Wrapup: Philly at Dreamforce 13 (with more company news)

Tom Paine

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Welcome to #df13 and the largest inflatable structure we've ever seen! pic.twitter.com/BDZFFf4rA8

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) November 16, 2013

Saleforce's massive DreamForce 2013 kicks off tomorrow at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and there will be many exhibitors and attendees from the Philadelphia area. Here is one preview of the event (and events surrounding it) via Diginomica. Some estimates are for registration of up to 120,000 people.



Dell Boomi, Aria Systems (R&D in Bromall), Fiberlink Communications (just acquired last week by IBM), Hoopla (development in West Chester), QlikTech, Allentown-basd Trifecta Technologies (which has become a large Salesforce development shop), Conshohocken-based TargetX, and Ami Assayag's CRM Science will be among those exhibiting, presenting or attending.

The meetup group PhillyForce held a session the week before last for presenters to preview their Dreamforce presentations. Trial runs include two from CRM Science and one from PointRoll.


Let me know if any other Philly-companies or people have Dreamforce-related news to add.

@phillytechnews @peoplelinx will be on the VIP track. Attending with clients and sharing updates on our work with @salesforce!!

— Patrick Baynes (@PatrickBaynes) November 18, 2013

Aria Systems, with R&D in Delaware County, raises another $40 million

Trifecta celebrates high-tech project in Allentown (Allentown Morning Call)




ThingWorx Brings the Internet of Things to Dreamforce (ThingWorx Blog)

Angie’s List Selects Hoopla via the Salesforce Platform (PR Web)

Dreamforce 2013 Wrap Up (Hoopla Blog)

Philly Tech People News 11/17/2013

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Steve Reynolds Leaving Comcast, Joining Harris Broadcast
Exec With Close Ties to RDK Project To Become CTO of Harris Broadcast, Sources Say
(Multichannel News)

NBC News chief Deborah Turness taps former ITV colleague for key role (LA Times: Company Town)

SAP Announces Oliver Bierhoff as Brand Ambassador (SAP News)

New Jersey Technology Council to Honor Chris Sugden at the 2013 NJTC Awards Celebration (PR Web)

Recovery Networks Appoints Jennifer Einhorn, Vice President of Sales (pdf) (Recovery Networks)

Adrienne Choma, Co-Founder of Saladax Biomedical, Named One of National Winners of 2013 EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ Program (PR Newswire)



Familiar face new Reed Smith Philadelphia head (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Company that will run Convention Center names staff supervisor (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Saturday Highlights 11/16/2013: New direction at Hulu; Dreamforce upon us

With new leadership, online video site Hulu changes TV strategy (LA Times: Company Town)

Health-care Web site’s lead contractor employs executives from troubled IT company (Washington Post)

Enterprise giant SAP's systems take a probe to the wobbly bits - report (The Register)

Salesforce sets the stage for biggest Dreamforce ever (San Francisco Business Times)

Salesforce.com's Dreamforce: What to expect (Computerworld)



In Forbes sale, Bono would get paid first (Fortune TermSheet)

CIA CTO Gus Hunt joins LLR Partners

Tom Paine

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Ira A. (Gus) Hunt

Back in March of this year, Ira A. (Gus) Hunt, Chief Technology Officer of the CIA, was slated to be a keynote speaker at the 2nd annual Philly Phorum event. This was to be briefly after news broke that the highly security-obsessed CIA was recommending Amazon Web Services for a huge private cloud contract over IBM. Hunt was said to be a key supporter of the Amazon bid, so there was considerable interest in what he might say.

Then a "last minute emergency" prevented Hunt from attending Phorum. IBM would vigorously contest the contract being awarded to Amazon, but the protest was denied and it appears that the contract with AWS will go forward.

Today, Philadelphia-based PE firm LLR Partners announced that the long-time CIA employee would be joining the firm's emerging Washington-based Security, Defense & Government Services practice as an operating partner.

“Gus transformed the intelligence community's use of technology. He was the first to understand the value that commercial innovations could bring to the U.S. government and led the adoption of game-changing technologies at the CIA, including the switch to cloud-based infrastructure,” said Jason Rigoli, principal at LLR Partners, in a statement.

No doubt the NSA will still be keeping close tabs on Mr. Hunt's communications.

Links 11/15/2013: Report - Comcast to sell digital movies through cable boxes, website

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Comcast to sell digital movies through cable boxes, website (Reuters)

Is Verizon using Redbox Instant and Ellipsis to build a virtual pay TV platform? (FierceCable)

Dish-DirecTV Merger 'Makes A Lot Of Sense,' Says Ergen (Forbes)



Retailers take on Silicon Valley (Kansas City Star)
QVC is one of them.


Lockheed's Newtown facility upgraded in 2010 (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Two LLR Partners execs start Radnor-based software PE firm (PE Hub)

CaseWinn launches as software-focused private equity firm (Fortune TermSheet)


Gus Hunt to Help LLR Target New Govt Market Investments; Jason Rigoli Comments (GovConWire)

How Amazon is building substations, laying fiber and generally doing everything to keep cloud costs down (Gigaom)

Barclays Ups SAP To Buy As Cloud Strategy Takes Hold (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

IBM Faces a Crisis In the Cloud (Bloomberg Businessweek)


Online Casinos Hobbled as Credit-Card Issuers Reject Bets
(Bloomberg)

Links 11/14/2013: Lockheed planning to close Newtown facility, with 1,000 employees

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Lockheed Martin to close 1,000-employee Newtown site
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

Lockheed Martin To Consolidate Facilities, Reduce Costs (PR Newswire)

Lockheed lays off 240 in Moorestown (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Alteva's CEO gets grilled on future of landline business
(Times Herald-Record)

NBCUniversal Takes Full Ownership of Sprout Cable Network (New York Times)
Sprout is based in Fort Washington.

Wealthcare Capital Management announces the signing of a definitive merger agreement with NewSpring Holdings as its strategic growth partner (Business Wire)

Coin Is One Credit Card to Rule Them All
(Mashable)

Salesforce.com customers making broader investments, survey says (PC World)


Zoho adds enterprise features to its CRM software, eyes Salesforce.com (PC World)

Edison Ventures Completes $5 Million Follow-on Investment in RedVision Supports Growth of NJ-based Real Property Research Provider (PR Web)

InsPro Technologies Corporation Announces Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Today in Philly Tech History November 13, 1963; Comcast's predecessor founded

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On November 13, 1963, Ralph J. Roberts purchased a 1,500-subscriber cable system in Tupelo, Miss., and two unbuilt Mississippi cable-TV franchises in nearby towns, for about $250,000.

At the time, cable tv systems existed mostly in rural or mountainous areas where picking up over-the-air channels via rabbit ears was difficult.

Today, Philadelphia-based Comcast is by far the largest US cable provider, with over 20 million video subscribers, millions more broadband and telephone subscribers, ownership of NBC Universal, annual revenue of more than $60 billion, and a stock market capitalization in excess of $120 billion.

Comcast will celebrate the anniversary internally on November 20. The Philadelphia Inquirer
wrote about the anniversary here.

Although cable systems are often sold or swapped, Tupelo remains a Comcast franchise to this day.

Links 11/13/2013: IBM to acquire Blue Bell-based Fiberlink Communications; NBC buys out Sprout partners

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IBM to Acquire Fiberlink Communications, Transforming the Mobile Management and Security Market (PR Newswire)

IBM buys Fiberlink (Philly Deals)

With Fiberlink acquisition, IBM gets serious about mobile device management (VentureBeat)


RightCare Solutions Raises $5.0M in Series B Round Led By Domain Associates and Compass Partners (Business Wire)

NBCU Buys Full Ownership Of Sprout (Multichannel News)
Sprout is based in Fort Washington. NBC bought out partners PBS and HIT Television Ventures to get 100% control.



Clearleap Raises Additional $20 Million to Accelerate TV Everywhere Deployments (Videonuze)
Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity leads round in Atlanta company.


Hulu in talks with Time Warner, Comcast, and others about possible cable bundling deals: WSJ (The Verge)

Netflix Gives Most, but Not All, of Its TV Viewers a New Look (All Things D)


Verizon Cloud Video Unit Snaps Up Multiscreen Startup
(Multichannel News)

Brand.com launches a program for deleting false Web pages on Google, Yahoo and Bing (The Next Web)
Brand.com is based in Philadelphia.

Veeva Systems Introduces Mobile CRM and CLM Solution for Windows 8 (Business Wire)



Alteva Reports Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Marketwire)

Companion Property & Casualty Plugs in Acrometis’ CLAIMExpert to Drive Down Claim Costs (Business Wire)
Acrometis is based in Chesterbrook.



Amazon Launches WorkSpaces, A Virtual Desktop Service On AWS
(TechCrunch)

HP Chromebook 11 disappears from retailers everywhere without explanation (GeekWire)
The withdrawal was apparently due to overheating chargers.

Begin the IPO watch for Monetate

Tom Paine

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David Brussin / Monetate 

No one who has followed Conshohocken-based Monetate, the SaaS vendor whose products help retailers and other brands customize their websites to the needs of individual users, and its progress would be surprised to hear that they are thinking about going public. But timing is a key issue. A company has to demonstrate the revenue base, size of market opportunity and credibility (not necessarily immediate profits) to gain investor confidence.

Now CEO David Brussin has said something more definitive about the subject than I've heard him say before. In an interview with the Daily News appearing yesterday, Brussin said, "in a couple of years, we'll be a public company and a lot larger. We want to be here. I can't even imagine this company not being in Philadelphia."

If Monetate is going public within two years (assuming there are no drastic setbacks, or market turbulence, or someone makes an offer they can't refuse) that probably means the thought process and preliminary planning must be moving along.

Brussin also provided another useful piece of information in the Daily News story (credit
Daily News staff writer Michael Hinkelman with getting the story). He said, "a small [Monetate] client might be $75,000 a year. A large client - millions of customers - might be more than $1 million in fees annually". I'm not going to get into a guessing game about Monetate's revenues based on that information, although I am somewhat surprised to learn that it may have million dollar plus clients. Monetate said in a press release early
this year that it more than doubled its client base in 2012 and added over 100 brands
This would imply that it had somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 distinct accounts.
I asked a Monetate representative for an update on this but have yet to receive a response.

At mid-year 2013, Monetate said revenue for the first half of the year increased 127%
over the prior year. It expects to finish 2013 with at least 225 employees, and is offering generous bounties for successful referrals.



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Links 11/12/2013: FirstMark closes on $225 million fund; Moffet: Cable broadband growth slowing

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Moffett: Cable Broadband Growth Running Out of Steam (Multichannel News)

John Malone's Liberty Global in Talks to Acquire Intel Online TV Service (Report) (Hollywood Reporter)
Differs dramatically from yesterday's report by Multichannel News, which suggested that Verizon was trying to drag a reluctant Liberty Global into a joint bid for Intel's OnCue platform.

Aereo Challenge to Cable to Be Aided by Senate Proposal (Bloomberg)


Turnberry Solutions Announces the Market Availability of Two New Service and Order Management Solutions for the Cable Industry (Business Wire)
Turnberry Solutions is based in Blue Bell.

ANNOUNCING OUR NEWEST FUND (FirstMark Capital)
New York-based FirstMark has invested in Philadelphia startups Boomi (acquired by Dell), Artisan Mobile and Greenphire. Its third fund closed with $225 million.

Early Aereo, Pinterest Backer FirstMark Capital Raises $225M For Its Third Fund (TechCrunch)


Fanatics Created a $1 Billion Sports E-Commerce Powerhouse — Now Here Come the Apps (All Things D)
Fanatics, based in Jacksonville, is a part of Conshohocken-based Kynetic LLC.

Product Comparison: SevOne 5.3 vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor 10.5 (Network Management Software)
Great article if you want to understand what SevOne's products do.



Philadelphia law firm opens Silicon Valley office
(Philadelphia Business Journal)


SugarCRM goes after Salesforce.com with new interface, emphasis on lower cost (PC World)

Lam Cloud to hold Open House on November 14 to unveil 495,000 sf Cranbury Workplace Recovery/Technology Campus

Tom Paine


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Lam Cloud's Cranbury Workplace Recovery/Technology Center /Courtesy Lam Cloud

Cranbury, NJ-based Lam Cloud Solutions says it has created has created the largest Workplace Recovery Center in the Northeast United States, with a 495,000 square foot facility in Cranbury that can accommodate up to 275,000 square feet of scalable Colocation and enterprise data center space, provides 3,000 Workplace Recovery seats, scalable Colocation and enterprise data center space,as well as technology campus and conference space. Lam Cloud Management LLC, signed a 25-year lease for the facility earlier this year, which was previously occupied by Aetna.

Although the facility has been open since February, Lam Cloud will be having its official public unveiling with an Open House on Thursday, November 14th from 2 PM - 5 PM. at 1 Farr View Drive in Cranbury.

The privately funded company was founded in 2010 by Larry Lam, whose background was in architecture. His work on data center projects convinced him that a knowledge gap existed between consumers and providers of data center services, and Lam Cloud was started to address that gap by providing more than just space and physical objects.

The Open House will feature special guest speaker Andrew Blum, author of ‘Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet’, who will present on the ‘Grass-Fed Internet’, highlighting the Internet’s reach, vulnerability and utter dependence on the integrity, purpose and competence of the networks’ owners and operators. Other speakers will be Lam partners Marvin Wainschel, Founder and CEO of McWains Chelsea, Inc., and Paul Sullivan, VP and General Manager of Agility Recovery Services.

You can click here for more details on the event and free registration.