Leading Payroll Provider Acquires Online Employee Scheduling Solution To Expand Service Offering (PR Web)
PrimePay of West Chester acquires startup ReadySetWork (also based in West Chester), which is scheduled to participate in the
Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference demo pit.

Datatel+SunGard Banner Customers Better Buckle Up (The Higher Ed CIO)


Gov. Christie yells down student protesting Rowan/Rutgers-Camden merger at town hall meeting (video)



Former Navy SEAL booted from Gov. Christie town hall after heated exchange (NJ.com)




Philly Tech News Facilities Roundup: Who's moving or expanding?



Tom Paine

Real estate decisions (leases, expansions, new offices) are often a good indicator of what's happening within a company or industry. Here's a new Philly Tech News feature that will appear periodically, a roundup of recent facilities news involving Philly area tech firms:




Synygy, the Chester-based provider of sales compensation and performance management solutions, recently announced several real estate investments, including the extension of the lease at the world headquarters (shown above), located in a 1917-era converted Beaux Arts style power plant along the Delaware River in Chester, though 2022. The building is named "The Wharf At Rivertown" and there are a few other tennants, the company tells me. Synygy also upgraded its offices in the historic "Old Town" area of Scottsdale, Arizona.
Internationally, Synygy announced the doubling of capacity and the relocation of the European software development organization in downtown Iasi, Romania, an expanded EMEA sales and services office in Bucharest, Romania, the establishment of a new EMEA sales office in Cologne, Germany, and the relocation and expansion of the APAC sales office in Singapore. Mark A. Stiffler, Synygy president and CEO, in a statement emphasized his "passion for historical preservation and adaptive reuse" while meeting expansion needs. Synygy recently said it expected to expand to over 600 employees over the next six months.

HighPoint Soutions, a rapidly growing provider of specialized IT solutions for the life sciences and healthcare industries, has moved its headquarters from King of Prussia to East Norriton, at 301 E. Germantown Pike, just off I-476 and I-276. The new office contains over 14,000 sq. ft. of space, supporting the company’s 225 Philadelphia area consultants and will allow for the expansion of its Business Solutions Center by approximately 50%. HighPoint employs over 400 people today, and the company says it has tripled in revenue and employee headcount over the past five years and plans to expand by another 20% this year.

Cranbury NJ-based Microsoft development tools provider Infragistics announced its expansion into APAC (Asia & Pacific) and the opening of a new regional headquarters in Australia. Infragistics already has country offices in India and Japan, and its tools are widely used in Asia.

Blue Bell-based technical staffing firm McGrath Systems is opening two new offices, in Metro Park, New Jersey and Hagerstown, Maryland.

On the telecom front, Colorado-based Zayo Group announced an expansion of its high capacity Northeast route, including connections to Philadelphia. Zayo's Northeast expansion will provide transport services at speeds of 1Gigabit, 2.5Gigabit and 10Gigabit per second with a total network capacity of 800Gigabits. Service points in Philadelphia will be at 2401 Locust & 401 N. Broad. The build is expected to be completed by the end of the 1st quarter. Other locations on the network are Ashburn, VA, Chicago, IL, Cleveland, OH, and New York, NY. Zayo Group is a national provider of fiber-based bandwidth infrastructure and network-neutral colocation and interconnection services.

Warrington PA-based Sunesys, LLC announced that they have recently completed their connection to DBSi’s TekPark Data Center Facility in Breinigsville, PA. Sunesys is a telecommunications services and dark fiber provider. DBSi is a provider of disaster recovery, managed hosting and data center services in the Mid-Atlantic. It also has data centers in Bethlehem and Valley Forge.




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Daily Links 3/9/2012: Bloomberg on Wayne-based SkillSurvey; SAP looks to partner with startups on HANA



Cloud Integration in 2012: Dell Boomi, Taleo Focus on End-to-End Business Processes (Integration Developer News)

Working In ‘HANA Time,’ SAP Looks To Build Ties With Start-Ups (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)


Google May Be Ready to Sell Part of Motorola, but Who Will Buy? (Mari Silbey/Zatz Not Funny!)

SkillSurvey Helps Employers Get ’Honest’ References for Potential Hires (Bloomberg)
SkillSurvey is based in Wayne.

Philadelphia advertising community hands out ADDY award (Philadelphia Business Journal)

South Philly's entertainment venue Xfinity Live! set to open at sports complex (Philadelphia Daily News)

Bad Karma: Our Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid breaks down (Consumer Reports)
Any new model (particularly from a totally new company) is going to have issues, though you wonder if they are pushing cars out too quickly because of financial pressures and the need to show they can be viable. Fisker is going to need a lot of financial help, and the prospect of getting that Delaware production line going seems further and further away.



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Trenton Computer Festival, the early days of computing, and me ( David Gewirtz /ZDNet Blogs)



Trenton Computer Festival, the early days of computing, and me ( David Gewirtz /ZDNet Blogs)

A remarkable bit of history. The Trenton Computer Festival is tomorrow, March 10.


Daily Links 3/8/2012: FCC to Verizon Wireless, cable operators: Not so fast!



SAP Ventures Sets Its Sights on a New Fund and Internal Expansion as It Balances Strategic and Financial Investing (PE Hub)

Newsbyte: Right Hemisphere Visualization Technologies Are Now SAP Visual Enterprise Applications (PR Newswire)

Jive Takes On Salesforce With Social CRM Software (Tech Week Europe)

The PERFECT SAP Acquisition Target (R3Now Blog)
Author's suggestion: SugarCRM.

Scala Introduces Leading Indicators CxO Board(TM) – New Digital Signage Category which Commands Attention of Busy Executives to Metrics that Matter Most to Business (PR Web)

Salesforce Ecosystems Grows (Denis Pombriant/Enterprise Irregulars)

FCC asks Verizon, cable companies for more information on spectrum deal (Washington Post: Post Tech)

thePlatform Adds Subscriptions to TV Everywhere (Light Reading Cable)

Comcast Launches TiVo Xfinity On Demand In Apri (Zatz Not Funny!)

Mobile Ad Network Millennial Media Will List On The New York Stock Exchange (TechCrunch)
Millennial Media is based in Baltimore.

The One Startup That Keeps Facebook Awake At Night (Silicon Alley Insider)
Path, a First Round Capital portfolio company.

Greg Osberg: Maybe Not Such a Savior of the Inquirer? (Philly Mag: The Phily Post)

When a newspaper keeps reporters out, you've got trouble (Newsworks)

Tirpak Resigns from Board as USA Technologies Reaches Deal with Shareholder Group (Citybizlist Philadelphia)

SHPS sells part of its operations to ADP (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Louisville-based SHPS has an office in Philadelphia which will become part of New Jersey-based ADP.

The ballad of the brave CIO (Fortune Tech)
Contributed by Safeguard Scientifics VP & Managing Director Philip D. Moyer.


Bentley Systems' Second Annual Corporate Update Conference Call: Big theme is China




Tom Paine



Exton-based Bentley Systems, which describes itself as "the largest software provider for sustaining infastructure" held its second annual Corporate Update conference call yesterday. This event was initiated last year to improve the privately held company's communications with the various communities that follow Bentley and the industry it operates within. While not providing the degree of disclosure a public company must reveal, CEO Greg Bentley's very succinct presentation gave a good picture of where the company is heading.

Bentley announced revenue in 2011 was $523 million, a 10% increase over 2010. He indicated that the company believed it was out of the trough it had been in during the recesssion, though his comment that "“2012 has already started stronger than did either of 2009 or 2010” left me somewhat puzzled. What about 2011? Bentley said the company was "modestly optimistic" about the current outlook, and was "conservatively" forecasting 6% organic growth for 2012.

The star performing geographic region was Asia, and in particular, China. Asia now represents 19% of overall revenue, and Bentley said revenue from China, which had been doubling every three years, is now doubling every two years. He said that China may eventually become Bentley Systems' largest market, and that the company would be holding a board meeting there this year. I almost expected him to announce that Bentley would be relocating its headquarters from Exton to Beijing. China is hungry for the best technology for building infrastructure, both for new building projects and for environmental improvements such as cleaner power. As long as China can keep spending, it will be good news for Bentley.

Perhaps surprisingly, Bentley said Europe was probably holding up better than the US market, which he described as "sideways". He said commercial spending trends were stronger than the public sector, particularly in the US. Although Bentley System does not have an identical competitor in terms of product mix, Bentley said its performance in terms of revenue growth compared favorably to its most similar publicly traded competitor, Autodesk.

Bentley also spoke extensively about Bentley Systems' ProjectWise collaboration platform, which he described as the ERP of choice for complex engineering projects.He said that ProjectWise was starting to move towards a hybrid Cloud approach using Microsoft's Azure platform. He also spoke about making ProjectWise more mobile, involving not only the use of mobile apps but devices like sensors and scanners. He didn't use the term "Internet of Things", but I wondered if that was the direction he was speaking of.

Financially, Bentley announced the company had spent $40 million to repurchase the remaining shares formerly held by Intergraph Corporation (later sold to Hexagon), after settling long-running litigation with Intergraph last year. Bentley family members and associates now control 92% of all shares. He also said the company had lined up a $350 million credit facility and its current liquidity (I guess cash and near cash) was $175 million.

Bentley Systems also announced yesterday it has acquired the elcoSystem software business of Germany's Hannappel Software GmbH. The elcoSystem line of software for electrical engineering was already a fundamental component of Bentley’s Raceway and Cable Management and Building Electrical Systems offerings. Terms were not disclosed.

Not being an expert in this industry, my speculation doesn't mean much, but I've wondered whether Princeton-based Mistras Group might be an eventual acquisition target for Bentley. Mistras is a provider of technology-enabled asset protection solutions used to evaluate the structural integrity of energy, industrial and public infrastructure. Mistras, which did an IPO last year, has a current market value of $624 million, so it would be a rather large fish for Bentley to swallow, though.

Bentley Systems will hold its Be Together 2012 user conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia in May.

Note: just heard talk on CNBC that China is sending a message to the provinces to "cool down" infrastructure spending.



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Daily Links 3/7/2012: NY Post reports Google looking to unload Motorola's Horsham-based set-top box business




Exclusive: Google looking to unload Motorola's TV set-top box business (NY Post)
Motorola's set-top box business is based in Horsham.

Is the Set-Top Duopoly on Its Deathbed? (Jeff Baumgartner /Light Reading Cable)

Group said to have sole right to try for PMN (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Comcast Cable Chief Talks Sub Trends, Streampix (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast won't offer Xfinity TV subscribers access to Netflix (FierceCable)

New Apple TV delivers 1080p, updated interface (CNET News)

Philly's CRE Community Takes Stock of Changing Trends (GlobeSt.com)
Interesting piece on how technology is impacting the Philly commercial real estate business.


SAP sense tests its SME messaging at CeBIT (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

Deutsche Telekom Rivals SAP in Small-Business Web Programs (Bloomberg)

New Release of Unisys Secure Cloud Computing Solution Gives Clients Better, More Cost-Efficient Resource Management (PR Newswire)

Nuance Acquires Transcend for $300 Million to Improve Electronic Medical Records (BostInno)

Delaware Judge Questions Delphi CEO’s Actions, Let’s Deal Go On (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)
Delphi Financial, based in Wilmington, has agreed to be acquired by Japan’s Tokio Marine Holdings for $2.7 billion .

Geek of the Week: Scott Wasserman, Founder of appRenaissance (Geekadelphia)


Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (2/27/2012 to 3/4/2012)



I profiled the objectives, agenda and participants for the upcoming Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference to be held on March 28 at World Cafe Live.

King of Prussia-based BuySide Partners (formerly A-Frame Technology Assurance) separated from A-Frame Technology Services to focus primarily on its opportunities in helping the Department of Defense improve the efficiency of its massive IT operations. I discussed BuySide Partners' plans with Managing Partner Chris Panaro.

New Jersey Tech Weekly's Esther Surden contributed an article to Philly Tech News about TechLaunch, New Jersey's first tech accelerator.

Lawrenceville, NJ-based Edison Ventures' newest fund, Edison VII, closed with $249 million raised, and as usual it hopes to invest a good portion of that in the Philly area, the Inquirer's Mike Armstrong reported.

Online advertising platform OpenX (a First Round Capital portfolio company) acquired King of Prussia-based startup LiftDNA; there is some talk that Pasadena, CA-based OpenX might be thinking about an IPO.

Philly's 3D printing and prototyping lab NextFab Studio, headed by Evan Malone, is planning a second, much larger facility on Washington Ave. in South Philadelphia, the Inquirer's Joe DiStefano reported.

A Politico reporter at a media event ran into Ed Rendell, and asked about the status of his bid for Philadelphia Media Network. He is reported to have replied that "the bids went in today" (this past Friday). Whether that quote is completely accurate or that it means there are multiple bidders is not entirely clear. As you may know, impromptu Rendell quotes may sometimes later be disavowed.



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Daily Links 3/6/2012: SAP rolling out multitenant version of Business One; also targets collaboration software



PhillyInc: New Edison Ventures fund to invest in Philadelphia-area tech firms (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Servigistics Merges with Philly-based software firm MCA Solutions (PE Hub)

SAP rolling out cloud-savvy version of Business One
Partners will now be able to sell a multitenant version of the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software for small companies
(IT World)

SAP's Snabe: Next Target, Collaboration Software (Eric Savitz/Forbes)
Start up the rumor mill again about whether SAP will make an acquisition in this area.

Interview with SAP co-CEO Snabe at CeBIT (Reuters Video)

SAP Offers Share-Based Pay to All Staff as Stock Nears Highest in 11 Years (Bloomberg)

FCC Seeks Cell Phone-Jammer Input
(Yidio)

AppMobi Accelerates Android HTML5 Performance With new directCanvas SDK (Read Write Web)

Temple University Establishes a Presence at the University City Science Center (Globe Newswire)

Verizon challenges cable MSOs, AT&T with HomeFusion wireless broadband service (FierceCable)

AT&T May Sell Off Many DSL Markets
Upgrades Schmupgrades
(Broadband Reports)

Rivals Try to Freeze Verizon-MSO Spectrum Buy (Light Reading Cable)

Exclusive: Netflix in talks for cable partnership (Reuters)