Links 1/16/2014: Hershey's to make 3D chocolate printer

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Merger To Create Leading Provider Of Specialty Outsourced Clinical Services
CCBR-SYNARC and BioClinica Announce Agreement to Merge; Jeffrey McMullen Appointed Chairman (PR Newswire)
BioClinica is based in Newtown.

Comcast sues onetime employee over TV-viewership tracking software
(Philadelphia Inquirer)

Netflix exposed as net neutrality rules gutted (USA Today)

Verizon's NYC FiOS drive becomes bigger threat to TWC, others (FierceTelecom)

Hershey's to make 3-D chocolate printer (CNN Money)
Seriously.



Amazon workers at Delaware facility reject unionization push in 21-6 vote (GeekWire)

9,000 heads to roll at Dell? Tosh. It'll all go down in Feb and it's THOUSANDS more - insiders (The Register)

Oracle's Quixotic Quest To Beat Amazon At The Commodity Game (ReadWrite)

Oracle Loses Bid to Have D&O Insurer Beazley Pay $20M in Claims Over Acquisition (Bloomberg via Insurance Journal)


Philly Fed manufacturing index improves in January (MarketWatch)

Clear Channel Launches Philly Airport Digital Signage Network (MediaPost News)

Saridakis resigns as head of eBay Enterprise "for personal reasons"

Tom Paine

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Chris Saridakis has resigned as the head of King of Prussia-based eBay Enterprise for personal reasons, according to an eBay press release.

The announcement and its timing are somewhat surprising, given that eBay Enterprise (formerly GSI Commerce) appeared to be playing an increasingly central role within eBay's overall strategy, with Saridakis having a very visible role as part of eBay's management team.

Saridakis had served as president of eBay Enterprise since June 2011, after eBay acquired GSI Commerce (renamed eBay Enterprise in 2013), where he was part of that company’s management team. Prior to GSI Commerce he had headed up PointRoll.

Tobias Hartmann, vice president, Omnichannel Operations and International, will serve as interim head of eBay Enterprise while an external search is conducted for a permanent successor, the company said in its statement.

More from USA Today , citing sources suggesting that slower than expected growth at the unit may have been a factor behind the departure.

Comcast to build Philly tower? CBS Philadelphia story pulled (Update: Story's Out)

Tom Paine

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A now dead link appeared on the web today from CBS Philly, datelined today from Philadelphia, reporting Comcast has announced plans to build a new $1.2 billion tower in Philadelphia. You can see a trace of the headline in the link:

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/01/15/comcast-announces-plans-to-build-new-tower-in-philadelphia/

Also, from Google News:

CBS Local-1 hour ago
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)—Comcast has announced plans to build a new tower in Philadelphia with a hefty price tag: $1.2 billion. The “Comcast ...

I can find no other current reference to that story. I've asked Comcast for comment.

Update: A reliable source (not from within Comcast) confirms the story is accurate and
details should be coming soon.


Udpate: Its out via NBC Philadelphia .

Norman Foster to Design Comcast Tower in Philadelphia
(New York Times)

Comcast's press release

Links 1/15/2014: Charter makes new approach to Comcast on Time Warner (Reuters)

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Exclusive: Charter makes new approach to Comcast on Time Warner Cable bid - sources (Reuters)

New Jersey Says Internet Betting Generated $8.4 Million
(Bloomberg)

Artisan Unveils New Features and Capabilities for Mobile Experience Management in Winter ‘14 Release (Business Wire)

PC Helps Changes Name to Vitalyst and Expands Service Offering (Business Wire)

Plum Analytics Becomes Part of EBSCO Information Services (PR Web)

Blackboard makes another acquisition, says it will make good on past acquisitions (PandoDaily)

AOL Finds a Home – Off Its Books – for Patch (Re/code)

Links 1/14/2014: FCC’s Options Narrow After Court Blocks Net Neutrality Rules: SevOne receives patent award

Circuit Court Of Appeals Strikes Down FCC’s Open Internet Order, Net Neutrality Threatened (TechCrunch)

FCC’s Options Narrow After Court Blocks Net Neutrality Rules (Variety)


Big Offer for Time Warner Cable Unsettles the Cable Industry (New York Times)

Time Warner Cable shareholders seek sale at higher price (New York Post)

Charter COO John Bickham Rips Time Warner Cable on Conference Call (Hollywood Reporter)


Time Warner Cable Issues Statement on Charter Communications (Business Wire)

DirecTV no longer carrying Weather Channel after contract dispute (LA Times)

How A Curious VC Found Uber Before Anyone Else, Back When It Was Only Worth $4 Million (Business Insider)

SevOne Patent Award Defines Uniquely Scalable Approach to Performance Management (Business Wire)



Nutanix Joins the $1 Billion Valuation Club as It Takes On Tech Giants (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
SAP Ventures among investors.

Google Cloud Platform is growing up with a channel program and everything (Gigaom)



HP, SAP release new solutions for retailers (IT World Canada)

NRF14: Selling digital signage to the sellers (Digital Signage Today)


TicketLeap is Redesigned and Mobile-Optimized (Tech Cocktail Philadelphia)

Charter makes opening bid of more than $61 billion for Time Warner Cable; will & when Comcast get involved?

Tom Paine

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Charter Communications has made its widely anticipated opening bid for the much larger Time Warner Cable, an offer that values TWC at $132.50 per share, or more than $61 billion including debt.

Charter has had discussions with Time Warner Cable but has said that TWC has been largely
unresponsive to its suggestions, and this bid is not expected to be accepted. Charter's goal, with the backing of John Malone's Liberty Media (which owns 27% of Charter), is to get the issue in front of TWC shareholders.

A combined Charter/TWC would be about 80% as large as Comcast's cable business in terms of video subscribers. Comcast is expected to show its cards on this deal at some point. Although Comcast hasn't publicly said its interested in acquiring all of or part of Time Warner Cable, sources have indicated that its been carefully surveying the landscape in preparation of such a possibility.

Malone built TCI into a giant cable operator that was sold to AT&T for $48 billion in 1998. AT&T subsequently agreed to merge its cable business with Comcast's in 2001 in a transaction valued at $72 billion.

Links 1/13/2014: Google to buy Nest Labs

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Google to Buy Nest Labs for $3.2 Billion (NY Times)

Tony Fadell Q&A: Why I sold Nest to Google (Fortune Term Sheet)


Exclusive: More well-known U.S. retailers victims of cyber attacks - sources (Reuters)


NBCUniversal News Group invests in video startup NowThis News (CNBC)

Comcast launching Xfinity On Campus at Drexel University
(FierceCable)

Comcast attorneys seek expedited reorganization process in CSN Houston bankruptcy case (Houston Chronicle)

eBay Leverages Enterprise Expertise to Go After Mid-Market Retailers (EcommerceBytes)

Philly Tech People News 1/12/2014: Ries new SAP Global HR chief: OneTwoSee adds Pace as Chief Business Officer

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Carlyle Hires Former F.C.C. Chairman for Buyout Group (New York Times)


Stefan Ries Joins SAP as New Global Head of Human Resources (PR Newswire)


Multiscreen Innovator OneTwoSee brings on Robert Pace as Chief Business Officer (PR Web)

Enterra Solutions Adds Talent to its Cognitive Computing, Big Data Analytics and Insights Team (Business Wire)


Encoda, LLC Announces New CEO with Appointment of Veteran Healthcare IT Executive Michael Kallish (PR Newswire)

Calkins names new digital media director, general manager (Bucks County Courier Times)

John Hillen Named Operating Partner at LLR Partners
(GovConWire)

Franklin Institute names new president (Philadelphia Business Journal)


Billtrust Names Mark Miller, Pete Sinisgalli To Board Of Directors, Adding Deep Payment Industry Expertise (PR Newswire)


Ex-Comcast Exec Harrar Joins Brightcove Board (Multichannel News)

iCIMS Names Eric Dunn of Intuit to Board of Directors (PR Newswire)
I find this interesting.




Philadelphia Insurance Names VP of IT Service Delivery
(Insurance Networking News)

Comcast discontinues 'Signature Support' service, although some services will still be provided free to some subscribers

Tom Paine

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Comcast says it is discontinuing its Xfinity 'Signature Support' service, which it launched in 2011. It posted an undated announcement on its website, and Comcast's service provider support.com issued a release describing the impact it faced from the program's termination earlier this week.

Actually, Comcast's initial notification of its customer base appears to date from early October 2013.

Signature Support provided plans ranging from $4.95/month to $19.95/month (at the time it launched) for tech support for Comcast residential subscribers' computers, home networks, and other peripherals. It did not include Comcast-provided equipment, which the company says was already covered. The service was provided in conjunction with support.com. Comcast wouldn't say how many subscribers Signature Support had, although judging from what support.com had to say Monday I don't think it was an enormous number from Comcast's perspective (although it will have some short-term impact on support.com.)

Paging through a few forums (not a scientific survey), I've seen mixed comments (some quite positive) about Signature Support, but don't have enough information to say whether any problems were extraordinary or systematic.

A Comcast spokesperson said by email: "We're continuing to work with support.com to deliver the same premium support as before, but it's now available to customers who currently lease a wireless gateway or router device from Comcast at no additional cost."

Separately, Comcast also provided Signature Support service to small business customers, and that is also being discontinued as of March 31. After that date, Comcast says any files stored in the Signature Support cloud backup solution will be deleted and no longer available. Comcast Business told Philly Tech News it offers additional cloud backup services from Carbonite and Mozy through its online Upware marketplace.

Bloomberg Sports and OneTwoSee Partner to Bring Advanced Fan Engagement to Smart TV (PR Web)

New eBay Enterprise and Magento Solution Powers Omnichannel Growth for Mid-Sized Retailers
(Business Wire)

Links 1/10/2014: Increasing cloud mix good or bad for SAP?

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Cloud casts shadow over revenue growth at SAP (Reuters)

SAP's revenue mix is slowly shifting to cloud, preliminary figures show (PC World)


Salesforce CEO praises Oracle, slams Microsoft, and hints at analytics acquisitions (interview) (VentureBeat)

Aereo is getting the Supreme Court fight it wanted (Washington Post)

Obama administration to end contract with CGI Federal, company behind HealthCare.gov (Washington Post)

For Urban Outfitters, record holiday sales (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bazaarvoice PowerReviews Deal Can Be Blocked by U.S. (Bloomberg)
Bazaarvoice, which completed an IPO in February 2012, received early funding from First Round Capital.


Word from Samsung: 4K ready to bust out, but OLED lags (USA Today)

USA Technologies Comments on S.A.V.E. Letter (Business Wire)