DreamIt-Backed CloudMine Lets App Developers Bypass The Backend Pain, Focus On Their Product (TechCrunch)

Without Dennis Ritchie, there would be no Jobs (ZDNet Blogs)

Daily Links 10/14/2011: Union Square invests in Gabriel Weinberg's DuckDuckGo

Overnight line for iPhone in Center City (Philly.com)

Union Square invests in search engine Duck Duck Go (VentureBeat)

DuckDuckGo is growing - welcome USV et al.! (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)

Hulu Owners Cancel Auction, Will Keep Control of Video Service (Bloomberg)

Hulu: Analysts Weigh in on Future of Company, CEO Jason Kilar (Hollywood Reporter)

SAP Reports Higher Third-Quarter Earnings; Stock Climbs (Bloomberg)

SAP pre-announces strong Q3 results (ZDNet Blogs)

Dell World: Boomi's Reach Expands (Information Week)
Expect a major announcement about enhancements to its product line next week.

Netflix: FiOS Internet Is Actually Best For Streaming
Company Publishes Updated Numbers That Separate Telcos' DSL and Fiber-Based Services (Multichannel News)

USA Technologies CEO suspended amid probe into Internet posts

Tom Paine

Malvern-based USA Technologies, a provider of cashless payment solutions for vending machines, said yesterday in a filing with the SEC that chairman and CEO George Jensen had been suspended pending a probe into internet posts he had made, the nature of which have not yet been specified.

The company says it expects Jensen will resign his positions as chairman, CEO and board member "in the near future". Chief Operating Officer Stephen Herbert is serving as interim CEO.

Jensen has served as CEO of USA Technologies since 1992. The company says whatever it was he did will not impact its historical financial results.

USA Technologies (NASDAQ: USAT) shares are down 15.5% to $1.20 so far today.

More as it develops.



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Daily Links 10/13/2011: TruePosition says standards manipulated by competition

What We Are Seeing (A VC)

CLWR Soars 16%: Pre-Announces Q3 Revenue, Profit Upside (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Liberty Media Unit (Berwyn-based TruePosition) Says Standards Manipulated By Competitors (Forbes)

First Azure-hosted Microsoft ERP service due in Fall 2012 (ZDNet Blogs)
Thats a year from now.

Dell Puts Recent Acquisitions to Work (PC World)

Connectify Brings Iridium Global Network Connectivity to Wi-Fi-Enabled Devices (PR Newswire)
The Philly-based company recently received funding from an investment firm connected to the US Intelligence community.

Waste Management Announces Strategic Investment in Recycle Rewards (PR Newswire)
I am still skeptical about Recycle Rewards'(Recyclebank"s) economics; it has been a close call in several communities and there are some who have chosen not to renew.

Deal With Time Warner Brings the CW to Netflix (New York Times: Media Decoder)




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First Round Capital Roundup 10/12/2011

What's new in the world of First Round Capital

Tom Paine

Two of First Round Capital's most recent investments are in Pantheon, a San Fransisco-based SaaS platform for Drupal sites, and Kiwi Crate, a subscription service that delivers hands-on crafts and activities for young children (see Josh Kopelman's blog post on Kiwi Crate and the subscription business model ). Seth Goldstein, co-founder of Turntable.fm, was among the other investors in Kiwi Crate.

One venture that is perhaps a bit different than First Round's typical portfolio company is California-based DNAnexus, which today announced a $15 million funding round led by Google Ventures and TPG Biotech, with First Round participating. DNAnexus is focused on delivering a cloud-based solution for "big data analysis" of DNA to both the commercial and academic communities. First Round Capital led a $1.55 million round in the company in 2009, a fact that I had entirely missed up to now. First Round's Rob Hayes is on the DNAnexus board.
Simultaneously with the funding announcement, DNANexus announced a technology collaboration with Google to provide access to "the most comprehensive archive of publicly available DNA data through a hosted Sequence Read Archive (SRA) site". It will maintain the database previously managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which is phasing out support of the SRA due to Federal budget cuts. DNAnexus will use Google Cloud Storage to host the database and provide continued access for medical research.

Looking for more FRC activity in the Philly area? Josh Kopelman recently tweeted: "Cool stealth mode #FRC Philly company is looking for interns. Office is near @upenn. Any @Wharton students interested? If so @ message me". No word on what type of company this might be yet. The only other active Philly-area based companies in First Round's portfolio that I know of now are Lifeshield Security, Monetate, PackLate, and Relay Network, which is still in somewhat of a stealth mode. New York-based Solve Media has an office here. Am I missing any?

Kopelman also tweeted that GrubWithUs, the Chicago-based website that lets people plan and join in dinner get-togethers at restaurants, was now available in Philadelphia, although there is no indication of that yet on the GrubWithUs site.

TaskRabbit's founder, Leah Busque, is stepping down as CEO, it was announced today, to be replaced by former Hotwire CEO Eric Grosse. Busque will remain in a key role; though it hasn't been exactly determined, it will likely be product-focused. Boston-based TaskRabbit, which helps users find people to whom they can souces out errands, raised a $5 million Series A round from Shasta Ventures and First Round in May.

Mobile payment processor Square, which raised $100 million in June with a +$1 billion valuation, says it is now processing payments at a $2 billion annual rate. Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey is founder and CEO of Square. Meanwhile, web-based banking startup BankSimple, which also has a Twitter pedigree (BankSimple co-founder Alex Payne) announced it will be going live next month. The company will also be moving its headquarters from New York to Portland, Oregon.

On demand car service Uber recently launched in Chicago and Seattle, but nothing happening in Philly yet.


New York-based LiveIntent, which delivers display ads within emails, last month closed $8 million in Series B funding lead by Shasta Ventures, with other earlier investors including FRC participating in the round. Another adtech venture in First Round's portfolio, Yieldex, raised $10 million led by Triangle Peak Partners and Hearst Interactive Media, along with previous investor Amazon, bringing the New York firm's total funding to about $22 million.


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Daily Links 10/12/2011: Verizon denies interest in Clearwire

Verizon denies Clearwire talks, eyes LTE devices (Reuters)

Intel Abandons Plans to Get Its Processors Into Televisions (Bloomberg)

IBM launches platform-as-a-service effort, beefs up cloud focus (ZDNet Blogs)

LevelUp app aims to keep coupon users coming back (CNN Tech)
Originally available in Boston and Philly, SCVNGR's LevelUp launches today in New York and San Francisco.

SCVNGR Unveils QR Code Payment System (Mashable)

Hot New York Ad Startup MediaMath Is Looking At Raising A Big Round (Business Insider)
Safeguard Scientifics is a major backer of MediaMath.

Verizon Opens Door To 'Smart Home'
Home-Security Monitoring Features Not Currently Part of Offering (Multichannel News)
Developed with Motorola Mobility.

Universal Dumps $60 Home Video Rental Plan (All Things Digital)

S&P: TE Connectivity to replace Cephalon (AP via Business Week)
TE Connectivity has its operational headquarters in Berwyn. Frazer-based Cephalon's acquisition by Teva will be completed on Friday.

eBay Officially Launches X.Commerce Developer Platform (Mashable)

Datatel Adds SaaS Deployment Option to Industry-Leading Datatel Colleague (Business Wire)
Not sure if this is really SaaS or not.
Datatel is working torwards completing its announced acquisition of SunGard Higher Education.

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)