Saturday Highlights 12/22/2012: Broader implications of Oracle's Eloqua buy; “Ariba Doesn’t Have Customers, It Has Prisoners”

SAP in 2013: Five Things to Watch (CIO.com)

“Ariba Doesn’t Have Customers, It Has Prisoners” (Spend Matters)

Oracle to buy Eloqua – the Broader Implications (Brian Sommer/Enterprise Irregulars)

Motorola & Arris: Product Gaps & Overlaps (Light Reading Cable)


IT spending up overall, but lags for pharma (NJBiz)

Daily Links 12/21/2012: Fast Company on Conshohocken's Artists & Instigators

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How Marc Ecko Is Rebranding Venture Capital With Artists & Instigators (Fast Company)

TV Everywhere, for Real, for Now: NimbleTV Starts a New York Trial Run (All Things D)

It's Time To Admit That Hulu Is A Failure (Business Insider)


Arris's Exposure To TiVo Lawsuit Capped at $50M (Light Reading Cable)

An industry insider’s thoughts on Arris’ pickup of Motorola (CED Magazine)

Allscripts Fires CEO as Company Says It Won’t Pursue Sale (Bloomberg)

11 predictions for enterprise software in 2013 (Computerworld)

Google’s retail search
Commentary: One of the era’s great brands destined to open stores (John Dvorak/MarketWatch)


The QVC Effect (Fox Business)




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Nutter, Kopelman on Startup PHL, Dorm Room Funds/Bloomberg TV

Bloomberg TV did this piece featuring Mayor Nutter on Startup PHL, and Josh Kopelman
on First Round Capital's Dorm Room Fund:

Philly Fed Index shows strong December improvement

Tom Paine

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The Philly Fed general economic index rose sharply in December, surprising many forecasters. The Business Outlook Survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, increased from a reading of ‑10.7 in November to 8.1 this month. A positive index number generally indicates expansion. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an improvement to -3 from November's reading, which was negatively impacted by Sandy.

To some degree, the extent of the December pickup may reflect a snapback from the most difficult period of recovery from Sandy. The survey’s future indicators suggest improved optimism among reporting manufacturers for the next six months. In New York, however, the Empire State index continued to be in negative territory.



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Daily Links 12/20/2012: More on Motorola Home sale; Oracle acquires Eloqua

Arris Swings for the Fences
(Light Reading Cable)

Oracle buys another cloud software company, Eloqua, to market to marketers (San Jose Mercury News)
Oracle will spend $871 million for Northern Virginia-based Eloqua.

Salesforce May Go Shopping in Response to Oracle Deal (All Things D)
Marketo, Hubspot named as possible targets.

T-Mobile rolls out iPhone-friendly coverage across 14 cities including New York, Boston (The Verge)
Philadelphia among them.


NJ lawmakers give final OK to Internet betting (AP via KTVN)

Eurotech and ThingWorx Partner to Enable Rapid M2M Solution Delivery (ThingWorx Press Release)

Pa.-Based Journal Register to Be Auctioned in 2013 (AP via ABC News)

Penn expands its social media landscape (Penn Current)

Today in Philly Tech History 12/20/2001: Comcast agrees to acquire AT&T Broadband

On December 20, 2001, Comcast reached an agreement to acquire AT&T Broadband, created through AT&T's acquisitions of MediaOne and TCI, for $52 billion. AT&T acquired TCI from John Malone in 1999 for $55 billion. The deal would almost triple the number of Comcast subscribers to 22 million, clearly establishing it as the leading US cable operator. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts cited the potential for products such as "video on demand, interactive services, high-speed data services, cable modems … the most attractive way to get the internet in your home is with a cable modem."



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Newtown-based EPAM Systems acquires Conshohocken-based Empathy Lab

Tom Paine

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An acquisition announced yesterday passed me by, perhaps because it came out first over the Thomson Reuters One wire, which is rather obscure here (thanks to Technically Philly for picking up on it). Newtown-based EPAM Systems has acquired Conshohocken-based Empathy Labs. Terms were not disclosed in an SEC filing by EPAM.

The pairing might seem a little odd at first. Empathy Lab, founded in 2005, focuses on digital strategy and designs customer websites with an eCommerce focus, having clients such as The American Red Cross and Wilmington-based 21st Century Insurance. But it also has significant business in the cable and home entertainment industry, with clients such as Rogers Communications (the Comcast of Canada), NBC Universal, DirecTV, and Comcast itself. Empathy has also been heavily involved in developing TV-Everywhere applications for John Malone's Liberty Global, a largely Europe-focused cable operator, and other cable systems. I don't know how much this segment accounts for out of its total business, but it seems to be substantial. In EPAM's release, its CEO Arkadiy Dobkin cited Empathy's "proven expertise in two important growth areas - development and execution of enterprise-wide Commerce initiatives and transformation of Media consumption and distribution channels". I would guess another reason for EPAM buying Empathy is to acquire higher-level client-facing, strategy level executives to deal with major prospects in the US and Europe.

Flying Kite Media reported last year that Empathy was on target for 2011 revenue of $14 million, with about 70 employees at the time. Just last week Empathy announced several interesting new hires. Its CEO is co-founder Kevin Labick.

EPAM Systems went public in February of this year. Sometimes referred to as the Cognizant of Eastern Europe, because most of its technology wokforce is based there, its customers include Google, SAP, Barclays Capital and Coca-Cola. Dobkin came from Belarus and after migrating to the US worked for Colgate-Palmolive and SAP Labs before starting EPAM.

EPAM (NYSE: EPAM), founded in 1993, now says it has over 8,000 employees; at the time of its IPO the company told me it had about 150 employees in Newtown. In its third quarter 2012 results released in November, EPAM reported revenue of $110.1 million, up 27.4%, and GAAP net income of $14.1 million. Its market value is approaching $900 million.



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First Round Capital Holiday Video is out

Daily Links 12/19/2012: Comcast reaches $100 billion market value; Google sells Motorola Home to Arris for $2.35 billion

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Google sells Motorola TV set-top business for $2.35 billion (Reuters)

Comcast Tops $100B Market Value for First Time (Bloomberg)

AT&T Wins FCC Permission to Buy Airwaves From Comcast
(Bloomberg)

Oracle "shutting out" Workday in Europe, Ellison claims (Information Age)
Of course, Workday has only a small presence in Europe at this point.

Oracle Q2 Results: Ellison Spins On Sun
CEO Larry Ellison talks up Oracle's Sun acquisition even as hardware sales slide 23%. Software sales rise. (Information Week)

University City Science Center Announces First Digital Health Awards of QED Program
Two Life Sciences Projects Also Receive Awards (Business Wire)

Evolve IP Forms Strategic Alliance With Semperon
Evolve IP acquires Semperon’s unified communications base and gains cloud computing partner (Business Wire)

Talking Small Biz: He's been searching for rapid growth (Philadelphia Daily News)
On SEER Interactive's Wil Reynolds.


Scenes From the NJ Data Center Summit (Data Center Knowledge)




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Highlights last week on Philly Tech News (12/10/2012 to 12/16/2012)

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From Philly Tech News:

Comcast quietly launched a new corporate-wide logo last week, featuring the NBC Peacock on top.

Comcast's business services arm, Comcast Business Class, said it was expanding its fiber network to connect to several Center City buildings, as well as to the Navy Yard.

Norman Joseph Woodland, co-inventor of the bar code at Drexel, died in New Jersey at the age of 91.

The Air Force pulled the plug on a $1 billion ERP project, but that isn't the only DoD ERP project that is struggling.

NJTechWeekly's Esther Surden contributed a story on how Bridgewater, NJ-based Synchronoss has helped out in response to Sandy.

I looked back at the 65th anniversary of the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs, and how it did and didn't impact the Philadelphia area.

In news from other sources, in an interview with Fortune Magazine Comcast CEO Brian Roberts discussed how he is trying to apply Apple's business model to Comcast, among other things. Google received bids from Arris and UK-based Pace for its Horsham-based Motorola Home unit. phillyBurbs.com wrote about how Horsham-based EFE Laboratories continues to prosper after 50 years. First Round Capital launched a standard application system for engineers across all of its 170 or so portfolio companies. And Safeguard Scientifics partner company Beyond.com acquired locally based tech job listing site JobCircle.com.




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Daily Links 12/18/2012: Nielsen to acquire Arbitron; SaaS vendor Plex raises $30 million

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Comcast is ready to dump its investment in Clearwire Corp. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Nielsen to Buy Research Firm Arbitron for $48 a Share (Bloomberg)

Oracle Q2 Beats The Street (All Things D)

Bell Labs: Video to strain wired broadband networks within 10 years (Broadcast Engineering)

Plex Systems Raises $30 Million Strategic Investment from Accel Partners to Continue Transitioning Manufacturing Industry to the Cloud (PR Newswire)
Somewhat unusual scenario to see a large investment by a VC/Growth Equity firm just
a few months after a PE buyout (Francisco Partners). Plex is probably the leading
SaaS/Cloud player in the manufacturing space.

DEACOM ERP Goes Mobile (PR Newswire)
DEACOM is based in Wayne.

Higher Education Firm TargetX Releases Newest Version of Its Enterprise CRM (PR Web)

Major Utility Selects Dolphin for First SAP® BW Archiving Implementation on SAP HANA (PR Web)

Comcast's ThePlatform Hooks Into Transcoding Systems
(Multichannel News)

E-Commerce Darling Fab Has Its Sights on Bricks and Mortar (Wired)
First Round Capital was an early backer.