Philly Tech People News 10/30/2011
SAP Appoints Mike Naimoli Head of Life Sciences Industry Business Unit (PR Newswire)
Yaccarino In, Cassaro Out At NBCU Ad Sales
Turner Exec Gets Big Job From Comcast (Multichannel News)
MarketSphere Continues to Expand Oracle Leadership
James Brethauer, recently named to leadership role at MarketSphere's Philadelphia office. (Business Wire)
Yell Appoints Scott Moore to the New Role of Chief Digital Officer (PR Newswire)
Yell is the UK-based parent of Yellowbook, which has corporate offices in King of Prussia.
Top Sales Executive Leaves Rodale in Shakeup; Maria Rodale reorganizes health, fitness publisher
(Ad Week)
Mary Tyrrell Promoted to Vice President, Director Strategic Communications at MayoSeitz Media (Philly Ad Club News)
Here's How Much VCs Actually Care About Their Investments Making Money (Business Insider)
Article features a look at David Nevas of Edison Ventures.
Motorola to cut 800 jobs (Marketwatch)
Including some in its Horsham-based Home business segment.
Philly Tech News VentureWatch: 10/28/2011: DuckDuckGo, Quewey, Quiq and more
Tom Paine
The amount of funding for Gabriel Weinberg's search engine DuckDuckGo was $3 million, according to an SEC filing. The main investor was prominent New York-based VC Union Square Ventures, joined by several individual investors. DuckDuckGo has only a miniscule sliver of the overall search market, but its different model-not algorithm driven, no user tracking-has gained some traction. Union Square Ventures' Brad Burnham wrote in a blog post: "We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it". Weinberg, who said he held off on taking funding as long as possible, will use the funds to finally hire some other employees and expand infrastructure.
Unirisx, the Conshohocken-based provider of a SaaS platform for the Insurance industry, recently raised another $1 million in debt-based financing, in addition to $1.4 million in debt-based financing it raised earlier this year, according to an SEC filing. Investors raised $7 million in equity in 2009 to acquire the company. Past investors have included Jaguar Capital Partners, Permit Capital LLC and MIM Capital. The highly respected former Harleysville Group CIO Akhil Tripathi is CEO, and Zurich Financial Services is a major client. Unirisx started as a spinoff from Unisys' British subsidiary.
Quewey, a Philadelphia-based business oriented Q&A site, has apparently raised $250,000, according to a filing hot off the press. They haven't launched in Beta yet, but you can see their blog here.
Blue Bell-based Quiq, Inc., which provides a system enabling perscriptions to be dispensed directly to patients in a physician's office, has raised over $2 million, according to SEC filings shown by FormDs.com.
OpenDesks' (Conshohocken) recently released iPhone app for locating temporary work spaces in 133 cities around the country got a nice mention in the New York Times (at the bottom of the article) .
The New Jersey Technology Council has named mVisum a finalist for its Early-Stage Company of the Year Award, the Cherry Hill Courier-Post reports. mVisum, which is based in the Rutgers-Camden Technology Campus, allows medical professionals to securely receive, review, and respond to patient data recorded at the point of care.
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Daily Links 10/28/2011: Publicis to merge Digitas Health, Razorfish Health into larger group
Publicis merges digital agencies into larger group (InPharm)
Philly-based digital agencies Digitas Health and Razorfish Health are to be merged into the larger Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG).
Publicis Press Release. This comes shortly after the announcement of David Kramer's retirement.
SunGard Announces Third Quarter 2011 Results (Business Wire)
SAP hiring 'a few hundred' here, more in 2012 (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
Sprint Said Near Deal With Clearwire for New Multiyear Agreement (Bloomberg)
Comcast commits to bring more broadband to Innovation District (Mass High Tech)
Does Comcast have similar plans for parts of Philly?
Google TV Software Update Ready, but New Hardware Will Have to Wait (All Things Digital)
Cablevision Shares Plunge
Nears 52-Week Low After Disappointing Quarter (Multichannel News)
Lockheed Reports Flat Space Revenue (Space News)
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PlaySay: Moved to DC, raised VC funds, launched Facebook platform at TechCrunch Disrupt
Tom Paine
PlaySay, the Philly-born startup that helps people learn languages on mobile devices and which went through the GoodCompany Ventures incubator program in 2010, has since migrated down I-95 to Washington, DC. It has received $550,000 in VC funding from Novak, Biddle Venture Partners (it had also raised some angel funds). Founder Ryan Meinzer tells me via phone there were several good reasons to locate in DC: to be closer to its financial backers (Novak Biddle is based in the Maryland suburbs), because the Federal government and the many international organizations there are important clients for the language learning market, and because of the international orientation of the area and the supply of linguistics talent located there.
PlaySay officially launched at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2011 in September.
PlaySay's platform is now on Facebook; if you search for a non-Facebook web presence for it right now you won't find it. (PlaySay may have one soon, though it will likely be of secondary importance.) PlaySay built its app, which it describes as a "language learning layer on Facebook", using HTML5 tailored for the iPad. An Android app will come later, but currently PlaySay is focused on optimizing its UI for the iPad. Available now only for Spanish, PlaySay allows users to match images to words and combine them together to learn phrases, and share them with others. A key product development goal is to enhance the social gaming aspect within the Facebook platform. PlaySay plans to monetize utlilizing Facebook credits to enable user access to premium features.
In addition to the Facebook app, PlaySay is working on smartphone apps which leverage relationships with other information providers. In September it announced a content licensing deal with McGraw-Hill Professional, one of the largest publishers of language learning books and materials. It looks like one iOS app from the McGraw relationship is already live. Some similar arrangements with other partners may be in the works.
Meinzer, who is from central Pennsylvania (Hershey, Lancaster) and attended Temple, saw the need for PlaySay when he went to work in Japan and needed to learn Japanese quickly. He started making digital flashcards for himself so he could start learning several new words every day. PlaySay currently has six employees, including an expert in linguistics. Meinzer says English as a Second Language may be the next market segment PlaySay enters in addition to Spanish. Some have questioned the choice of Facebook as a platform, though Meinzer believes it is best for creating the type of immersive experience he wants. Some early feedback has suggested that the UI is not yet as intuitive as some users would like.
Rosetta Stone is a big player in the market (though it has struggled lately), but Meinzer looks at newer startups such as Voxy, MindSnacks (which went through the DreamIt Ventures program), and Livemocha as being his most direct competitors.
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Daily Links 10/27/2011: QlikTech reports 50% growth, small profit
Safeguard Scientifics consolidates life science, tech portfolio management (Med City News)
Kevin Kemmerer resigns, Jim Datin has taken over management of the technology portfolio in addition to life sciences portfolio. Surprising, seems sudden; looking for more explanation.
QlikTech Announces Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Revenue grows 50% to $75.5 million, small*(GAAP) net profit. Americas revenue up 71%.
Quality Systems, Inc. Reports Record Fiscal 2012 Second Quarter Results; Board-Approved 2:1 Stock Split Effective Today (Business Wire)
Continues to report strong top line and bottom line growth. Quality Systems' primary business is NextGen Healthcare of Horsham.
InterDigital Rises as Sales Top Estimates, Sale Talks Continue
(Bloomberg)
Comcast/NBCU Deal Lawyers: Online Video Competition Was Key Concern
Attorneys for Comcast, FCC, Verizon give personal takes on merger conditions and impact on over-the-top services. (Broadcasting & Cable)
Comcast Moves NBCU Local’s Shopping Guide To DailyCandy (paidContent)
Time Warner Cable Slumps as Profit Misses Estimates on Subscriber Losses (Bloomberg)
Time Warner Cable continues big bet on broadband (Gigaom)
Motorola Mobility's Home Sales Drop 10% In Q3
Set-Top Shipments Decline 3% Year Over Year (Multichannel News)
CardioNet, Inc. Board of Directors Announces the Resignation of Randy Thurman as Chairman of the Board (Business Wire)
Marketing continues for Philadelphia Media Network tablet despite exec's departure (NewsWorks)
SAP Updates Business One Application for Small Companies (PC World)
Instem Chosen for Global Deployment of Provantis SaaS; Roche Consolidates Preclinical Software Systems (Business Wire)
Kenexa to Transfer to the New York Stock Exchange (Business Wire)
Also indicates higher guidance for Q3 results.
Heartland Payment Systems Reports 55% Increase in Third Quarter Adjusted Earnings per Share
Board Authorizes $50 Million Share Repurchase Program (Business Wire)
CDI Corp. Reports 2011 Third Quarter Results (PR Newswire)
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Daily Links 10/26/2011: SAP officially reports results, ponders share repurchases
SAP Profit Rises After Damages Provision for Oracle Is Cut (Bloomberg)
Some uncertainty about outlook for next year.
Strong cash flow prompts SAP to mull share repurchases (Reuters)
SAP mulling dedicated cloud sales force to push on-demand products (V3.co.uk)
Workday Aims at Enterprises With Cloud ERP as IPO Approaches (PC World)
A Bad Day for the Salesforce Kool-Aid (All Things Digital)
KofP prodigy in $1.5B Oracle cloud software deal (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
Safeguard Scientifics Announces Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Comcast Launches HD, Full-Screen Versions Of TV Guide Network In Freedom Region
Rollouts Should Be Completed By End Of Q1 (Multichannel News)
The Freedom Region includes the Philly area.
Netflix Now 33% Of Peak Downstream Internet Traffic In U.S.: Study
Streaming Video Overall Represents 60% of Peak Downstream Bandwidth Usage, According to Sandvine (Multichannel News)
Another reason I think Netflix may face crunch; cheap bandwith for streaming is not infinite.
Daniel B. Burke Dies at 82; Helped Engineer Capital Cities-ABC Deal (New York Times)
Father of NBCU CEO Steve Burke, and brother of former J&J CEO James E. Burke.
Clearwire Soars; Sprint Discloses Tentative Deal On LTE (Eric Savitz/Forbes)
Not a financial agreement, but rather an agreement to determine mutual tech specs for LTE.
Don’t look now, but AWS might be a billion-dollar biz (Gigaom)
Daily Links 10/25/2011: NBC Sports, including Versus, moving to Connecticut
NBC Sports may move its Phila., N.Y. operations to Conn. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
It's official: NBC sports coming to Connecticut (Connecticut Mirror)
Tech bubble 2.0, revisited (FT Blogs)
Who’s next on Oracle’s hit list? (Gigaom)
Dell Boomi gets a business rules engine (Computerworld)
Dell Boomi AtomSphere Fall Release Harnesses Power of World’s Largest Integration Cloud to Simplify Integration Complexity (Business Wire)
Modelling market for SAP heats Up (IT-Director.com)
Mainframes pump up profits at Unisys
Bucking Uncle Scrooge Sam (The Register)
Cross Atlantic Capital Partners Completes Its Most Recent Investment in Rootstock Software (Business Wire)
Saleforce.com also invests. See my post on Cross Atlantic's investment in Rootstock from June.
What I learned from raising venture capital (Gabriel Weinberg's Blog)
DuckDuckGo's reported funding is $3 million (actually, one dollar less), according to an SEC filing.
After Dismal Earnings Outlook, Netflix Loses $2.3 Billion In Market Cap (TechCrunch)
Netflix and the economics of nonrival goods (Felix Salmon/Reuters Blogs)
Who Will Own Your Living Room? (Silicon Angle)
AMETEK Announces Strong Third Quarter Results (PR Newswire)
Raises guidance for full year.
AMETEK Acquires EM Test (PR Newswire)
Continues to be acquisitive.
Nokia Maps plus HTML5 equals offline mobile maps (Gigaom)
Industry's First Integrated Wireless Receiver Gives U-Verse TV Customers More Freedom to Easily Watch TV Anywhere, in Any Room in the Home
(AT&T Press Release)
Health IT Wins More Venture Capital in 2011
Venture capital for healthcare software and IT services hit $207 million in the third quarter of 2011, a 14% increase compared to Q3 2010. (Information Week)
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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News
New Jersey Tech Weekly's Esther Surden contributed a piece she wrote on her website on the recent New Jersey Technology Council (NJTC) Executive Leadership Summit in Jersey City and Synchronoss Technologies CEO Stephen Waldis' keynote address.
USA Technologies Chairman & CEO George Jensen Jr. does resign, and yes, as I had speculated, it was the Yahoo message board for USAT that he was posting messages on.
Ben Franklin Technology Ventures of Southeastern Pennsylvania announces $1 million in funding for six ventures.
I reported on a new business accelerator, Novotorium, that is set to open with a November 1 launch party at its Langhorne offices.
And I take a look at the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report on VC funding in the Philadelphia area.
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Daily Links 10/24/2011: Oracle buys RightNow for $1.5 billion, Workday raises $85 million
Oracle Buys RightNow for $1.5 Billion to Add Cloud Services
(Bloomberg)
Big day for Montana.
Oracle Targets Salesforce with Latest Buy: RightNow for $1.5 Billion (Silicon Angle)
Exclusive: Aneel Bhusri’s Workday Raises $85 Million at a Whopping $2 Billion Valuation (All Things Digital)
Perhaps the biggest emerging threat to SAP.
SAP and United Nations Population Fund Unveil Interactive Analytics as Population Grows Beyond 7 Billion (PR Newswire)
Just How Much Damage Did Netflix Really Do To Itself? (All Things Digital)
Earnings due today.
Netflix loses 800,000 US subscribers in third quarter (Gigaom)
Share price down almost 20% after close.
Netflix Q3 Top Ests, But Shares Hit By Weak Q4 Outlook (Forbes: Tech Musings)
UberMedia Launches Chime.in Interest Network: New Social Media Platform for Connecting and Engaging Around Interests (Marketwire)
Comcast Ventures described as "strategic funding partner"; First Round Capital already an investor in UberMedia.
On the Call: Verizon CFO on non-FiOS areas (AP via Bloomberg Business Week)
Says it will serve those areas with fixed LTE.
Unisys more than triples profits, earns $79M (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Amazon’s Online Drugstore Soap.com Adds Groceries To The List (TechCrunch)
MobileMD Gets Connecticut HIE Deal (Health Data Management)
MobileMD is based in Yardley.
Sidera Expands at 401 North Broad in Philly (Data Center Knowledge)
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