Daily Links 8/22/2011: Initial Hulu bids due Wednesday

King of Prussia-based NextDocs Raises $10.3M To Provide Microsoft SharePoint Software To Life Sciences Industry (TechCrunch)
NextDocs Press Release.

Veeva to hire 50 as drug, device companies head to the cloud (San Francisco Business Times)
Based in Pleasanton, CA, Veeva has its sales & marketing headquarters in Malvern.

Hulu Bids Expected to Range Between $500 Million and $2 Billion (Hollywood Reporter)

IDCC Rising On Rumor Of Qualcomm Interest (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Motorola’s Identity Crisis (New York Times)

Pres. Obama Drops By Martha’s Vineyard Home of Comcast CEO
(MediaBistro)

Thinking The Unthinkable: Is Oracle Considering Buying HP? (Forbes)

Cloud not yet critical for BI: QlikTech (Computer Business Review)


Federal Push for ‘Cloud’ Technology Faces Skepticism (New York Times)

How secure is data in the cloud? (SAP Watch)

How I Knew To Invest In GroupMe (Silicon Alley Insider)



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Philly Tech People News 8/21/2011

Vishay Announces Resignation of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Lior Yahalomi, Appointment of Lori Lipcaman (Business Wire)

Geospatial World Honors CEO Greg Bentley for Lifetime Achievement in Geospatial Innovation (Business Wire)

The Judge Group Announces President of Human Capital Management Solutions (Business Wire)

Akcelerant Adding Staff, Reorganizing (Credit Union Times)

Journal Register Co. names Jim Brady as editor-in-chief, will oversee all newsgathering (AP via Washington Post)

Health Market Science Appoints Mark Cieplik as Senior Vice President of Life Science Sales (Press Release)

David J. Hogan Joins Heartland Payment Systems to Lead Major Accounts
Heartland to leverage Hogan’s distinguished retail experience to expand national presence (Business Wire)

Aklero Risk Analytics names Alarcon CFO (Housing Wire)

Language Services Associates Promotes Mauricio Vicente to Chief Information Officer (Press Release)

ODM Group Expands with Two New Hires (Philly Ad Club News)



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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.