Daily Links 12/5/2011: ReadWriteWeb names Lancaster-based appMobi its "most promising company for 2012"

Lancaster-based appMobi is ReadWriteWeb's Most Promising Company For 2012 (ReadWriteWeb)

Taleo, Kenexa Spike On SAP/Success Factors Deal; Who Is Next? (Forbes: Tech Musings)

SAP Overpaying For SuccessFactors, S&P Analyst Says (Forbes: Tech Musings)

SAP splashes out in cloud-computing frenzy (Reuters)

Kenexa's Growing HR Footprint (ZDNet Blogs)

IBM Rachets Up Acquisition Machine (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)

PhillyInc: Venture capital still on the upswing (Philadelphia Inquirer)

CMCSA, TWC: Stifel Ups To Buy On Wireless Deal (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Comcast to start selling Verizon mobile early 2012 (Reuters)

Comcast CFO: NBCUniversal Integration Continues to Go 'Really Well' (Hollywood Reporter)

The Future of TV Begins Now on Xbox 360 (Microsoft News Center)
FiOS later this month; Comcast Xfinity On Demand in "early 2012".

Razorfish CEO to Set New Digital Course for Publicis in Wake of Lang Departure (Ad Age)
Implications for Rosetta Marketing?

Siemens amps up its smart grid bid with eMeter startup acquisition (VentureBeat)
eMeter has also been working closely with SAP on applications.

USA Technologies replaces CEO who posed as investor (Philadelphia Business Journal)



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Philly Tech People News 12/4/2011

Katy Theroux Elected Board Chairman of Peirce College: First Female Chairman in the Philadelphia-Based College’s 146-Year History
NASDAQ’s William Morgan Elected Vice Chairman (Business Wire)

Mobile Industry Veteran Fred Beckley Joins Quepasa Corporation as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Business Affairs (Marketwire)

SAP APPOINTS ERIC VERNIAUT SVP OF NEXT GENERATION SERVICES ORGANIZATION (SAP Newsbyte)


DBSi Appoints Paul Mazzucco as Chief Technology Officer (PR Web)

MRM Princeton Positions for Social Innovation and Pharma Leadership
VP, Strategy & Business Development Gretchen Ramsey; Interaction Lead Ben Playford and Project Manager Erin Anderson Join the Ranks (Business Wire)

ShopNBC promotes a former QVC executive to merchandising chief
Annette Repasch has worked for ShopNBC since May. (Internet Retailer)

Views on SAP's $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors

SAP Challenges Oracle With $3.4 Billion SuccessFactors Purchase (Bloomberg)

SAP acquires SuccessFactors: a first take (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

SAP’s Acquisition Of SuccessFactors Re-engergizes Its HCM And SaaS Strategy (Paul Hamerman/Forrester Blogs)

SuccessFactors Acquisition Puts SAP In Direct Competition With Workday And Taleo (Ray Wang/Enterprise Irregulars)

Some quick thoughts on SAP's acquisition of SuccessFactors, along with a few things that bothered me. (Jonathan Reed)

SAP acquires SuccessFactors – is it all hot air in the cloud? (John Appleby/People, Process & Technology)



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SAP enters Cloud, SaaS markets in big way with $3.4 Billion deal for SuccessFactors

Tom Paine


When, a bit more than two weeks ago, SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe started talking about being open to major acquisitions and the need to enter new product categories, I predicted a deal was coming soon because the last time he spoke that way the Sybase deal was announced shortly afterwards.

Well, its happened, as SAP (which has its North American headquarters in Newtown Square) today announced a major deal to strengthen its puny position in the Cloud/SaaS space by acquiring SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion. The deal is probably an admission by SAP that it would not be able to achieve organic growth quickly enough through its existing ByDesign and OnDemand platforms.

SuccessFactors claims to have 15 million subscription seats and more than 3,500 customers, and it posted 77 percent revenue growth year-over-year in the third quarter 2011. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, it was founded in 2001 by Lars Dalgaard. SuccessFactors focuses on Human Capital Managenment and what it calls "Business Execution Software", helping to align people and their performance to corporate goals. Comcast is one example of a major cutomer.

While SAP's PR mentions the Human Capital Management business, in its entirety it seems to speak of broader applications throughout SAP's business.

The bid is actually being made through SAP's SAP America unit. The bid reflects a 52% premium over SuccessFactors' December 2 closing price and will be financed through SAP's cash on hand and a euro 1 billion term loan facility. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012 and be slightly dilutive to EPS in 2012 but accretive afterwards, SAP says.

I would expect Wayne-based Kenexa's stock to get a boost from this, although its a somewhat different animal in the HCM market with more of a focus on talent acquisition, in my view.

More to come.


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With New Funding And Microsoft Partnership, AboutOne Looks To Help Moms Stay Organized (TechCrunch)
AboutOne is based in Malvern.

Harleysville refutes claim of massive payout to board in Nationwide deal (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Comcast has new wireless strategy in deal with Verizon Wireless; Why its much more than a little spectrum sale

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks Sell Advanced Wireless Spectrum to Verizon Wireless for $3.6 Billion (PR Newswire)
This apparently is Comcast's new wireless strategy. Knocks off speculation that it might have been interested in Clearwire, T-Mobile. Comcast will receive about $2.3 billion; companies will resell each other's services, and start joint venture to develop new innovations.
More to come.

With Verizon’s $3.6 Billion Spectrum Deal, Cable and Wireless Inch Closer (New York Times: Media Decoder)
Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett: “This is a REALLY big deal. Maybe the most significant deal the industry has ever seen. And that’s a pretty amazing thing to say for a deal where less than $4 billion changes hands.”


Comcast and Verizon Merge, Without Merging (MarketWatch Video)
Interview with All Thing D's Peter Kafka.

Gigaom's Stacey Higginbotham sees the deal as "the end of broadband competition".

Comcast Cable President Neil Smit's blog post on the deal.

CNET reports that Cable's partnership with Clearwire will soon end; turns out that Comcast had only sold Clearwire service to 30,000 of its subs.

Could an additional benefit be a reduction or perhaps eventual elimination of competition between Verizon's FiOS and Cable in some areas? Both companies say this won't happen, but I wonder.

Comcast's Government Relations crew (lobbyists) in DC may have a tough job on their hands selling this deal to the FCC and FTC.

Comcast up close to 4% on the day; Verizon basically flat.



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Daily Links 12/2/2011: Benioff dreams of toppling Microsoft, Oracle and SAP

Investing in Ben Franklin Programs Now Pays Off in Future (Frederick J. Beste III, chairman of the board of Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania)

Geek On A Train: Surveying the East Coast Startup Scene by Rail (Baltimore Sun: BaltTech)

Benioff's Dream: Toppling Microsoft, Oracle, And SAP (Information Week)
How many execs give 2 and a half hour keynotes?

Microsoft Predicted To Buy Netflix, LinkedIn In 2012 (Investor's Business Daily: Click)

Plosser: Fed Role Raises Inflation Risk (Bloomberg)
Gives speech in Philadelphia.

NBC faces higher fees as it kicks off football talks (New York Post)


OnScreen Summit 2011: Smit: Comcast's Platforms, Partnerships Drive Innovation
President Says MSO Will Release a New Product Every Quarter (Multichannel News)

Princton-based ALK Technologies Announces Worldwide Enterprise Solutions Group to Enhance Focus on the Global Transportation and Logistics Market (Business Wire)

PANL Under Pressure: Gabelli Says Corning Worries Overblown (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Has Amazon Prime Met Its Match? (Motley Fool)
Some positive and negative remarks about Kynetic's ShopRunner; Google may be poised to enter market.



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Dell Boomi Announces Development of Cloud-Based Master Data Management Solution; Unifying Data Across Applications in the Cloud (Business Wire)

Steve Case Launches $450 Million East Coast Venture Fund (Mashable)

Sprint swoops in with $1.6B deal to save Clearwire (Gigaom)

Clearwire CEO Prusch: We Got Our 'Big Three' In Sprint Deal (Forbes: Tech Musings)

Chicago Workers Sue Comcast
Claim Race Discrimination, Fetid Working Conditions (Multichannel News)

Comcast Hones 2-Pronged Business Attack (Light Reading Cable)

Verizon Told To Pull FiOS '#1 In HD Picture Quality' Ad Claim
Advertising Division of Better Business Bureau Issues Recommendation After Comcast Complaint (Multichannel News)

EDITORIAL: Pennsylvania crackdown on online sales tax sure to backfire (Lehigh Valley Live)

Amazon Executive Asks Congress to Address Online Taxes (Bloomberg)

Daily Links 11/30/2011: Clearwire reported to be reaching funding deal with Sprint

Thursday is D-Day for Clearwire (and Sprint) (Gigaom)

Clearwire seen reaching Sprint funding deal (Reuters via Baltimore Sun)

Netflix Viewing Seen Swelling U.S. Users’ Cable-TV Bills Next Year: Tech (Bloomberg)

You Bet Apple TV Is Coming, Says Apple Guru Gene Munster -- Here Are The Details (Silicon Alley Insider)


Comcast Business Services to hook up San Mateo with faster data (CED Magazine)

Jive Pushes Ahead With IPO, Seeking $117M (Bloomberg)
Jive has also been rumored recently to be a possible acquistion target of SAP.


Complaint: medical "copyright over your comments" contracts are illegal (Ars Technica)


Infragistics Growth Continues in Q3 2011 (PR Newswire)

U.S. Federal Reserve Beige Book: Philadelphia District (Text) (Bloomberg)



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Daily Links 11/29/2011: Live Verizon FiOS TV Coming Very Soon to Xbox

Live Verizon FiOS TV Coming Soon to Xbox, Complete With Kinect Voice and Gesture Controls (PR Newswire)

Analyst: T-Mobile to Comcast, instead of AT&T? (Seattle Times)
Comcast has consistently said it doesn't want to own a major wireless network, a position Vice Chairman Michael Angelakis reiterated earlier this month. I believe they mean what they say, but that doesn't mean they don't have a long term interest in wireless as LTE becomes an important alternative to fixed-wire networks for many applications.

Motorola Mobility's Sanjay Jha & Dan Moloney discuss Moto's
set-top box plans (Video: Light Reading)

NetApp Taking on EMC Puts CommVault in Takeover Sights: Real M&A (Bloomberg)
CommVault is based in Oceanport, NJ.


TE Connectivity in Exclusive Negotiations to Acquire Deutsch (PR Newswire)
TE Connectivity (formerly Tyco Electronics) has its operational headquarters in Berwyn. The acquisition would be valued at about $2 billion.

Oracle, SAP, Infor: Three's a crowd (Computer Business Review)

Is SAP HANA about the “in-memory database”? (Vital BI)

Customer Sues Epicor After ERP Software Project Attempt Ends in 'big Mess' (PC World)

Mint Linux freshens up web searches
We've got our own engine. Swallow that, Google and Microsoft (The Register)
Teams up with Paoli-based DuckDuckGo.

Shop online, try it out in person: Kembrel gives hybrid retail sales the old college try (VentureBeat)
Opens small store location in Philly.

Cyber Monday? It was more like Mobile Monday, according to eBay & PayPal (VentureBeat)
And GSI Commerce.


Business incubator's future in peril as state cuts funding
Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Bethlehem trims payroll, helps fewer clients. (Allentown Morning Call)




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Top Vanguard technology operations exec Michael Moore dies in cycle accident

Mutual Fund Wire is reporting that Mike Moore, a principal at Vanguard Group who recently became head of its technology operations, died on November 9 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident on November 6. He was 45.The accident, which occurred at a South Jersey motorsports park, was earlier reported by the Cherry Hill Courier Post.

Mutual Fund Wire says Vanguard spokesperson John Woerth confirmed in an email to them that it was indeed their executive who passed away.