Links 11/20/2013: Safeguard Scientifics leads $16mm round in Apprenda; NY Times on why RJMetrics will start commission plan next year

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PaaS player Apprenda nets $16M to expand led by Safeguard Scientifics (Gigaom)

For Some, Paying Sales Commissions No Longer Makes Sense (New York Times)
But Philly-based RJMetrics is going in the other direction, implementing a commission plan
next year after not having one before, the Times reports.


SAP CEO Envisions Younger, Greener, Cloudier Company (Information Week)

Bridgestone files massive fraud and deception suit against IBM over SAP implementation (Nashville Post)


SAP Jam adds work patterns, processes (ZDNet)


Salesforce Finally Melds Itself With the Heroku Cloud (Wired)

Box strikes back at Dropbox with $100M raise at $2B valuation (VentureBeat)

Google Wallet debit card announced, available now (The Verge)

Insight: For Intel, Hollywood dreams prove a leap too far (Reuters)



Xbox One in the living room: The dazzling, erratic everything box (CNET News)

Broadcasters’ Fight Against Aereo Doesn’t Serve Their Interests (New York Times: DealBook)

About 520,000 Add Broadband in the Third Quarter of 2013
(Leichtman Research Group via FierceCable)

Inquirer owners' settlement talks break down (Philadelphia Inquirer)

On Comcast's website: "Our Story" celebrates Comcast's 50th

Comcast has published a feature on its website entitled "Our Story", which looks back at "50 Iconic Moments from Comcast and NBCUniversal" as the company prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary tomorrow (actually one week after the official date).

"Our Story" highlights include the opening of the Comcast Center and 30 Rockefeller Center, NBC's Olympics coverage, the beginnings of "Saturday Night Live", the NBCUniversal Merger, the founding of Comcast and NBC, Comcast's IPO, and the rollout of Comcast's X1 platform.

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

Tom Paine

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Aria Systems, a SaaS subscription billing vendor founded in Delaware County before migrating its headquarters to Silicon Valley, raised another $40 million in VC funds, it announced today. This brings the total it has raised to $83 million.

Aria still has its R&D based in Broomall, Delaware County. According to LinkedIn, it has 48 employees in the Philadelphia area.

The round was filled with heavyweight investors, led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from existing investors VMware, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Interwest Partners, Tugboat Ventures, and Venrock. Aria CEO Tom Dibble would not reveal the valuation, but was quoted by the San Francisco Business Times as saying it was a "significant increase" from the prior round.

Aria was founded in 2003 by Ed Sullivan, a Delaware County native and genuine serial entrepreneur who no longer is active in company management but remains on the board, according to Aria's website. He is currently CEO of G2Link, a Drexel Hill-based startup he founded along with his son.

Although Aria has several competitors, it is most closely identified with Zuora, which was
founded by former Salesforce exec Tien Tzuo. Both companies have a large presence at Dreamforce 2013.

Links 11/19/2013: Comcast SportsNet to provide coverage for NBC10

Salesforce opens new front against SAP/Oracle as it ups forecast (Den Howlett/Diginomica)

Salesforce Revenue May Top Some Estimates on Marketing Tools (Bloomberg)


Dreamforce '13: Salesforce.com touts 'golden age of enterprise apps'
(ZDNet)

Salesforce CEO admits ‘social enterprise’ pitch didn’t work (ZDNet)



Littoral Ship-to-Shore Communications Seen Deficient, GAO Says (Bloomberg)
A considerable portion of the Littoral Ship program has been conducted by Lockheed in Moorestown.

Urban Outfitters reports double-digit growth in Q3 (Philly.com)

Comcast SportsNet to provide coverage for NBC10 (Philadelphia Inquirer)

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

Deloitte releases Fast 500: MeetMe #3?; Here are Philly area representatives

Tom Paine

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Deloitte recently released its Technology Fast 500 (pdf) for 2013. Prior to 2012, Deloitte had released Fast 50 rankings for major metro areas including Philadelphia, but switched last year to releasing just one Fast 500 covering North America.

New Hope-based MeetMe was ranked #3, with growth of 83,209% from 2008 to 2012. MeetMe has had impressive growth (it has declined this year due to the discontinuance of an unprofitable revenue stream and MeetMe has been transitioning from web to mobile advertising, though it has shown sequential growth each of the past two quarters). However, I think Deloitte's 2008-2012 growth rate for MeetMe reflects the addition of myYearbook's revenue to Quepasa's relatively small base after Quepasa (essentially a public shell) technically acquired myYeabook in 2010 though myYearbook was the much larger company. The merged company was subsequently renamed MeetMe. So MeetMe being so high on the list is something of an aberration.

A Deloitte spokesperson confirmed by email that its methodology in the case of public companies is to take revenue from the public company's 10-K and doesn't distinguish between organic and inorganic growth. It used a 2008 revenue base of $56,000 to calculate MeetMe's growth, but myYearbook had 2008 revenue in the $11 to $12 million range according to reports at the time. My only suggestion would be that Deloitte add asterisks with explanations in some cases.

Based on MeetMe's full year 2012 revenue of $46.7 million, a quadrupling since 2008 or growth of 300% would be more reasonable. That would rank about #300 on the Fast 500.

Note: I didn't write this as a knock on MeetMe, a company I admire and think has considerable potential. I just analytically saw a number that didn't make sense to me
and wanted to explain where it came from.

The other Philly area software/infotech companies on the Deloitte Fast 500 are:

#129 Centrak (Newtown)

#170 Universal Display (Ewing NJ)

#191 SevOne (Wilmington)

#201 InstaMed (Philadelphia)

#225 SkillSurvey (Wayne)

#235 iPipeline (Exton)

#260 Billtrust (Hamilton, NJ)

#345 QlikTech (Radnor)

#353 PHD Virtual (Philadelphia)

#373 Futura Mobility (Fort Washington)

#394 Halfpenny Technologies (Blue Bell)

#411 eMaint Enterprises (Marlton)

#430 EPAM Systems (Newtown)

#431 Beyond.com (King of Prussia)

#442 CRF Health (Plymouth Meeting)

#452 Education Management Solutions (Exton)

#483 Health Advocate (Plymouth Meeting)

Of course, several life sciences firms from the area also made the Deloitte rankings.

Links 11/18/2013: NFL, MLB ask Supreme Court to stop Aereo

Comcast Nears Launch Of ‘Xfinity TV Store' Trial (Updated) (Multichannel News)

NFL and MLB ask Supreme Court to stop Aereo, warn they will move more games to cable (Gigaom)


Salesforce.com unveils Salesforce1 platform (PC World)

Salesforce.com buys cloudconnect just in time for Dreamforce (Gigaom)

Salesforce shares volatile after earnings report (Marketwatch)



To Drum Up BYOD Business, Oracle Quietly Acquires Enterprise Security Startup Bitzer Mobile (TechCrunch)
Seems to provide some of the MDM functions that Fiberlink does.

Now Dropbox Thinks It's Worth $8 Billion (Business Week)


Allin Interactive Acquires Movitas (Movitas Blog)

ThingWorx Launches the First Marketplace for the Internet of Things (Business Wire)

Healthcare.gov fix a make-or-break moment for UnitedHealth’s digital health reputation (Minneapolis Star-Tribune via Med City News)


Clinton Group Threatens Legal Action Against ValueVision’s Board
(New York Times: DealBook)

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)