Daily Links 10/11/2011: Comcast Sports Group Launches Regional Online Fan Shops in partnership with Dreams, Inc.

SAP extends service cover on ERP product through to 2020 (Microscope)

Latest SAP Mobile Apps Show Progress for Sybase Platform on HTML5 (Read Write Web)

SAP Buying Up IPads, Confident in Apple After Jobs’s Passing (Bloomberg)

Box.net ropes in SAP Ventures for latest venture round (Gigaom)
Brings total raised in Series D round to $81 million.

QlikTech Introduces Social Business Discovery in Launch of QlikView 11 (Business Wire)

Heartland Payment Systems Acquires School-Link Technologies—becomes the Leading K-12 School Nutrition and Point-of-Sale Provider (Business Wire)

Kenexa Boosts Q3 Guidance; Shares Spike Higher (Forbes: Tech Musings)

Interdigital Rallies On Report Of New Interest From Some Bidders (Forbes: Tech Musings)

Arris To Buy BigBand For $53 Million
Arris Looks to Bulk Up on Video With All-Cash Deal (Multichannel News)
Two important Comcast tech suppliers.

Dreams and Comcast Sports Group Launch Regional Online Fan Shops
New Engagement Builds Upon Successful Partnership with NBC Sports (Business Wire)

DirecTV Launches DVR-Shifting Nomad (Zatz Not Funny!)

Hosting.com Boosts Cloud Footprint, Security With NeoSpire Acquisition (CRN)
Denver-based Hosting.com was previously HostMySite of Delaware, which acquired Hosting.com in 2009; Hosting.com still has operations in Delaware.


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Daily Links 10/10/2011: Netflix rescinds Qwikster decision

Netflix Abandons Plan to Rent DVDs on Qwikster (New York Times: Media Decoder)
But no change on price increase.

Gov. Markell salutes Archer Group at opening of expanded Wilmington office (The Archer Group)

Sprint's solo LTE plan ignores Clearwire assets (Computerworld)

Slow VC Fund-Raising Portends Hard Winter For Start-Ups (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
Also, another set of numbers from Thomson Reuters and National Venture Capital Association (pdf).

vcopious Secures Venture Financing and Announces New Customer: SIEMENS Corporation (PR Newswire)
Emerald Stage 2, Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners, MAG, and Silicon Valley Bank are the investors; no word on how much.

ADERANT Acquires RainMaker Software (Business Wire)
RainMaker Software is based in Blue Bell.

Almac and Greenphire Form Alliance to Deliver Direct-to-Patient Stipend Payments Through IXRS® (Business Wire)

Comcast Welcomes NANOG and ARIN to Philadelphia (Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)

Comcast-Spectacor Completes High-Definition Upgrade to Scoreboard HD Control Room at Wells Fargo Center with Sony Electronics Technology (PR Newswire)

HSN Brings QR Codes to TV Shopping (Mashable)



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Philly Area Companies on 2011 InformationWeek 500

Tom Paine

While I usually focus on the area companies that are generating cutting-edge technologies for enterprises and their users, attention should also be paid to those enterprises who do the best job of utilizing that technology. One perspective on this comes from InformationWeek, which last month published its 2011 version of the InformationWeek 500, what it says is an "annual ranking of the most innovative companies employing information technology in their businesses". Some of the local firms on the list may surprise you.

The IW 500 ranks the top 250 and then provides the remaining 250 unranked. The top ranked Greater Philidelphia region companies are:


15 Vanguard (Valley Forge)

53 Penske Truck Leasing (Reading)

56 Lehigh Valley Health Network (Allentown)

80 University of Pennsylvania Health System (Philadelphia)

129 Harleysville Group (Harleysville); two weeks ago agreed to be acquired by Nationwide.

195 Heartland Payment Systems (Princeton)

209 Teva Pharmaceuticals U.S.A. (North Wales); its acquisition of Cephalon was just cleared by FTC on Friday, with some divestiture requirements.

232 Christiana Care Health System (Wilmington)



Others named to the IW 500 but not ranked in the top 250 include Aramark (Philadelphia), CDI Corp (Philadelphia), The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia), New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Co. (West Trenton), Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (Philadelphia), and VWR International
(Radnor).

Also with significant operations in the Philly area are Boeing (17), PNC Financial Services (32), and Verizon Wireless (90). SAP did not make it, but its Califiornia-based Sybase subsidiary did (38). Comcast is not on it, though the case could be made it belongs on it despite its faults. Roseland, NJ-based payroll processing giant Automatic Data Processing, which last week announced it was entering the Cloud-based Human Capital Management market, ranked 7th.

InformationWeek also profiles how the University of Pennsylvania Health System's Penn Medicine is using electronic medical records to help find candidates for clinical trial participation. Also featured are IT innovations at Lehigh Valley Health Network , Christiana Care Health System, and Vanguard.



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Philly Tech People News 10/9/2011

SAP Veteran Greg Tomb to Head New Global On-Demand Organization (PR Newswire)

Comcast's ThePlatform Hires Pair Of Execs
Horwitz Joins as VP Engineering, Santos Named General Counsel (Multichannel News)

RCM Technologies, Inc. Announces the Appointment of Tim Brandt as Its Group Sr. Vice President of the Information Technology ("IT") Division (Globe Newswire)

Chris Barbier Joins Smart Devine as Director of Technology Services (PR Web)

Hercules Technology Growth Capital Expands Geographic Reach to Mid- and South-Atlantic Regions with Key Appointment
Venture Debt Veteran April Young Joins as Managing Director (Business Wire)

James C. Walker, Octagon, Named Best Life Science Consultant of 2011 (Octagon Research Solutions Press Release)

MTS Software Solutions Continues to Expand Their Software Services With New Vice President of Software Development (PR Web)

Digital delivery: Comcast’s ADN and the tale of the (disappearing) tape (Zonewire)

Wharton Launches New Innovation Fund (Business Week Blogs)

Comcast VoD Coming to TiVo (Light Reading Cable)


Sprint: No more Clearwire devices after 2012 (AP via Google News)

Sprint Details LTE Plans As Clearwire’s Decline Accelerates (paidContent)
Raises the old question of what will Comcast's wireless strategy be.

Comcast’s MyTV Choice: Is this the future of pay TV bundling? (Gigaom)


Verizon wins first battle in network neutrality fight (Gigaom)

From Swedish Startup to Software Success Story – QlikTech Leads the Way in Philadelphia (Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce USA Currents)

ETC Announces 2012 Second Quarter Results (PR Newswire)

Daily Links 10/6/2011: Ellison unveils new cloud, trashes Salesforce.com

Ellison unveils new cloud, trashes Salesforce.com
The new service's open design is far superior to Salesforce.com's "roach motel," according to Ellison (Computerworld)


Oracle Finally Gets Serious About Cloud, But It's IaaS, Not PaaS (ZDNet Blogs)

Oracle Blew Social Media, but SAP Probably No Better Says Jim Lundy
(Silicon Angle)

Oracle to Pay U.S. $199.5 Million to Settle Price Claims (Bloomberg)
They will probably be able to net this out against what they ultimately receive from SAP and come out about even. Not much money for them, but a big deal for whistle blowing ex-Oracle employee who gets $40 million of this settlement, which to me is absurd.

SAP Co-CEOs: World Has Lost A Visionary In Steve Jobs (Dow Jones Newswires)

From The Ashes Of Oracle's Hostile Takeover Of PeopleSoft, Workday Rose To Fight Back (Business Insider)


$60 home movie? Sure, but it's still in theaters (AP via Boston.com)

CTAM in NY: Comcast Eyes PlayStation, Wii, Roku And Connected TVs
MSO Plans to Roll Out 'Xcalibur' Next-Generation Guide and Service Broadly in 2012
(Multichannel News)

Comcast's Hess: EBIF has limited shelf life (Fierce Cable)

SCTE Creates IPv6 Working Group
Initial Members Include Comcast, Time Warner Cable, BHN, Arris, D-Link and Rogers (Multichannel News)
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers is based in Exton.

NitroSecurity Snapped Up by Intel’s McAfee Amid Escalating Cyber Threats (Xconomy Boston)
Massachusetts-based NitroSecurity's financial backers included NewSpring Ventures of Radnor.

Data security firm Wave Systems raises $11.1M (Mass High Tech)
Financing related to its recent acquisition of Safend.


Enterproid grabs $11M to separate business and personal on Android (VentureBeat)
Comcast Ventures one of the investors. Lots of demand for this, though like any good idea I'm sure there are others working on it.

PSL Fishbowl Recap – Here is what the community said (Philly Startup Leaders)



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Daily Links 10/5/2011: Comcast, FiOS access for subscribers through Xbox 360 announced

Benioff Enjoys the Spotlight, Even When It Is Turned Off (New York Times: Bits)

Oracle Fusion Applications Are Finally Generally Available (PC World)

HP and SAP Accelerate Cloud Deployments for Clients (Business Wire)

Microsoft expected to team up with Comcast and Verizon on pay TV via Xbox Live (VentureBeat)

Verizon And Microsoft Partner Up For Live TV On The Xbox 360 (TechCrunch)
Nothing on Comcast yet.
Update: Here is the announcement which includes Comcast.
Welcome to the Xbox 360, Comcast! (Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)
Microsoft TV is About Cable Testing IP (Zatz Not Funny!)

Controller calls Philadelphia's 311 call center "a glorified answering service" (Philadelphia Inquirer)

How not to launch a custom tablet (ZDNet Blogs)
Columnist describes his experience with Philadelphia Media Network's new Android tablet.

CEO's Corner: QVC's Mike George on the Shopping Channel's Big Plans (Daily Finance)

Web Host SunGard Expands Philadelphia Data Center (Web Host Industry Review)

ConEdison Solutions and Viridity Energy Join Forces to Expand Beyond Demand Response
'Energy Optimization' Empowers End-Users to Leverage Technology to Transform Themselves Into Energy Suppliers (Marketwire)

Harleysville's IT Successes Will Benefit Nationwide - Harleysville CIO (Insurance & Technology)

Top-Level Companies Recruit Philadelphia Agency 20nine to Fuel Growth (PR Newswire)



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Daily Links 10/4/2011: Viridity Energy moves from Conshy to Philly

SAP and Oracle: the knives are out (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

ASUG News Radio Interviews: Bruce Richardson (ASUG News)
Close to 20 minutes long, but a definite listen for anybody who follows SAP or enterprise software.

Oracle does about-face on NoSQL
Oracle's Big Data appliance validates NoSQL market, vendors say (Computerworld)

Comcast named as 'fastest Internet provider' nationwide (ZDNet Blogs)
Believe it or not.

Viridity Energy and 40 jobs moving from Conshohocken to Philadelphia (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Viridity says no government financial incentives were involved in its decision.
Viridity's press release.

$50M in US taxpayer funds didn't save Traffic.com (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Quality Systems falls as analyst cuts rating (AP via CBS MoneyWatch)
Quality Systems' principal operating unit is Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare.


Philly.com Launches Hyperlocal Site for Main Line (Street Fight)

Revamped NBC Owned Station Sites Show Growth
HTML5, video hub and more news driving local web strategy (Broadcasting & Cable)



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Daily Links 10/3/2011: ADP enters HCM Cloud market, Oracle introduces in-memory analytics processor

Why ADP Is the Biggest Cloud Company You’ve Never Heard Of (All Things Digital)
New Jersey-based payroll processing giant enters Cloud-based Human Capital Management (HCM) market, taking on SAP, among others. (Press Release).


Oracle’s Ellison Introduces Faster System to Challenge SAP, IBM (Bloomberg)

Oracle In-Memory Analytics Appliance Debuts At Open World (Information Week)

Top 5 questions out of Oracle OpenWorld 2011 (Gigaom)

Savvis Brings License-Free Oracle, SQL Server to the Cloud (Gigaom via New York Times)

How does analytics look like on BW powered by HANA (SAP Community
Netwok Blogs)

Pension fund that backs NJ companies makes 4 % a year (NorthJersey.com)
Its not clear what these numbers represent; it can be difficult to assess the return on a fund such as this after only four years.

Food for Thought (Knowledge@Wharton)
Will Peapod work in Philadelphia?

C&D Technologies, Inc. to Be Acquired by an Affiliate of Angelo, Gordon & Co. (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Angelo, Gordon already controlled about 2/3 of the Blue Bell-based battery manufacturer.

Comcast Creates Cell Tower Business (Light Reading Cable)



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Philly Tech People News 10/2/2011

Acsis, Inc. Names Neil Thall as Chief Executive Officer (Business Wire)

SAP Appoints Lori Mitchell-Keller Head of Global Retail Industry Business Unit (PR Newswire)

20nine Adds More Talent to Growing Team (PR Newswire)

MTI Adds Two New Business Analytics Specialists to Broaden Client Support (Business Wire)

Donna Langley to remain co-chairman of Universal through 2014 (LA Times: Company Town)

Universal Names Peter Kujawski Executive VP of Worldwide Acquisitions (Hollywood Reporter)

Allebach adds Bill Horbelt to its Interactive team (Philly Ad Club News)



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