Comcast highlights for week: Roberts spends time with Obama on Vineyard; WSJ on Steve Burke

Tom Paine

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The Wall Street Journal has a feature article on Steve Burke and his effort to turn around
NBC Universal (subscription). Somewhat mixed results, it suggests.

Is Comcast inching into the cartoon biz? Its Universal Studios just bought film rights to the new Boom! Studios comic Day Men just a month after its launch. This follows the success of another Boom! Studios strip turned movie released by Universal, "2 Guns", which had a #1 debut at the box office early this month.

Comcast Chairman & CEO Brian Roberts spent time again this year with President Obama on Martha's Vineyard. Roberts golfed with the President and he and his wife Aileen hosted a cocktail reception for Obama at their home.

Geekwire's Todd Bishop give's Comcast's Xfinity X1 a glowing review.

Comcast apologized Wednesday for a letter an agent of the firm sent to online news site TorrentFreak, saying it was an error. The cease & desist letter ordered the site to remove a copy of a document from its website even though the document was from publicly available court records.

Perceived Missteps May have Hit a Tipping Point for Ballmer (CIO.com)

Ben Franklin gets his own high-tech museum in Philly (USA Today)

Links 8/23/2013: Ballmer leaving as Microsoft CEO in a year

Tom Paine

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Technology company expands in Chester County (Philadelphia Business Journal)

For Ballmer, Resistance Was Futile (All Things D)

Ballmer Exit Leaves Microsoft Searching for Hero in Slump
(Bloomberg)

Microsoft's Ballmer on his biggest regret, the next CEO and more (Mary Jo Foley/ZDNet)

SAP licensing – more clarity or clear as mud? (Dennis Howlett/Diginomica)

Wawa Turns to SAP to Power Entry Into New Markets (Convenience Store News)

SAP Channel Exec Explains ByDesign Issues and Future (Accounting Today)


QVC Launches Second Linear Channel
QVC Plus Counts DirecTV, Bright House as Affiliates (Multichannel News)

Newgistics adds e-commerce to its fulfillment services (Internet Retailer)
Positioning itself as full-service competitor to eBay Enterprise (formerly GSI Commerce).

Penn Brings Two Coding Contests Together with HACKFest (Penn News)

Philadelphia's QLIDA Diagnostics developing next-generation biomarker diagnostics (Keystone Edge)

QlikTech announces open data competition

Tom Paine

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Radnor-based QlikTech, the user-driven business intelligence software vendor, today announced a competition that may appeal to the very enthusiastic open data and civic hacker community in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Its "Take Action Open Data Challenge”, a global competition, will offer three cash prizes, including a top prize of $10,000, for the best apps built on QlikTech software using open, public data sources to analyze important societal problems such as poverty, healthcare issues, education, transportation, and the environment.

The Take Action Open Data Challenge is open to all QlikView customers, partners, developers, and fans, the company's website says.

The app submission deadline is October 31, 2013, and the top three winners will be announced on December 2, 2013. Participants can download the QlikView Personal Edition for free and get more information about the competition here.

Links 8/22/2013: Comcast says TorrentFreak cease & desist a mistake; CBS/Time Warner Cable standoff approaching three weeks

Tom Paine

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Comcast Says It Threatened TorrentFreak By Mistake (Multichannel News)

Disney’s ESPN Holds Preliminary Talks for Web-Based TV (Bloomberg)

Les Moonves Can’t Understand Why Time Warner Cable Won’t Pay CBS What Verizon Just Did (All Things D)
CBS blackout on TWC approaching three weeks.

Nasdaq Market Halts Trading (New York Times: DealBook)

Uber Filing in Delaware Shows TPG Investment at $3.5 Billion Valuation; Google Ventures Also In (All Things D)



SAP introduces flexible on-premise licensing and possible maintenance termination (Computerworld UK)

Amazon tightens grip on cloud market, report shows (The Register)


HIMSS: Extend MU Stage 2 Deadline (Information Week)


QlikTech Challenges Data Enthusiasts, Developers, and Designers to Use Public Data to Change the World
“Take Action Open Data Challenge” encourages global participants to use QlikView to create insights that inspire positive change and could win them up to $10,000 (Business Wire)



Software AG snaps up JackBe for fresh analytics and visualization push (Gigaom)

Top Philly companies on 2013 Inc. 5000

Here are Inc. Magazine's top companies in the Philly Metro area (based on revenue growth) on the 2013 Inc. 5000. Interesting numbers on some companies that I haven't seen before.

Links 8/21/2013: Comcast, NFL Films face legal issues

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Is Google Ready to Buy Its Way Into TV With an NFL Deal? (All Things D)

Ex-players suing NFL Films (AP)

Comcast threatens to sue news site for posting public court document (Ars Technica)

Comcast Looks to Block Sports Fans Suing Over High Cable TV Costs (Hollywood Reporter)


Goldman Sachs ponies up $40M to fund SugarCRM (Gigaom)

Amid Executive Changes, HP Posts Declining Q3 Revenue Of $27.2B As Its PC Division Weakens (TechCrunch)

PhillyDeals: SunGard leaders fighting to catch up (Philly.com)
Update: Clarification to earlier story.

Acumatica and the cloud ERP Game of Thrones (Diginomica)


Voxware Surges through FY 2013 with New Products, Users, and Customer Upgrades
Company realizes 5th consecutive quarter of growth (Business Wire)

Links 8/20/2013: Urban Outfitters increasingly sees itself as ecommerce company

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Birst Raises $38M Led By Sequoia To Expand Its Cloud-Based Business Intelligence Solutions (TechCrunch)
QlikTech competitor.

Violle, LLC and NewSpring Capital Complete Acquisition of Majority Interest in Utilipath, LLC (PR Newswire)

Urban Outfitters Chases Bohemian Shoppers Online (Business Week)
“We really started to think about ourselves as a pure play e-commerce company that happened to have really great, productive, differentiated stores in 500 locations around the world that’s relevant for our consumer,” - Matthew Kaness, chief strategy officer for Urban Outfitters, at a June conference.


Dell PartnerDirect Nears Software Integration (Channelnomics)

Rackspace adds dedicated VMware vCenter to hybrid cloud lineup
(ZDNet)

SAP takes fight to Salesforce.com, Oracle with social intelligence app (PC World)


InsPro Technologies Positioned in the “Challengers” Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for North American Life Insurance Policy Administration Systems (Business Wire)

UnitedHealthcare's New Online Service Lets Consumers Pay Their Medical Bills Online and Better Manage Health Care Expenses
Enables consumers to pay their medical bills with their credit card, debit card, health savings account, or bank account via the InstaMed payments network (Business Wire)

Synnex, Comcast Join Forces For Telco Services Push
(CRN)

Hersha hotels add Comcast fiber (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

U.S. cable and telecom companies add 295,000 new subscribers in Q2
(Gigaom)

Links 8/19/2013: NewSpring leads $11 mm round in Open Road; TaskRabbit formally launches in Philly

Tom Paine

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Open Road Secures $11 Million (Wall Street Journal: Digits)
Led by Radnor-based NewSpring Capital.

The battle for the marketing cloud (PandoDaily)
Mentions Monetate as a player.

Monetate seeking to employ 200 by year end
(Philadelphia Business Journal)
For what its worth, 200 by year end might be a bit less than what Monetate suggested to me in April.

TaskRabbit hops into 5 new markets, warren of taskrabbits now 15K strong (VentureBeat)
Philadelphia is one of them.

How hybrid cloud is transforming IT: An interview with Mike Maples, Jr. (VentureBeat)
Everyone is talking hybrid cloud now.

Late To The Game, Is VMware Turning Against OpenStack Or Embracing It? (TechCrunch)

Smartphones and tablets still secured using simple PINs, Fiberlink analysis finds (Techworld)

TWC’s Zelesko: J.V. With Comcast to Pave Way To Converged, All-Services Gateways (Multichannel News)


Google Fiber, Comcast Prep for Battle (Light Reading)

Patch Layoffs Hit New Jersey (NJ News Commons)

Video game company gambles on internet betting (Newark Star-Ledger)

Philly Tech People News 8/18/2013

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Fiberlink Adds New Vice President of Sales to Drive Growth in the Fortune 1000
Sales veteran Eric Cunningham brings success from Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Oracle
(PR Newswire)

Fiberlink Strengthens Channel Team to Drive Significant Expansion (PR Newswire)

TMG Health Appoints Charles Wayland Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (PR Newswire)

David S. Herron Joins BioClinica To Lead Imaging Core Lab Division (PR Newswire)

Theorem Clinical Research Adds Two Top-Level Executives to a Growing Team (Business Wire)

ESPN snags another Inquirer sports writer to cover Eagles
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

DreamIt co-founder sells his startup (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Berkeley Research Group Opens Philadelphia Office
(Marketwire)


Philadelphia Business Journal Selects Vladimir Bien-Aime as Recipient of its Minority Business Leader Awards (Press Release via Mortgage Daily)

Concentrating cable-TV-sports power at three big firms (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Amazon wasn’t named, but it’s a winner too in the latest federal cloud scrum (Gigaom)

Handicapping the cloud: A VC weighs in on who can topple AWS (Gigaom)