Daily Links 3/14/2012: Report: Exton-based iPipeline in talks to acquire UK's Assureweb



American firm (Exton-based iPipeline) in talks to acquire Assureweb (Money Marketing)

International Battery owes Pennsylvania millions
Company defaulted on assistance when it abruptly closed.
(Allentown Morning Call)

IBM Cognos Insight: Data Visualization For Less
Bringing its TM1 technology to the desktop, IBM Cognos answers QlikTech and Tableau with a low-cost data-exploration tool
(Information Week)

Taking false cloud comfort from multi-tenancy ( Phil Wainewright/ZDNet Blogs)

I’m joining SAP AG. (Sameer Patel/Enterprise Irregulars)

Devon IT Announces SafeBook Thin Client Program for Dell (Business Wire)

Maven Communications adds Comcast, Fisher & Phillips, Futura Mobility and ProPoint Graphics (Philly Ad Club News)

Maiden Media Selected as Digital Agency for La Yogurt Probiotic (PR Newswire)

Aereo Wait-Lists New Yorkers On Internet TV Service
Micro-Antenna Startup Faces Copyright-Infringement Suits from Broadcasters
(Multichannel News)

Op-Ed : Comcast's commitment to Martha's Vineyard is stronger than ever (Martha's Vineyard Times)
Always important to keep people on Martha's Vineyard and in Vail happy.




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Daily Links 3/13/2012: Intel wants to get into Cable biz?



Intel Seeking Media Rights to Start Online Pay-TV System (Bloomberg)
Join the party.

Intel's Plan To Become A Cable Company Is One Of The Dumbest Ideas Ever (Henry Blodget/Silicon Alley Insider)


Did NBC miss the boat on 'Downton Abbey'? (Philadelphia Inquirer)

S&T, icueTV Demo Political-Donation ITV App
Vendors Demo "Click to Text" EBIF Application at CableLabs Winter Conference
(Multichannel News)
icueTV is based in Cherry Hill. CableLabs' Winter Conference is being held in Philadelphia.

SAP: Bernstein Ups to Buy on ‘Hana’ Prospects (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

SAP ports HANA database to financial planning app
Latest move by SAP to seed HANA throughout its product portfolio.
(Computerworld)

Sameer Patel joins SAP and why it matters (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

Dell Steels Software Biz With SonicWall (Wired Enterprise)
$1.2 billion deal, WSJ reports.

Apple to spend $11bn on Samsung parts in 2012 claims exec (SlashGear)
OLED might be in the plans, which if true could be good news for Universal Display.


SalesCrunch makes $1 bid for Cisco's WebEx (Reuters)
SalesCrunch is a First Round Capital portfolio company.

Turntable.FM Signs Licensing Deals With All Four Major Labels (Hollywood Reporter)
Another FRC portfolio company.

Urban Outfitters’ Margins Sink, 4Q EPS Misses Mark (Barron's Blogs)

Fisker electric Karma was pushed to market before it was ready (Gigaom)
According to one former employee, anyway.



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (3/5/2012 to 3/11/2012)



I reported on Bentley Systems' 2nd annual corporate update conference call; growth seems to be picking up again and the main message I took away from the call was the emphasis on China.

I wrote about Philly & New York-based Solve Media's effort to expand its CAPTCHA branding business to pre-roll advertisements for online videos.

Netflix is looking for cable operators to partner with, but Comcast quickly said it wasn't going to play that game.

The FCC signaled that it wasn't going to give Verizon Wireless and several cable operators a quick pass on their proposed spectrum sale and marketing joint venture, requesting more (unredacted) information from all parties involved.

Fortune Magazine profiled Comcast's strategy for its NBC Sports Group to double down on sports.

The New York Post broke a story that Google was looking to unload Motorola Mobility's Horsham-based set-top box business even before the acquisition was completed. Although there has been no confirmation, many industry observers would not be surprised if it were true.

PE Hub reported on SAP Ventures' plans for its next fund. SAP Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe said in an interview at CeBIT that collaboration software would be the company's next product category to expand in; that doesn't necessarily require an acquisition but nonetheless his comments got the rumor mills going again. SAP also rolled out at CeBIT what it referred to as a multitenant Cloud version of its Business One ERP suite for smaller enterprises, although some analysts questioned whether it was a true multitenancy architecture.

Exton-based Scala introduced several new offerings at Digital Signage Expo 2012, including what it calls CxO Board, a digital display scoreboard that enterprise managers can use to monitor key performance metrics.

Fisker, with its plans to produce autos in Delaware delayed, had a Karma it delivered to Consumer Reports break down almost immediately on the testing grounds.

And a somewhat altered group now said to be headed by Lewis Katz and Gerry Lenfest apparently has exclusive rights to bargain for Philadelphia Media Network; Ed Rendell's position in the group is not clear at this time.

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Daily Links 3/12/2012: Oracle gets a downgrade due to growing competition from SAP



Dell working on cloudy analytics apps
Survey says SMBs want one SaaS throat to choke
(The Register)

Oracle: SAP Draws Blood; Jefferies Downgrades To Hold (Eric Savitz/Forbes)

Why Workday has Oracle and SAP worried (Fortune Tech)

A couple interesting tidbits came out of a blogger SAP HCM briefing call (Jonathan Reed)

Top VC Sees More Business Software Deal-Making (Forbes)

Passport Health Acquires STAT Technologies, Gains Market-Leading Enterprise Scheduling Capabilities (PR Newswire)
Tennessee-based Passport Health's Healthworks division is located in King of Prussia. STAT Technologies is based in Hazlet, NJ. "Passport executives did say they anticipate additional M&A activity this year as the company responds to increasing market demand for its products and services, and carries out plans for continued aggressive growth", according to its press release.

Parts of healthcare are moving to the cloud (O'Reilly Radar)

AppMobi Releases First Public Version of jqMobi HTML5 Framework (ReadWriteMobile)
AppMobi is based in Lancaster.

AT&T accelerating LTE rollout, targeting 11 new cities (Gigaom)
Philly apparently not one of them.

Wawa Searches for Right Mix of Technology vs. Customer Service (Convenience Store News)

Aereo files countersuit against broadcasters (Reuters)
First Round Capital was an early backer of Aereo.



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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.