Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (5/14/2012 to 5/20/2012)

I reported on how T-Mobile is using the breakup fee and spectrum received from AT&T to reboot its strategy on several fronts, and the role the Philadelphia region plays in it.

Newtown-based Freedom OSS, from which I'd heard little for a while, resurfaced as a subcontractor to Lockheed on a new $250 million contract for building a private Cloud environment for the Army. Which makes me wonder, does the Army actually have someone named Private Cloud?

I covered SAP's mega trade show, Sapphire, remotely (it was held in Orlando). The two biggest topics there were probably SAP's effort to provide a clearer roadmap for its Cloud strategy, and rolling out new capabilities and applications for its in-memory HANA platform.

China signed off on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility on Sunday, and the deal closed this morning. According to one report citing Motorola's new CEO, Google has not decided yet what to do with its Horsham-based set-top box business.

Exton-based Bentley Systems held its annual "BE Together" user conference at the PA Convention Center last week. Among other things, Bentley announced an acquisition and also said it was opening a new office in Center City Philadelphia that could house up to 50 employees.

A Center City startup which began life as Storably, a site for renting out things like spare parking spaces and storage space, saw that wasn't gaining much traction and so it did a major pivot and launched last week as Curalate, a web service that helps marketers develop programs on Pinterest. First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and UPenn-related MentorTech Ventures are investors.

Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg stepped down, although he will continue as an advisor for a while. Although Osberg described it as a move he had planned to make once the ownership change was completed, this New York Times report suggested he may have been pressured out ahead of schedule.

The Philly Fed manufacturing index took a rather dramatic downward plunge into negative territory in May.

Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe to Philly Tech News Weekly Highlights by Email



permalink

News from The Cable Show 5/22/2012

TV Everywhere’s Counting Problem (All Things D)

The Cable Show 2012: Verizon, Comcast Unveil 'viewdini'
Mobile Search Product Signs on XFinity (Multichannel News)

Cable firms warn against heavy government oversight of Web (LA Times)

Cable Show 2012: Comcast To Take X1 Guide To Some Existing Set-Tops, Too
CTO Werner Says MSO to Deploy Cloud-Based Interface to RNG 150 Boxes (Multichannel News)

Cable companies offer free Wi-Fi -- what's the catch? (Audio: Marketplace Tech)
Includes comments by Wharton prof Kevin Werbach.

Extra lane: how Comcast assures that Xfinity TV on Xbox 360 works well
Vint Cerf and other experts question Comcast's traffic management practice (Ars Technica)

Comcast Spotlight Forms Advanced-Ad Unit, Teams With SMGx
'CM 360' to Focus on Targeting, Interactivity and Measurement (Multichannel News)

Comcast service would connect home phone line to smartphones (LA Times)

Daily Links 5/22/2012: Google closes acquisition of Motorola Mobility; What happens to Horsham operations?

It's Official: Google Is Now a Hardware Company (Bloomberg Business Week)
Deal closes. Story cites new head of Motorola Mobility as saying Google hasn't figured out yet what to do with set-top box business.

Clash of the Theme Parks
Universal, armed with cash from Comcast, takes aim at Disney (New York Times)

Accelerating our Cloud Business (Lars Dalgaard)
Leaked internal memorandum by SAP Cloud chief confirmed as authentic by two top reporters on SAP beat. Must read for SAP
and Enterprise Cloud followers.

Why athenahealth might buy Epocrates (MobileHealthNews)

Physician education software expanding to patients, med students (Med City News)

QED Proof of Concept Program Opens Fifth Round With New Participants and New Special Emphasis Topic (Globe Newswire)
University City Science Center program adds a special track focusing on digital health technology.

Cable Show 2012: Comcast announces X1 launch, demos "Project Dayview"

Tom Paine

The Cable Show 2012 has kicked off in Boston today, and Comcast has already made or has been involved in some key announcements.

As many had expected, Comcast said today it would launch its next generation, cloud-based X1 video platform in Boston in the "coming weeks". It will expand X1 to more markets later in the year. The platform, which had been tested over the past year under the name "Xcalibur" in Augusta, Ga, uses IP technology and cloud servers on Comcast's network to provide interactive, customized apps and social media features to Comcast subscribers. X1's user interface is intended to help users search, navigate and play both linear and on-demand video content. Comcast also emphasizes that X1's cloud-based architecture will enable it to deliver updates for the platform much more frequently than the traditional set-top box allowed. The service, which will be available at first only to Comcast triple play subscribers, also comes with a companion X1 remote control app for iPhones and iPod Touches.

See Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit demo X1:





Comcast also announced that it is developing an "advanced user interface" that provides a personal visual dashboard for Xfinity subscribers, under the name "Project Dayview". It is being demoed at The Cable Show. The idea is for users to see and manage information from all their Xfinity-related apps and devices in one place. Comcast says Dayview will be "integrated into Comcast's next-generation TV and connected TV products, as well as mobile devices and personal computers", beginning later this year.

Here Smit demos Dayview:





Also, five of the major cable operators (including Comcast), four of whom are part of the joint marketing arrangement with Verizon Wireless (do I see some type of connection here?) will provide cross access to each company's subscribers to all of their collective 50,000+ WiFi hotspots under the brand name "Cable WiFi".



permalink

There’s a Map for That: AT&T Reveals Its NJ Upgrade

Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com

In an effort to increase the visibility of its service upgrades in both the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, AT&T has introduced a microsite that includes maps of the upgrades it has completed since January 2011.

To find the maps, go to this website for New York or this one for Philadelphia. Activate the map by choosing a town from the pull-down menu on the left side of the screen. You can zoom in on the map to see in greater detail where the upgrades have been made.

NJTechWeekly.com looked at a North Jersey upgrades sample and noted the following:

• Hoboken has had 11 capacity upgrades (adding more traffic lanes to the cell site to reduce dropped calls and improve service quality) and 11 network connection upgrades (expanded network connections with fiber lines, allowing more traffic to flow back to the network faster.) Also, there are enabled 4G data speeds for compatible devices.


• In Basking Ridge, the company has made five capacity upgrades and five connection upgrades.


• Looking at Newark, we found 67 total upgrades with one new cell site, 35 capacity upgrades and 31 network connection upgrades.

In central N.J. and South Jersey:

• Camden has had a total of nine upgrades, four for capacity and five for network connections, while Haddonfield has received only two upgrades, one for capacity and one for network connections.


• The state capital, Trenton, has received one new cell site, five capacity upgrades and 18 network upgrades.

NJTechWeekly.com didn’t see Princeton or Atlantic City listed on either map.

In a release, AT&T said that in the greater New York region, from the beginning of 2011 through March 26, 2012, it has:

• Built more than 40 new cell sites, providing more bars in the area.


• Upgraded more than 45 cell sites, providing faster mobile internet speeds.


• Added more than 3,000 carriers to increase spectrum on area cell sites, providing extra capacity to reduce dropped calls and improve service quality at busy times.


• Expanded nearly 2,900 network connections with fiber lines at area cell sites, helping reduce dropped calls and enable 4G data speeds for compatible devices.

Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly , and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly.



permalink

Daily Links 5/21/2012: SAP integrates Sybase; Motorola Mobility busy at Cable Show on eve of Google deal close

NetSuite and SAP: a tale of three development modalities (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

SAP Swallows Sybase, CEO John Chen's Role Uncertain (Information Week)

SAP Business ByDesign: an integral part of SAP’s Cloud portfolio (SAP on the Cloud)
by SuccessFactors CEO Lars Dalgaard,

VP of Palo Alto's SAP Arrested in LEGO Bar Code Scam (NBC Bay Area)


Motorola Mobility Says $12.5B Google Deal To Close Tuesday Or Wednesday. Layoffs Coming? (TechCrunch)
How will Motorola's Horsham operations be effected?

Motorola reinvents the TV interface with DreamGallery concept (video) (Engadget)
This is a big product for Motorola Mobility. Will it fit into Google's TV plans?

Cable Show 2012: Motorola's Moloney: 'We'll Still Be Here Tomorrow'
Exec Says Google Intends to Run Division as a Standalone Business (Multichannel News)

Fred Wilson: We invested in DuckDuckGo for the Reddit, Hacker News anarchists (VentureBeat)



permalink

Philly Tech People News 5/20/2012

Campbell Soup Company Names Adam Kmiec Director, Digital Marketing and Social Media (Business Wire)

Adobe Names Three New Members to Its Board of Directors (Business Wire)
One of them is Amy Banse, managing director and head of funds for Comcast Ventures.

QlikTech CEO joins Alfresco Board (QlikPower's Blog)

WVT Communications Group Strengthens Management Team With Appointment of Panasonic Executive as Chief Marketing Officer (Marketwire)

Introducing Quewey’s CEO, David Luk (Quewey: The Blog)


Harmelin Media promotes John Camilleri to Senior Vice President (Philly Ad Club News)

DeVry University Appoints Joyce Wheatley as Philadelphia Metro President (Business Wire)

Villanova University Appoints Patrick G. Maggitti, PhD, as The Helen and William O'Toole Dean of the Villanova University School of Business (Business Wire)

City Year Names Arthur R. Block of Comcast Corporation the 2012 Idealist of the Year (Business Wire)


Todd Merry Named Chief Marketing Officer for Delaware North Companies (Delaware North Press Release)
Joins Delaware North from Unisys.

Bentley Systems Honors Tom Lazear With Inaugural Bentley Institute Lifetime Achievement Award (Business Wire)




Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email



permalink

China signs off on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, deal to close shortly; Gruber jumps ship

China clears Google, Motorola merger: Deal to close 'within days' (ZDNet Blogs)

John Gruber jumps ship (Fortune Tech)

Newtown-based Freedom OSS named subcontractor to Lockheed Martin on Army Private Cloud project

Tom Paine

Newtown-based Freedom OSS has been named a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin on a project to build a Private Cloud environment for the Army, according to a Freedom OSS press release issued last month. The project aims to consolidate Army data centers from more than 200 to fewer than 20, acccording to the Army's original RFI for the contract. Other vendors for the contract, which has an anticipated period of performance of one year with four optional one-year periods and an estimated ceiling of $249.8 million, include IBM, HP Enterprise Services, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

I didn't know exactly what had happened to this company. About one and 1/2 years ago I wrote a brief note about the interesting things Freedom OSS was doing in the Cloud with SAP and Amazon Web Services. Then it was like they almost disappeared for a while, and I couldn't find anything about them. The press release gives no indication of how much of the Lockheed portion of the contract might involve Freedom OSS.

Freedom OSS builds cloud platforms for customers with an emphasis on meeting security and compliance requirements.



permalink

Daily Links 5/18/2012: Salesforce.com Reports Torrid Q1 Growth, Slams SAP

Schilling bad pitch (NY Post)
Report: Rubber check for $1 million payment by his video game to Rhode Island.

SAP Gets Serious About The Large Enterprise Application Cloud (Forrester Blogs)

Salesforce.com Reports Torrid Q1 Growth, Slams SAP (Information Week)

Janney planning 5-10 percent adviser growth: CEO (Reuters)

Bentley Introduces Shared 'OpenRoads' Information Modeling Functionality in InRoads, GEOPAK, and MXROAD V8i (SELECTseries 3) (Business Wire)

Motorola Mobility Showcases the Evolution of TV and a Smart, Simple Connected Home at The Cable Show 2012 (PR Newswire)


For This Social Enterprise Accelerator in Philadelphia, It's All About Rigor (Forbes)
GoodCompany Ventures' application deadline is Monday.



permalink

Daily Links 5/17/2012: Philly Fed Index in sharp downturn; Comcast experiments with tiered broadband pricing

Comcast tries tiered data pricing, continues fight with Netflix (LA Times: Company Town)

Comcast answers data cap questions
"We're out of the cap business," Comcast says. (Ars Technica)

What's Comcast cooking for The Cable Show? (FierceCable)

Facebook To Start Trading At 11 A.m. Friday, Nasdaq Says
(Fox Business)

Philly Fed factory index turns negative in May
Manufacturing activity shrinks in May for first time since September (MarketWatch)
Rather dramatic change.

Philly Fed Undercuts the Growth Picture (Wall Street Journal: MarketBeat)

May 2012 Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey

The cult of code-writers, and no-bid contracts
(Dave Davies/Newsworks)

Verizon plans price hikes for Fios, wireless users (CNET News)

Salesforce.Com Tops Estimates As Corporate Deal Sizes Increase (Bloomberg)
Seems to defy some recent reports suggesting slower momentum in Salesforce's partner ecosystem.



permalink