Daily Links 11/4/2011: Malvern's Siemens Healthcare to acquire Yardly-based Health Info Exchange vendor MobileMD

Siemens Healthcare Enters into Definitive Agreement to Acquire Leading HIE Developer MobileMD, Inc. (PR Newswire)
Siemens Healthcare is based in Malvern, MobileMD in Yardley. MobileMD is listed on Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch".


Google May Tinker With Pay-TV Service: Report
Search Giant Has Approached Disney, Time Warner and Discovery About Kansas City Trial (Multichannel News)

Clearwire Shares Soar After Sprint Says It May Provide Financial Backing (Bloomberg)

NetSuite Sales Surge, Making for a Good Day in the Cloud (All Things Digital)

PANL Surges 15%; CNBC Warns Of Patent Threat (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Manufacturer Must Pay Up for Bogus Patent Suit (Courthouse News Service)
As if Checkpoint Systems needed any more problems right now.

inTEST Reports 2011 Third Quarter Financial Results (Marketwire)



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Daily Links 11/3/2011: SAP says Cloud strategy coming, while Oracle defends its own and criticizes Salesforce

SAP Readies Comprehensive Cloud Strategy
Co-CEO Bill McDermott says SAP is ready to "unleash the tiger" in the cloud computing market in 2012. (Information Week)

Oracle defends its cloud, tears into Salesforce.com (Ars Technica)

NetSuite Q3 better than expected (ZDNet Blogs)

HDS to release converged computing platform for SAP
SAP HANA will be available later this year (Computerworld)

Competition and a weak economy plague cable TV (CNET News)

DirecTV Reports Third-Quarter Subs, Profit Increase (Hollywood Reporter)

How Much Does an NBC Turnaround Even Matter Any More? (Ad Age)

TE Connectivity beats, warns on consumer markets (Reuters)
TE Connectivity, formerly Tyco Electronics, has its operational headquarters in Berwyn.

ICG Announces Third Quarter Financial Results (Globe Newswire)
Says delays in contract signings impacting second half, lowers revenue guidance.

Business Intelligence Decisions and Directions (Sandhill)
Interview with Radnor-based QlikTech's Donald Farmer.

Intel Capital Leads $35.5M Round In TV E-Commerce Platform Delivery Agent (TechCrunch)

VCs Turn Gloomy About Their Prospects: Report (PE Hub)



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Monetate Reports Record 387% Revenue Increase in Third Quarter (PR Web)


Kenexa Shares Popped: What You Need to Know (Daily Finance)

Pa. Court Holds Onto Suit Against AcademyOne (Courthouse News Service)
AcademyOne is based in West Chester.

Giant’s online service leases N.E. Phila. building: The Fine Print (Philadelphia Business Journal)

More Comcast News: 11/2/2011

NBC ownership highlights Comcast's programming investment risks (LA Times: Company Town)

On the Call: Comcast Execs on New TV Technology (AP via ABC News)

Comcast CEO: Telemundo Soccer World Cup Rights Deal 'Should Be Profitable' (Hollywood Reporter)

For Comcast, broadband grows fast, video losses slow (Gigaom)

QOTD: Cable Guy Actually Broadband Guy (All Things Digital)
"We do see ourselves, and the mantra inside the company is to think of ourselves, as an ISP". -Charter Communications CEO Mike Lovett.



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Comcast reports mixed results

Tom Paine

Comcast announced its third quarter results today, and though earnings per share were slightly below Wall Street's consensus expectations, overall Comcast's numbers helped to quelled some concerns about bigger problems for the cable business based on other recent earnings reports.

On a pro forma basis (comparing this year to last including results from NBCU and Universal Orlando from last year), revenue was up 4.9% for the quarter to $14.3 billion, and operating cash flow increased 3.2% to $4.6 billion, or 5% excluding certain Olympics and acquisition-related accounting revisions and costs. Earnings per share were $0.33 per share, against $0.31 per share last year.

Cable Communications revenue was up 5% for the quarter to $9.3 billion,  lead by Business Services, which grew by almost 40% and now has an annual run rate of almost $2 billion, and High Speed Internet, which grew almost 10%. A closely watched metric, video subscriber losses, were 165,000 for the quarter, down from 275,000 in the same quarter last year.

NBCU revenue increased 4.6% in the quarter to $5.2 billion. After adjustments, operating cash flow was essentially flat.  Cable Networks and Theme Parks showed good growth, but Broadcast Television grew only 2.9% and Filmed Entertainment revenue was off 7.8%. Operating cash flow from Broadcast Television was only slightly positive after adjustments. Operating cash flow from Cable Communication was $3.7 billion, versus $1 billion for NBCU after adjustments.

Some other key points that came up during the conference call:

• Comcast's IP-based Xcalibur platform, currently in test market in Augusta, GA, is expected to begin rollout to other areas early next year.

• Brian Roberts spoke of Telemundo's recently secured (Spanish-language) World Cup rights as being a big win for that network, and something that Comcast can cross-promote over many of its platforms.
  

• Super Bowl advertising inventory is 90% sold out.

• The Docsis 3.0 and Digital conversions are essentially complete.

• Business Services is expanding its efforts to reach larger accounts.

Comcast shares are essentially flat for the day.

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Publicis integrates Philly-based Digitas Health and Razorfish Health into New York-based Healthcare group

Tom Paine

Last week the huge French ad agency, Publicis, announced it was integrating its two Philly-based digital healthcare agencies, Digitas Health and Razorfish Health, into its New York-based Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG). This is another step in an evolving strategy as Publicis aligns its many healthcare marketing assets. Publicis' announcement says the two agencies will "operate as stand-alone brands within PHCG". Though reporting to New York, both units will remain headquartered in Philadelphia. With Digitas Health CEO and co-founder David Kramer having just announced his retirement the week before, Michael du Toit and Alexandra von Plato, who serve as co-Presidents of both agencies, will report to PHCG President and Chief Executive Officer Nick Colucci. PHCG has other units based in Yardley, including Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Innovations, Publicis Healthware International, and Publicis Touchpoint Solutions.

Not included in PHCG is any part of Hamilton, NJ-based Rosetta Marketing, which has a substantial digital healthcare marketing business, in both the OTC and ethical categories. Rosetta, which Publicis acquired last May for $575 million, is headed by CEO and founder Chris Kuenne, who reports directly to Jean-Yves Naouri, chief operating officer of Publicis Groupe.

Digitas Health grew out of Medical Broadcasting Corporation, founded by Kramer and Linda Holliday in Philadelphia in 1990. Originally concentrating on video production (thus the name) before turning to interactive media, it was acquired by Boston-based Digitas in 2006 for about $30 million; Publicis in turn announced it would acquire Digitas at the end of 2006 for $1.3 billion. Digitas Health has grown rapidly, with revenue reported as being well over $100 million, though in July it laid off 57 staff out of its total workforce of about 624 employees. Digitas Health and Razorfish Health took a first step towards integration in June, when du Toit and von Plato were appointed to their current positions, reporting to Kramer.

The much smaller Razorfish Health was split off last year from Razorfish, which Publicis acquired from Microsoft for $530 million in 2009.

While there are several other sizeable or important digital healthcare agencies either based or with offices in the area (see my post from earlier this year), none of the others have that kind of scale.



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Daily Links 11/1/2011: Checkpoint reports loss, Vishay cites "unexpected drop in demand"

Obama names FCC commissioners, both agency, Hill veterans (Washington Post: Post Tech)

Earnings Preview: Comcast to report 3Q earnings (AP via MSNBC)

Baseball eyes new $1 billion TV contract in off-season (Reuters via Fox News)
Will Comcast be a player?

Broadcast networks will rake in retransmission fees, report says (LA Times: Company Town)
NBC has most to gain, report says.

On the Media: Will computer tablets help save newspapers?
In the fragmenting media landscape, a Philadelphia publisher embarks on a bold experiment. (LA Times)

Matchbin Acquires NAVTEQ Broadcast Media Division to Form Radiate Media, Closes $22 Million Financing (Business Wire)

PANL: Gabelli, Piper Tussle Over Promise And Peril (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
On OLED technology firm Universal Display of Ewing, NJ.

Checkpoint reports 3rd quarter loss (AP via MSNBC)

Vishay Reports Results for Third Quarter 2011 (Business Wire)
“In the third quarter, Vishay was confronted with an unexpected drop of demand", CEO Dr. Gerald Paul said.

Kenexa Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter 2011 (Business Wire)


Entercom the latest radio company to report essentially flat Q3 revenue (Radio-Info.com)

SAP in Arab Spring Push to Make Up for Southern Europe Slump
(Bloomberg)

Air Force mulls changes as major ERP system project stumbles (Computerworld)
While this story is about an Oracle implementation, an SAP project for the Army has also been reported to be in trouble.



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (10/24-10/30 2011)

I talked to PlaySay founder Ryan Meinzer about the venture's move to DC, its VC funding and product plans.

I look at some of the recent Venture news in the Philly area, including funding for DuckDuckGo, Philly-based Q&A startup Quewey, and Conshohocken-based SaaS insurance vendor Unirisx.

On the heels of Digitas Health co-founder & CEO David Kramer's retirement announcement, Publicis says it will integrate Digitas Health and Razorfish Health, both of which are Philly-based, into its New York-based Publicis Healthcare Communications Group.

NBC Sports officially announces it will move its headquarters to Connecticut (hope they have a good backup power supply), including Versus, which has been primarily Philly-based and will be renamed the NBC Sports Network in January. So much for the hope of having the next ESPN in the area.

And two of the hottest tech companies in the Philly area, Radnor-based QlikTech and Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare's parent Quality Systems both report strong quarterly results, and Quality Systems approves a stock split.



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Daily Links 10/31/2011: appMobi introduces MobiUs to accelerate Mobile HTML5 Development

Your Response to Occupy Wharton (Wharton Journal)
Continued debate over Occupy Philly's conflict with some in the Wharton community over U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's cancelled speech.

Analysis: Too many start-ups chase too little cash (Reuters)

Interactive Ads: Cable’s Future May Already Have Passed (Bloomberg Business Week)

Cable Is Holding Web TV at Bay, Earnings Show (New York Times)

NBCUniversal to Invest Millions to Enhance Local News at 10 NBC TV Stations (Hollywood Reporter)
Including WCAU in Philadelphia.

McDermott addresses questions over SAP BusinessObjects 4.0, HANA (SearchSAP.com)

MobiUs Accelerates Mobile HTML5 Development, Aims to Kill Mobile Flash (ReadWriteWeb)
New browser released by Lancaster-based appMobi.

TicketLeap Ticket-scanning comes to iPhone with Launch of iOS App (PR Web)

Exclaim Mobility Acquires SmrtGuard Mobile Security Cloud-service Applications (BusinessWire)

Once Hot Startup SimpleGeo Sells For A Loss To Urban Airship (Silicon Alley Insider)
First Round Capital was an investor in SimpleGeo.

Newspaper Next, Five Years Later (Recovering Journalist)

Philly daily newspapers in search for new home (Philly.com: Philly Deals)



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Comcast cranks up its research labs to quickly create new video products (Denver Post)

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)