Some pre-SAPPHIRE SAP news

Bluefin on SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (Diginomica)

SAP Sapphire 2013 preview: Five big questions (ZDNet)

Sapphire Now 2013 – the discerning preview (Diginomica)

HP wanted to offload Autonomy on SAP, says SAP co-chief (The Register)
But HP says it was SAP that was trying to buy from them.

Philly Tech People News 5/12/2013: SAP names former Comcast exec Clarke to head marketing communications function

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Victoria Clarke Becomes SAP's Fourth Comms Head In Three Years (The Holmes Report)
Previously with Comcast, the Pentagon.

Comcast’s Pick joins ValueVision board (CED Magazine)

InterDigital Adds Todd Simpson to Lead Innovation Partners (Globe Newswire)

Seasoned Specialty Retail Leader Named CEO of David’s Bridal
Pamela B. Wallack, Former Gap Executive Vice President, to lead largest specialty bridal market retailer (Business Wire)

GROM Hires Analytics Practice Lead
SAP Partner Engages Leading BI HANA Expert to Spearhead Analytics Practice (PR Web)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Appoints Jeff Richard Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (Business Wire)

Peter Illari Joins iCorps Technologies to Grow Philadelphia Market (PR Web)

DMi Partners Continues to Grow, Adding Three Associates to Creative Department (Marketwire)




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Today in Philly Tech History 5/12/2010: SAP acquires Sybase for $5.8 billion (Updated 5/16)

Tom Paine


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On May 12, 2010, SAP announced it had agreed to acquire Dublin, CA-based Sybase for $5.8 billion. The first big strategic bet under co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe since they took over the top spot from Léo Apotheker on Super Bowl Sunday of that year, the Sybase buy offered benefits in at least three important areas: database technology (the core of Sybase's original business although it was now a distant runnerup to Oracle, IBM and Microsoft) , strength in vertical sectors like financial services and telecom, and advancing SAP's position in mobile technology.

Sybase CEO John Chen left the company last year to join PE giant Silver Lake Partners, and Sybase became a fully integrated part of SAP rather than a standalone unit.

I asked R "Ray" Wang, Principal Analyst & CEO of enterprise software research firm Constellation Research, Inc., to reflect on how the Sybase acquisition has turned out for SAP three years later. He responded by email that "while the acquisition was on the expensive side, SAP used it to leap frog from super legacy ERP vendor to a more forward path of innovation. In general the Sybase acquisition set into motion 3 areas for SAP:

1. Mobility - this helped them move into the mobile device management and mobile app dev market.
2. China presence and credibility - this gave them a good footing in China based on John Chen's market development and credibility with the Chinese government.
3. The underpinning of database and HANA - the movement to reduce dependency on Oracle and set a path for in-memory computing came from these efforts."

When I asked Wang to be more specific about how Sybase contributed to the development of HANA, he said "The key thing was having access to some of the smartest database minds in the world. They say HANA is home grown, but I think they learned from Sybase and built from scratch."

Also, this thread on the SAP Community Network from earlier this year provides some interesting perspectives on what was gained from the acquisition.

Update 5/16/2013: Hasso Plattner speaking at SAPPHIRE: "Guess why we bought Sybase? They have a whole package of columnar store. Probably will be useful."



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Patent Court Torn on Whether Software Deserve Patents (Bloomberg)

Timothy B. Lee joins Washington Post

Tom Paine


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Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica

Timothy B. Lee, the Philadelphia resident and libertarian-oriented economic thinker who has written about technology issues for Ars Technica and Forbes and has been an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, has apparently joined the Washington Post in a full-time role, according to his twitter feed.

He will be moving to Washington, and his new position will require that he end his 10 year relationship with the Cato Institute, he tweets.

Lee has a masters degree in Computer Science from Princeton. He is an often provocative thinker who goes against the grain of orthodoxy, and it will be interesting to see what he contributes at the Post.

Why couldn't the Inquirer have made an effort to keep him in Philly, I wonder? (Needn't ask.)




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Veeva Systems holds Global Customer Summit in Philadelphia

Tom Paine


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Veeva Systems, the Pleasanton, CA-based Cloud CRM and CMS vendor to the Life Sciences and Pharma industries, held its Global Customer Summit earlier this week with over 700 attendees from 100 companies at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

Veeva, a company founded only in 2007 and about which I would guess few outside of its niche markets and perhaps the Salesforce.com universe (its CRM runs on the Force.com platform) knew much until recent months, has been put on the map due to widespread reports that it is planning an IPO that could take place as soon as the third quarter, and has already lined up its lead bankers for the deal. (See my posts California-based Cloud Pharma CRM & CMS vendor Veeva Systems, with sales & marketing based in Radnor, may seek IPO and Reuters: Veeva Systems, with significant Radnor presence, taking more steps towards IPO ). While Veeva has not confirmed the most recent reports, neither has it denied them.

Veeva held its Customer Summit in Philadelphia this year, as it has in the past, partly due to the large concentration of Life Sciences customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and also because of the location of Veeva's US customer service, sales and marketing in Radnor. The event gave Veeva the opportunity to make some significant new product announcements:

Introduced Veeva Network, a cloud-based customer data and master data management (MDM) solution.


A new mobile CRM and CLM (Closed Loop Marketing) solution for Windows 8. The same apps had been available on the iPad since 2011.

Veeva also announced that two major healthcare advertising agencies had committed to developing content for Veeva's new, approved (for regulatory purposes) email app that allows Pharma salesforces to communicate directly with physicians via their tablets.

In addressing the summit, Veeva’s CEO, Peter Gassner, presented some key company milestones. He said in the last 5 ½ years (essentially since the company's founding), Veeva’s user base has grown to 100,000 users in 75 countries and the company currently has 500 employees, and is still growing at 100% per year.

Veeva Systems had around $120 million in revenue last year and is profitable, according to reports. It accomplished this with only $7 million in venture capital - $4 million of it institutional (from Emergence Capital) and $3 million in angel funding. Veeva told me in March it had 50 to 60 employees in the Philadelphia area.



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Daily Links 5/10/2013: Universal Display's ups & downs

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Mostly bark, little bite in SAP's cloud offerings
A move to full-blown cloud services could decimate its business, so SAP focuses on window dressing (Infoworld)

SAP debuts Lumira; self-service business intelligence (ZDNet)

SAP expands reach of app store, looks to improve reviews (PC World)

Today is my last day at Gartner (Enterprise Irregulars)
Thomas Otter joins SuccessFactors.

Unisys Unveils Comprehensive Suite of Desktop Virtualization Solutions (PR Newswire)

PANL Slips: Q1 Rev Beats, EPS In Line, Affirms Year View (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)
PANL (Universal Display) is based in Ewing, NJ.

PANL: Bulls Cheer ‘Green’ Prospects, Bears Fear ‘Red’ Prices (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Report: Comcast No. 1 for hosted business VoIP service (CED Magazine)




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Daily Links 5/9/2013: Clutch launches mobile shopping app; McCain preparing Pay TV overhaul legislation

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McCain is prepping legislation to overhaul pay-TV business (LA Times: Company Town)
Not sure about this given McCain's history as regulating/deregulating legislator.

Dish’s Ergen: we prefer working with broadcasters over Aereo
(paidContent)

Cablevision Swings to First-Quarter Loss (Hollywood Reporter)

Clutch Launches First Unified Mobile Shopping App for Android
Company Introduces Program to Reward Consumers Every Time They Use the Clutch App
(Business Wire)

Clutch Aims To Replace All Your Favorite Shopping Apps (Mashable)

One Social Media Start-Up Rises From the Ashes of Another (New York Times)
On Philly's Curalate.

“Web Clipping 2.0″ Service Clipboard Acquired By Salesforce, Will Be Shuttered On June 30th (TechCrunch)
First Round Capital was an early investor.

EPAM Systems Reports Results for First Quarter 2013
(Press Release)

Universal Display Corporation Announces First Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Infosys partners with SAP for mobile applications (CIOL)

What to expect at SAP's Sapphire
HANA, the cloud and social software are among the issues on tap (Computerworld)



Think enterprise software is complex? Check out the licences
It's simple economics - and you're the simpleton (The Register)

The CDnow Data Center, Circa 2000 (Peregrine Salon)



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Today in Philly Tech History 5/7/1991: Comcast acquires Metromedia's Philly cell phone business

Tom Paine


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On May 7, 1991, Comcast acquired Metromedia Co.'s Philly area cellphone operation for $1.1 billion. Comcast planned to combine the operations it already owned in North Jersey and Delaware with its new acquisition to give it a regional giant with 7.3 million "pops" (# of potential subscribers) and the scale to compete with telco Bell Atlantic regionally. Although Metromedia received some preferred shares as a result of the deal, Comcast would have total management control and own all common shares.

As the wireless business evolved, Philadelphia-based Bell Atlantic merged with NYNEX in 1997 to eventually become Verizon, and the scope of competition became more national than regional. In 1999, under pressure to sell noncore assets and focus on its cable-related operations, Comcast sold its wireless business to SBC Communications (now AT&T) for $1.7 billion.

It was not, however, the end of Comcast's efforts to build a wireless strategy that would fit with its business. In 2006, Comcast joined a consortium of cable companies (and Sprint Nextel) to acquire a national footprint of advanced wireless spectrum in an FCC auction for $2.37 billion. In 2008, Comcast invested $1.5 billion in Clearwire, which was planning to rollout a WiMAX-based service nationally, giving Comcast the capability to resell the service to its customer base. However, WiMAX was surpassed by LTE, Clearwire did not get too far off the ground, and Comcast sold very few Clearwire subs. It eventually would sell its Clearwire stake.

In 2011, Comcast tried an entirely different approach, teaming up with its cable partners to sell the spectrum holdings they acquired in 2006 to Verizon Wireless for $3.6 billion, and entering into a joint venture with Verizon Wireless under which the cable operators and Verizon Wireless could resell each others' services, as well as establishing a product development joint venture between them.

Daily Links 5/8/2013: Comcast shelving Skype Set Top offering; SAP Eyes $10 Billion Sales Boost From Banking Software

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NBC Dumps $25 Million Jimmy Fallon NYC 'Tonight Show' Studio (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast Shelving Set Top Skype Offering
Existing Customers Will Be Supported (Broadband Reports)

Roku CEO Wood: Virtual cable MSOs 'inevitable (FierceCable)

Liberty Interactive Operating Profit Flat (Dow Jones Newswires via Fox Business)
QVC's US business grew revenue 4.6% to $1.3 billion.

Web sales increase 13% for QVC in the first quarter
Mobile commerce sales account for 27% of online orders. (Internet Retailer)

Maffei: Charter Investment Could Lead to Further Consolidation (Multichannel News)

CRACKING THE CODE ON THE WEB'S MOST SHAREABLE IMAGES (Fast Company)
Curalate attempts to move from identifying images on the Web to predicting how they'll
do before they are posted.


SAP Eyes $10 Billion Sales Boost From Banking Software
(Bloomberg)

Teradata boosts DRAM on appliances for in-memory queries
You don't need no stinkin' HANA or Exalytics (The Register)

Discover Strikes Deal With SAP Unit for Business Payments
(Dow Jones Newswires via Fox Business)


NetSuite buys OrderMotion to handle orders better and faster (VentureBeat)


PLEASE DON’T GO, PROFESSOR (Wharton Magazine)
Len Lodish retiring from Wharton as professor.

City, police mapping team snags international GIS award
(Philly.com)


Penn GSE business plan contest winners announced (Philadelphia Business Journal)



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Daily Links 5/7/2013: SAP intros HANA Enterprise Cloud Service

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The real reason why Dell wants to go private: To fondle big Boomis
Cloud integrator waggles its new software interfaces (The Register)

Dell’s Clean Slate Approach to Enterprise IT (Torsten Volk/EMA Blogs)

SAP unveils HANA Enterprise Cloud service (PC World)

From SmartOps to SAP, negotiating a deal (Pittsburgh Business Times)

Philly Enterprise Hackathon Awards $75,000 in Prize Money
John Quillen of the Euclidean Group wins life sciences award; Charlie Giammattei of team My Flow wins infrastructure award (Business Wire)



Salesforce.com Positions as Cloud Platform Leader (Richard Snow/Ventana Research)

Monday’s Musings: The Controversy Surrounding Gartner’s CRM Market Share Analysis (Ray Wang/Enterprise Irregulars)

Oracle, SAP under attack: How cloud upstarts steal their lunch
Biz bosses can't wait to offload gear to rivals, or so we're told (The Register)

FAQ: What you need to know about cloud computing's hidden tax hit (Network World)

UPDATE: DIRECTV CEO: Buying a wireless company not in our best interest (SNL Kagan)

Where are your five nines now? CenturyLink’s nationwide outage affects millions (Gigaom)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2013 Results (Business Wire)




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