SAP misses internal mark, to rein in costs -report (Reuters)
SAP employees may be traveling less for the rest of 2012.

Oracle Hoping to Turn Tables on SAP With Sybase-to-Oracle Migration Tools (PC World)

Verizon, Comcast Said to Face U.S. Demands on Deal (Bloomberg)
Restrictions seem light on this massively anti-competitive deal. The Obama administration came down hard on AT&T/T-Mobile, but are rolling over on this one. Why?

phillytechnews twitterfeed 8/3/2012

phillytechnews: @standeak Your right, I haven't looked at recent stats closely. Just that Chapman's been perfect for a while. BTW, I'm a Braves fan. Posted: 03 Aug 2012 07:11 PM PDT phillytechnews: @standeak Your right, I haven't looked at recent stats closely. Just that Chapman's been perfect for a while. BTW, I'm a Braves fan.

phillytechnews: Red's Chapman the best closer now Posted: 03 Aug 2012 06:45 PM PDT phillytechnews: Red's Chapman the best closer now

phillytechnews: New PTN Post: Medical Marketing & Media's 2012 look at Philly area healthcare marketing & communications agencies http://t.co/lRuYebXC Posted: 03 Aug 2012 03:52 PM PDT phillytechnews: New PTN Post: Medical Marketing & Media's 2012 look at Philly area healthcare marketing & communications agencies http://t.co/lRuYebXC

Continue Reading

Medical Marketing & Media's 2012 look at Philly area healthcare marketing & communications agencies

Tom Paine

Medical Marketing & Media Magazine published its "100 Agencies" issue in July, providing profiles of what it deems to be the top 100 healthcare marketing & communications agencies. The Philadelphia region, extending up through New Jersey to New York City, continues to have a major concentration of these firms, reflecting the presence of so many pharma and medical device companies and healthcare institutions in the region. I would argue that the healthcare business largely spurred the creation and growth of the interactive design community in Philadelphia, though it has since branched out.

I examined the information MM&M collected on the 17 or so firms based in the Philly area that were included among its Top 100. Since these are mostly privately owned firms (or in just a few cases agencies within publicly held firms), they don't really have to disclose anything they don't want to so the data is understandably spotty. Overall (see the table below), it looks like most firms experienced flat results or moderate growth in 2011. The FDA approval process, patent expirations, agency consolidations, and shifts in spending allocations were often cited as factors inhibiting growth. Firms that had been focused on supporting "detailing" salesforces continue to face adjustments as industry spending shifts away from that area. Firms that started out as "totally digital" are still trying to incorporate some non-digital capabilities, while other more traditional agencies are bulking up on digital skills.

Online Form powered by
(Most data published in July 2012 issue of Medical Marketing & Media)

Perhaps the two largest firms based in the area, and also two of the strongest digital agencies, Digitas Health (Philadelphia) and Rosetta (Hamilton, NJ), both experienced flat or down years. Digitas went through about a 10% reduction in staff and a change in management structure after the departure of co-founder David Kramer. Rosetta, which like Digitas is owned by Publicis, also experienced "relatively flat revenue in healthcare in 2011 vs. 2010", Shannon Hartley, managing director of Rosetta's healthcare practice told MM&M. Publicis acquired Rosetta in June 2011 for $575 million. Publicis reported first half growth 2012 for North America of 2.6%, which it attributed in part to "the sluggishness in the healthcare sector".

Late last year, Publicis reorganized its healthcare properties, placing Digitas Health and Philly-based Razorfish Health under its New York-based Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG). Also under the PHCG umbrella are Yardley-based Publicis Touchpoint Solutions, Publicis Healthware International and Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare Innovations, which since been rechristened as Saatchi & Saatchi Science. Rosetta, however, continues to report separately in Publicis' corporate structure, although there are apparently some synergistic initiatives with Rosetta working with other Publicis units. Razorfish Health, spun off from Razorfish in 2010, didn't give too much information about its 2011 results, except to note it was a good year for new business highlighted by the addition of the Rite Aid account. Razorfish Health also moved into new headquarters in the Wanamaker Building.

The healthcare marketing landscape might also be shaken up if there is any foundation to the story floated by FT (usually a reliable source) as I was finishing writing this that Publicis may be planning a $6 billion plus bid for New York-based Interpublic Group. Though not a major presence in the Philadelphia area, Interpublic's healthcare assets are considerable and include Draftfcb Healthcare, Area 23 and various units operating under the McCann name.


Another significant player on the Philly healthcare agency scene, although not on the scale of Publicis, is Huntsworth Health, a unit of UK-based Huntsworth PLC. Huntsworth Health agencies in the area include ApotheCom of Yardley, Nitrogen (formerly Dorland, the oldest agency in the business), evoke interaction, a New York-based digitally oriented agency with a Philly office, Curatio, an Exton-based continuing medical education specialist, and Tonic Life Communications, a healthcare PR specialist with headquarters in London and Philadelphia.

Some significants firms based elsewhere with Philly offices include Columbus, Ohio-based Blue Diesel, San Francisco-based Eveo, and Dallas-based imc2 health and wellness, although imc2 reduced staff here at the beginning of the year.

Hamilton, NJ-based H4B Catapult, a Havas shop, said it experienced "double digit growth" in 2011, recovering from loss of its biggest account, Lovenox, due to patent expiration. It reported having about 160 employees, and opened a new Boston office. Philly-based Vox Medica acquired a boutique agency and with it brought in some new equity partners, and HLG Health Communications formally changed its name from the Hal Lewis Group. Cadient Group said its business was up 15% in 2011, and the firm focused on developing new mobile, social and analytics tools. Cadient said it was also considering making acquisitions. Roska Health Advertising said its business was up 5 to 10%, and Dudnyk, which has had a period of rapid growth, said it was up 12% for the year. DiD of Fort Washington seems to have bounced back from a major hit it took due to the production problems of client McNeil Labs. Princeton-based Compass Healthcare Marketing is seeing gains from its emphasis on orphan drugs, and CDM Princeton said it saw 15% growth for the year.

Renavatio Healthcare Communications of Newton is a promising shop focusing on specialty brands, which has grown to 35 full time staffers in little more than three years since its founding.


There are some other area agencies worth noting not on MM&M's top 100 list. Wilmington-based Aloysius Butler & Clark is a mid-sized agency with a particular strength in representing healthcare systems. Mangos of Malvern has a very strong list of local clients, including several area health systems. Tonic Design of Newtown (no connection to Huntsworth's Tonic Life Communications) may have signaled an intent to become a bigger healthcare player by announcing that former Cadient Group founding partner and Digitas Health Managing Director James Burke joined the firm at the beginning of August as Managing Director. Star Group Communications, Inc. of Vorhees, NJ is another young agency. There is another large cluster of agencies in the Parsippany/Morristown/Bedminister area further up in New Jersey.

One complaint I had a year or two ago covering this subject has lessened. Some firms were so anxious to highlight their digital capabilities that their overly souped up websites were almost impossible to navigate or locate needed information.



permalink

Daily Links 8/3/2012: SAP settles with Oracle; Cable-Verizon deal approval reported near

Comcast, Verizon said to be near deal with regulators on joint marketing agreement, spectrum sale (New York Post)

Comcast/NBCU Will Pay GE $7.8B In 2014, Says Barclays (Investors Business Daily)

SAP Agrees to Pay Oracle $306 Million for Copyright Breach (Bloomberg)
This agreement, if approved, would end the possibility of retrial of the TomorrowNow case, which was scheduled to begin late this month. However, Oracle says it still intends to appeal to the 9th Circuit to have the $1.3 billion award in the jury verdict, which federal trial judge Phyllis Hamilton threw out, restored.
Oracle hasn't exactly been on a winning streak in the legal arena lately.

Publicis and Interpublic – a swan song for Levy? (FT Blogs: Alphaville)
Would further consolidate healthcare marketing business, if it were to happen.

Newtown-based Epam Systems quarterly profit tops estimates (Reuters)

2Q12 Performance for Trident Capital’s SaaS Portfolio; the Importance of Accurate Metrics Prediction (Trident Capital Blog)
Trident Capital's views on the SaaS market always make for an interesting read.



permalink

Accenture acquires Wayne-based Octagon Research Solutions

Tom Paine

Accenture today announced the acquisition of Octagon Research Solutions, a provider of clinical data services and regulatory submission services headquartered in Wayne.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Accenture's press release says Octagon has a staff of 380, and that the company is the fifth largest user of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) electronic submission gateway. Octagon will be fully integrated into Accenture's Life Sciences industry group, Accenture says. The impetus for the acquisition appears to be the use of Octagon's technology and professional expertise to help Accenture clients speed up the regulatory approval process for new drugs.

Octagon Research Solutions was founded in 1999 by CEO James Walker, Neal Walker, M.D., and President Kirk Gallion. Investors have included Edison Ventures, Phoenix Life Insurance Co. of East Greenbush, N.Y., Ticonderoga Capital of Wellesley, Mass., Zurich Financial and Milestone Venture Partners.

Octagon Research has been the #1 ranked company on Philly Tech News' "Young Companies to Watch" list, based on a rough estimation of potential market value.

Update: I've been able to identify $19.3 million in VC funds that went into Octagon Research, the majority probably from Edison Ventures. I do not know whether this was the total sum invested in Octagon.



permalink

Daily Links 8/2/2012: Comcast reportedly trying to bring Spielberg back to Universal

Comcast Explores Bringing DreamWorks' Snider and Spielberg to Universal (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast ‘accounts’ for break-even Olympics (New York Post)
More clarification on Brian Robert's breakeven comment yesterday. I think Michael Angelakis had to correct his boss; always a difficult thing to have to do. While Angelakis says Comcast will probably show a small accounting profit on the games due to the write down of rights fees, Roberts implied the games would be breakeven on a cash basis and Angelakis said that's probably not the case, as I understand him.

Comcast Sues FCC Over Tennis Channel Distribution Ruling (Bloomberg)

Time Warner Cable profit up 8 pct in 2Q (Bloomberg)
While Comcast's video subscriber losses are decreasing, Time Warner Cable's losses are increasing.

SevOne Reports 100% Growth
Q2 Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth of 100%; Q2 Year-Over-Year Bookings Increase 355% (Marketwire)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2012 Results
Provides Update on Strategic Business Review (Business Wire)

LevelUp Pulls in Another $9M to Close $21M Round (Bostinno)
Also known as SCVNGR, which started out at DreamIt Ventures in Philly.

Eloqua Notches Modest Gains After IPO (Dow Jones Newswires)

Google Licenses Rovi’s Program Guide Patents For Its New Fiber TV Service (TechCrunch)

Comcast reports earnings; Olympics may break even

Tom Paine

Comcast reported its 2nd quarter results this morning, with CEO Brian Roberts, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smits, and NBCU CEO Steve Burke joining the conference call from London. Revenue grew 6.1%, while operating cash flow grew 4.2%. Second quarter pro forma results (apples to apples as if 100% of Universal Orlando results were included in the 2nd quarter 2011 instead of 50%) show revenue growth of 3.5% and operating cash flow growth of 0.9%. Not exactly heady growth numbers, but still enough to easily beat expectations and leave many investors satisfied. Earnings per share increased 35.1% from 2011, but only 19% when excluding a special charge from last year. Shares were up about 3.5% at midday.

Pro forma results for NBCU included a slight revenue decline and a 15.4% decline in operating cash flow. Results were affected by a $83 million operating cash flow loss in Filmed Entertainment, primarily due to the poor performance of Battleship. But the bigger story out of NBCU was Roberts reporting that the company will be "right around break-even" on this year's Olympics. Part of that result may be due to a rather arcane accounting issue, as CFO Michael Angelakis explained on the call that since the deal to broadcast the 2012 Olympics was reached before Comcast acquired its stake in NBCU, "some of the loss was eliminated through purchase accounting" (in other words, book costs written down) and the company should show a small profit from the event in the 3rd quarter. Roberts said that because of the time zone factor, NBCU had based its ratings forecasts more on Athens than on Bejing, but ratings were in fact exceeding those of Bejing. NBCU is also hoping for a boost for all of its programming efforts from the Olympics, and also cited specifically the broader exposure its NBC Sports cable channel (formerly Versus) is receiving.

On the Cable Communications side of the business, high-speed internet services revenue grew 8.9%, video 2.8%, and voice 1.2%. The closely watched video subscriber metric showed a net loss of 176,000, down from 238,000 a year ago, in a quarter that often reflects a higher level of disconnects from students. Business Services continued to grow rapidly, at a 34.2% pace for the quarter. Overall, Cable Communications revenue grew 6%.

Continue Reading

Daily Links 8/1/2012: InterDigital Prevails in U.S. Appeal of Patent Fight With Nokia

Comcast Earnings Rise With Internet Subscribers (Reuters via CNBC)
Comcast press release

In U.S. broadband, cable is eating the Bells’ lunch (Gigaom)

Here's The Brilliant Way Cisco, EMC, SAP Are Fighting Oracle (SAI: Enterprise)

Workday Wins More Customers For Cloud Apps (Information Week)
Increases penetration of Higher Ed market.


InterDigital Wins U.S. Appeal in Patent Fight With Nokia (Bloomberg)

Xand and DBSi merge into one Northeast data center provider
Merger adds three Pennsylvania data centers to Xand portfolio (Data Center Dynamics)
DBSi is based in Bethlehem.


permalink

Daily Links 7/31/2012: Twitter apologizes for NBC incident; Michael Rubin on hiring Scott Thompson

Comcast begins appeals process in FCC Tennis Channel ruling (LA Times: Company Town)

Hulu, Apple Finally Get It Together: Hulu Plus Comes to Apple TV, Lets You Subscribe With iTunes (All Things D)

Jeffries slaps buy rating on Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV; predicts cable/CLEC mergers (FierceCable)

Twitter comes clean, apologizes for NBC-gate (Gigaom)


Box Inc. Receives $125 Million in New Round of Investment (Wall Street Journal: Deal Journal)
General Atlantic led this round. SAP Ventures and Salesforce led the previous round, and SAP Ventures participated again in this one.

Why I Just Hired Scott Thompson, The Yahoo CEO Caught Lying On His Resume (Silicon Alley Insider)
Michael Rubin didn't actually say it that way in the interview.


SunGard Announces Second Quarter 2012 Results (Business Wire)

Vishay Intertechnology profit misses estimates (Reuters)

Heartland Payment raises full-year guidance (AP via Businessweek)

Will Internet Companies Open Data Centers in New Jersey? (Data Center Knowledge)

Amtrak Gets on Board With E-Tickets (Mashable)



permalink

phillytechnews twitterfeed 7/29 to 7/30/2102

phillytechnews: Mike Trout is ridiculous. Who to compare to? Posted: 30 Jul 2012 07:06 PM PDT phillytechnews: Mike Trout is ridiculous. Who to compare to?

phillytechnews: @josemallabo I should remember that, because I think I had Park on my fantasy team at the time- no fun Posted: 30 Jul 2012 06:25 PM PDT phillytechnews: @josemallabo I should remember that, because I think I had Park on my fantasy team at the time- no fun

Continue Reading

Daily Links 7/30/2012: Quality Systems (NextGen Healthcare parent) director lashes out at company

LeadiD Secures $1.7 Million in Funding Led By Genacast Ventures (PR Web)

Comcast to charge $10 for 50 GB to subscribers who bust data cap (FierceCable)
Starting in Nashville.

Twitter Suspended a Critic of NBC For Sharing NBC Executive's Email (The Atlantic Wire)

Earnings Preview: Comcast to report 2Q earnings Wednesday (AP via Business Week)

Quality Systems director lashes out at company (MarketWatch)
See my post on Quality Systems from last week.

SAP's Ugly (ByDesign) Baby Gets Prettier (Information Week)

SAP offers free mobile SDK, partner program to push mobile development (SearchSAP)

Unisys and VCE Team to Deliver Secure, Easily Managed Cloud Infrastructure
Unisys Secure Private Cloud Solution available on VCE(TM) Vblock(TM) Systems (PR Newswire via MarketWatch)

Oracle Buys Xsigo To Boost Cloud Prowess (Information Week)

Lokadot Announces Philadelphia Arts and Cultural Organizations Embracing Its Location-based Audio Platform for Smartphones (PR Web)

Club Tech's festival brings young digital minds to Philadelphia (Philadelphia Daily News)



permalink