Daily Links 4/3/2012: Sungard wants to sell you Hadoop as a service

New owners discuss details of the sale (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Sungard wants to sell you Hadoop as a service (Gigaom)

Quepasa And MyYearbook Rebrand As MeetMe (TechCrunch)

Introducing our New Head of Talent at First Round Capital, Jack Leidlein (Redeye VC)

Dell acquires Clerity as shopping spree continues (ZDNet Blogs)
Sounds like it might be a pretty good fit with what Boomi does.

SAP Jumps On Predictive Analytics Bandwagon
SAP supports R statistical programming language, following in the footsteps of rivals. So what's new about this predictive software? (Information Week)

Netflix: Rising Competition a Big Concern, Barclays Says (Wall Street Journal: MarketBeat)

The End of the World[Gate] ( Jeff Baumgartner/Light Reading Cable)

From Google to Comcast, Tech Giants Are Shaping Your Home's Smart Future (ReadWriteWeb)

FirstBest Growth Financing Round Reflects Insurer Interest in Front-Office Solutions (Insurance & Technology)
NewSpring Capital (also investor in iPipeline) among leaders in $10 million round for Massachusetts startup.

Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (3/26/2012 to 4/1/2012)

The first annual PACT Phorum event: 2012 Cloud Computing Conference was held on Wednesday at World Cafe Live and drew a packed house, energizing the Cloud community in Philadelphia.

Another round of cuts loom at Philadelphia Media Network, and the sale to a new ownership group for $55 million was announced today, as had been reported last week. I couldn't resist the opportunity to get my own digs in at the soap opera that's been going on at PMN in this April Fool's piece. And Technically Philly included me in one of their spoofs about unionizing Philly tech journalists.

The company formed through the merger of SunGard Higher Education and Datatel has a new name: Ellucian, whatever that means. (I thought SunGard Higher Ed was a bit more to the point.)

Fortune Magazine did a feature on what it called SAP's Radical Makover.

Comcast's unit thePlatform teamed up with Conshohocken-based Empathy Lab to develop a portal and UI offering that smaller cable operators can use to deploy "TV Everywhere" service.

The Daiily Pennsylvanian reported that Penn is expanding to the far side of the Schuylkill to build a new 16,000 square foot data center.

In venture news, search engine DuckDuckGo continues to report phenomenal traffic growth, Exton
Healthcare IT firm HIT Application Solutions raised $2.75 million in Series A funding (don't know from who), and Bucks County venture incubator Novotorium welcomed it second tenant, Inhabi.

Notable tweet: Wendy Warren, VP & Editor, Philly.com: @colinmlenton @ckrewson Guess what? We are not happy with the look of the site ourselves, and we're planning an overhaul...


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Daily Links 4/2/2012: Philadelphia Media Network sold; Dell Acquires Wyse

Local group to buy Phila. Media Network for $55 million (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Dell Buys Cloud Client Computing Company Wyse To Expand Desktop Virtualization Products (TechCrunch)
Wonder what this means for King of Prussia-based Devon IT, a key Dell supplier in this market.

Dell To Acquire Virtual Desktop Player Wyse Technology (All Things D)
One analyst pegs price at between $350 and $400 million on estimated revenue of $375 million.

Dell plans to acquire Wyse. (It's about time!) (BrianMadden.com)

Apple Jumps to #2 Position in New IDC Health Insights Life Sciences Survey; a 220% Increase Since 2009
Dell leads hardware category while Oracle maintains position as #1 software vendor of choice (Business Wire)

SAP Celebrates 40 Years of Innovation (PR Newswire)



SAP structures specialized unit for national security clients (Washington Technology)

WorldGate files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (phillyBurbs.com)
The end of the line for WorldGate; an interesting piece of Philly Tech history.

ICG Acquires MSDSonline, a Cloud-Based Environmental, Health and Safety Compliance Solution (Globe Newswire)
Pays $48 million for 96%.

Will telcos and MSOs lose SMEs to upstart hosted service providers? (FierceEnterpriseCommunications)

Rue La La bulks up on warehouse space (Internet Retailer)
Buys 400,000 square foot Louisville warehouse from GSI Commerce. Michael Rubin reacquires one of his old properties.



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Philadelphia Media Network Publisher Osberg to announce "Project Lifeboat", Partnership with AOL Patch, on Tuesday

Tom Paine

After the expected announcement of the sale of Philadelphia Media Network to a new ownership group on Monday, PMN Publisher & CEO Greg Osberg will hold a press conference to make an important announcement about the future direction of the papers on Tuesday at the Academy of Natural Sciences, according to an internal company memorandum that somehow ended up being republished in the newspaper trade blog Poynter.

According to a source who spoke with Philly Tech News, Osberg will be announcing a new initiative, "Project Lifeboat", in which PMN will partner with AOL's Patch and incorporate Patch's Philly area journalists into its reporting. A key objective of this plan will be to phase out what the source referred to as "PMN's legacy journalists" over the next few years.

"These legacy journalists often make six-figure plus salaries, can't produce more than two stories a day because of their stubborn insistence on meticulous original reporting, and can't be trained in new technologies. In essence, they are dinosaurs", the source said. Furthermore, he commented, legacy journalists often go behind management's back by leaking embarrassing stories or memos that reflect poorly on management and ownership, sometimes going so far as to make up tales of imagined meetings that never occurred.

However, the source continued, Patch reporters "are like machines", turning out keyword-rich stories almost every hour, while working for little more than minimum wage. They can also handle most of their own technology needs, reducing the need for expensive tech support. A company PR person can order a story killed for business reasons without getting any flack. And with Patch, there is no troublesome Guild to deal with.

The source described the transition as being like going from Mainframe to Cloud Computing, with an emphasis on efficiency, flexibility, and elasticity of resources.

This initiative will also reduce the squeeze on space in PMN's new city-subsidized offices on Market East, to which it will move this summer, as Patch employees can work outside of the office in their parent's basements. This will leave more room for important activities like table tennis for Project Liberty startup employees.

Osberg led Newsweek from 2000 to 2008; in 2009 it was sold for $1. Osberg took over the papers after Philadelphia Media Network acquired them for $139 million in 2010. They originally were said to be on the market earlier this year for $100 million, but the single bid reportedly came in at $60 million or possibly even less.



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Philly Tech People News 4/1/2012

Cloud Industry Veterans Join Evolve IP to Support Company Growth
Five new hires join one of the country’s fastest-growing cloud services providers to further strengthen virtualization and hosted call center platforms (Business Wire)

Comcast Corporation Names D’Arcy F. Rudnay Chief Communications Officer (Business Wire)

Scott Ungerer of EnerTech Capital Expands Involvement with National Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (Business Wire)

Bentley Systems' Faraz Ravi Named Chairman of ASTM International Committee on 3D Imaging Systems (GeoPlace)

EXTOL International Appoints Reeve Fritchman its First Chief Strategy Officer
Transportation Management Systems Veteran to Guide Integration Technology Provider's Cloud-Based Initiatives (PR Newswire)

Jamie Allen, a leader in the Scala programming language development community who has been with Chariot Solutions, is now a consultant with Typesafe in San Francisco. Typesafe was founded by the creators of Scala and Akka middleware to develop a platform around those tools.

Heartland Payment Systems(R) Promotes Michael A. Lawler to Chief of Corporate Development (Marketwire)

Infragistics Appoints Ken Azuma as Managing Director of Japan (PRNewswire-AsiaNet)

The Cline Group Names Scott Piro Senior Vice President (Business Wire)




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Tribune Co. set to pull its programming off at DirecTV as midnight deadline approaches (Baltimore Sun)
Phillie games on WPHL could also be pulled from DirecTV.

SAP’s Plattner Seeks New Term as Chairman, Welt am Sonntag Says (Bloomberg)

SAP Founder Says Acquisitions Strengthened Company, Euro Says (Bloomberg)
Dietmar Hopp has no plans to sell stake, report says.

Medivo's CEO Says He's Never Seen So Much Investor Money In Healthcare Startups (Silicon Alley Insider)
Medivo raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Safeguard Scientifics late last year.

Dell Cloud Computing Partner Program: A Closer Look (TalkinCloud)

UPenn Frat Boys Are Taking Over New York Tech (Silicon Alley Insider)

QVC to cut 606 call center jobs (WAVY 10)
Company says its cutting Virginia call center jobs because more orders are being placed online.

Daily Links 3/30/2012: Sale of Philly papers expected to be announced on Monday

Philadelphia Newspapers Set to Be Sold to Local Leaders (New York Times: Media Decoder)

Announcement of sale of newspapers, website expected Monday (Philadelphia Inquirer)


New Jersey comptroller details waste by Delaware River Port Authority (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Norcross sounds like just the guy we need owning the Inquirer.


10 Questions for Scala CFO Anthony Maddalone (PC World)
Interesting interview with CFO of Exton-based Scala. He says his previous experiences with the IPO process was one thing that interested Scala, but he joined the company five years ago and I don't know if that's in the plans today (although its certainly not inconceivable).

Verizon plans wireless video service: report
CEO says offering could be ready as soon as this holiday season (Reuters via MSNBC)
From this article, still not quite sure what this is about; will find out more. (Here is a little more of an explanation), although details are still unclear.

Apple Doesn’t Need To Make the TV of the Future
The revolution is already here—and it’s called the Xbox. (Slate)

SunGard (Ellucian) Still Suing Cajana and NSCC (The Higher Ed CIO)

Server Flash Memory Craze Buoys Violin, Attracts SAP (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Stroll Achieves New Revenue Milestones in 2011 (Business Wire)
Philly-based Stroll says 2011 revenue was $40 million, up from $17 million in 2010.

Fisker's Project Nina exposed ahead of New York Auto Show debut (Engadget)
Does it actually operate, or is it just a brick?

Exton-based HIT Application Solutions Secures $2.75 Million in Funding (PR Newswire)

Look at that DuckDuckGo! Daily search traffic is ballooning, up 227% in 3 months (The Next Web)

Inhabi Begins Business Incubation with Novotorium (PR Web)

A Few Early Observations On Xfinity Live! (The 700 Level)



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Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference a success; energizes Philly Cloud community

Tom Paine




Although I was not present, by all accounts PACT's Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference held yesterday at World Cafe Live was a big success, and served its purposes in bringing together and creating a sense a community among participants in the area's Cloud Computing industry, as well as highlighting Philly's capabilities nationally.

Phorum Advisory Board Chair Bob Moul told Philly Tech News by email that 430 people signed up (capacity was about 400) although he doesn't have final attendance figures yet, "and we've had overwhelming positive response". Don Norbeck, a bicoastal executive (Philly & California) with Cloud joint venture VSE tweeted: "another great session and great conversations in between faith in #Philly tech restored again".

There really hadn't been a high quality event like this in Philadelphia focusing on enterprise computing in a long time.

UXFlip, which provides a platform for building native mobile apps and was in DreamIt Ventures' 2011 Philly class, was Demo Pit “Best in Show” winner, as voted by conference attendees. The other finalists were online interactive video content provider cWyze and West Chester-based online employee scheduling platform ReadySetWork, which was acquired early this month by West Chester-based payroll services provider PrimePay .

You can view the slides from the presentations at Phorum here.

Another useful resource is a list of firms represented at the Phorum.

Videos are said to be coming.

Planning is already underway for Phorum 2013.

Related post: Phorum 2012 Cloud Computing Conference promises to shake up Philly Cloud scene



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Daily Links 3/29/2012: Comcast's thePlatform teams up with Conshy's Empathy Lab on TV Everywhere portal for small operators

A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet (New York Times)
Mentions Jenn Lukas (photo) and Girl Develop IT.

Contest to see if Lehigh Valley's tech-savvy can hack it (Allentown Morning Call)

Inside SAP's radical makeover (Fortune Tech)

SAP, ORCL To Ride Wave of ‘Apps Revolution,’ Says Credit Suisse (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

20 Facts from SAP’s 2011 Form 20-F (ASUG News)

IPO Boom: Millennial Media Doubles At Open (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)
Millennial Media is based in Baltimore.

Comcast Unit Targets Synacor's Turf (Light Reading Cable)
Comcast's thePlatform unit teams up with Consohocken's Empathy Lab to provide TV Everywhere portals for smaller cable operators.

Comcast Pulls Back On IPv6 Rollout, Citing Netgear Modem Glitch
MSO Says Retail Cable Modem Has a 'Critical IPv6-Related Defect' (Multichannel News)

Wharton Venture Award, Early Supporter of Past Recipients InviteMedia, Milo, Warby Parker, Selects Wharton School Entrepreneurs to Receive $50,000 for Summer Venturing (PR Web)

NextGen Healthcare Enters into Reseller Agreement with Nuance Communications
Relationship to provide more streamlined, cost-effective approach to patient data entry (Business Wire)

Oracle acquires cloud-based clinical apps provider ClearTrial (ZDNet Blogs)

Looking for a wine or liquor? LCB has an app for that (Philadelphia Inquirer)



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Daily Links 3/28/2012: News Corp said to plan nationwide ESPN rival

FiOS-Less Cities Complain About Spectrum Deal
Argue it would foreclose the possibility of video/broadband competition via FiOS in their cities (Multichannel News)

The technical and legal realities of Comcast’s Xbox cap spat (Gigaom)


News Corp. Said to Plan U.S. Sports Network to Rival ESPN (Bloomberg via Ad Age)
Didn't Fox go halfway down that road several years ago before pulling back?

Comcast Business takes a continuous improvement model to CEM (FierceTelecom)

Blackboard buys Moodlerooms...And no, this isn't an early April Fools (ZDNet Blogs)

Penn expands beyond banks of Schuylkill for new data center (Daily Pennsylvanian)

Baltimore Mobile Ad Network Millennial Media Prices IPO At $13 Per Share (TechCrunch)

Veterans of Cambridge Technology Partners getting the band back together...at Cloud Technology Partners (Boston Globe)
Cambridge Technology Partners was owned by Safeguard Scientifics in the 1990s before going public and later being acquired by Novell.

SuccessFactors Offers Free Version of Jam Software in Hit Against Salesforce.com (PC World)

Kronos pays cash for Branchburg, NJ-based SaaS HR company (Mass High Tech)


Cisco to Buy SPIT Specialist (Light Reading Cable)

What is the difference between a CLEC/ICP and a cloud services provider? (Evolove IP Blog)
A bit slanted, obviously, but interesting nonetheless.



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