Comcast joins SAP in supporting 49ers' new stadium

Tom Paine

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Comcast, which provides cable and telecom services in the Bay area, and also reaches area viewers through CSN Bay Area and NBC Bay Area, announced jointly with the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday a 10-year partnership with the aim of delivering an “unmatched in-stadium fan experience.” The partnership coincides with the opening of the
49ers' new Levi’s Stadium next year.

Rendering of Levi's Stadium /Source San Francisco 49ers

The agreement includes an array of in-stadium telecom and video services, as well as enhanced coverage from CSN Bay Area and NBC Bay Area. I find it interesting that NBC Bay Area is designated "the official broadcast partner of the San Francisco 49ers", since the
49ers are an NFC team broadcasted primarily on Fox.

Another technology company with a major Philadelphia-area (and also Bay Area) presence, SAP, also has a partnership role in Levi's Stadium. In late 2012, the 49ers announced that SAP would be a Founding Partner at the new stadium. SAP was named as the team’s exclusive Business Software, Statistics and Performance Partner, and the new training facility adjacent to the stadium will carry the SAP name.

SAP has developed specialized, HANA-based software that helps 49ers management in the
area of player evaluation, combining both the usual football stats and more heuristic
tools reflecting the role of human thought processes in evaluating all aspects of a player's potential.

SAP also has a role at the Super Bowl.It will be hosting the "SAP Stats Zone", to be located on Super Bowl Boulevard, a 14 block stretch of Broadway in Manhattan that will be temporarily closed off to vehicles and occupied by football-related exhibits. It will be open from
January 29 until Super Bowl Sunday.

While Comcast's stake in the sports industry is more obvious, SAP under mega sports fans
Hasso Plattner and Bill McDermott's leadership has taken on a much larger role in both marketing itself through sports and developing products for the sports vertical.

Saturday Highlights 1/25/2014: Report - Comcast may not submit sole bid for Time Warner Cable; SAP may look at big acquisitions again

Comcast Leaning Away From Sole Bid for Time Warner Cable - 3rd Update (Dow Jones Newswires)
If Comcast gets Time Warner Cable New York, could Cablevision be next?

Fox to acquire majority control of N.Y. Yankees' YES Network (LA Times)

SAP finance chief says could look at big acquisitions again: report (Reuters via Chicago Tribune)


Apple looking to build mobile payments service, report says (CNET News)


Alibaba: The First Real Test for Amazon’s Business Model (HBR Blog Network)


Zonoff Links Home Automation Silos Via Staples Connect (Zatz
Not Funny)


Rethinking the limits on relational databases (Craig Kerstiens)

Boston's tech identity issue versus Philly's

Tom Paine

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So you think its just Philadelphia that has a tech industry inferiority complex?

Dan Pimack / Fortune TermSheet

Well, then read this article, What's really wrong with Boston tech? by Fortune's Boston-based Dan Primack (a Haverford College grad no less), who covers the PE business globally, on Boston's somewhat diminished national status in the tech world, although they are still much bigger than us (according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers & the National Venture Capital Association based on Thomson Reuters data for 2013, New England ventures raised $3.3 billion versus $420 million for Philadelphia Metro). Although Primack notes a recovery from the meltdown of the old Route 128 minicomputer era, and a much more engaged and vibrant urban tech scene, he still wonders where the next big things are coming from.

As he sees it, some of the problem can be attributed to the lack of tech media based in Boston, although he notes the exceptions of a couple of Boston websites and one or two
people assigned to the beat from national tech blogs. While Silicon Valley is covered
to the hilt, on the east coast he perceives a New York media bias of sorts, in that since
so many media organizations are based New York, more reporters are based there and tend to hype up the next hot New York startup, which in a virtuous or vicious circle of sorts creates a stonger ecosystem for the New York tech scene. (That is my rough interpretation of his words, not his).

Of course Philly has, in addition to its local outlets (with due credit to Technically Philly), several well known tech reporters from national websites based around the area, though most are not here specifically to cover the Philly scene. In some cases, they only
live in the area due to its proximity to New York - at least that's my impression.

My point of view is that while a strong local tech media is important, it is also important that it is independent and objective in its coverage, rather than engaging in boosterism.

If you've got good stuff, you don't need to overhype it.

Links 1/24/2014: SunGard to spin off its Availabilty unit

SunGard Announces Plan to Split Off Its Availability Services Business; Will Separate into Two Strong, Industry-Leading Companies (Business Wire)
This comes after Wayne-based SunGard was reportedly seeking a sale of SunGard Availability. The spinoff plan for now does not seem to involve a public offering.

IBM and SAP: Looks like we're STUCK forever on the cloud highway (The Register)


Report: Apple TV successor with revamped OS coming in first half of 2014 (Ars Technica)

Philly area resident Scallan plays key role at Silicon Valley's high-flying Flipboard

Tom Paine

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Josh Kopelman coined the term "Redeye VC" to describe the bi-coastal nature of his existence managing First Round Capital. Lehigh grad and area native Paul Martino has maintained his residence in Doylestown in spite of the time he spent as co-founder of Aggregate Knowledge (recently acquired for $119 million) and his current position as managing partner with VC firm Bullpen Capital, both based on the west coast. App design guru Loren Brichter maintains a primary residence here while advising west coast firms. And there are other examples.

Greg Scallan / Twitter

One who many may not realize lives in the Philly area is Greg Scallan, Chief Architect for Flipboard, the mobile news reader app platform that just last month confirmed it had raised another $50 million, closing out a Series C round of $100 million, led by Rizvi Traverse Management. Flipboard now says it has 100 million total users, up from 85 million at the time the first half of the round was announced, and is aiming for 150 million in 2014.

Scallan, who grew up on Staten Island (disclosure: the same place I did, though I didn't know him there - Staten Island is not a small village) received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh. After a few years at IBM and Paper Software, he joined Netscape not long after its famous 1995 IPO. He then served as Chief Architect-VoIP Platform at Tellme Networks, directing development of its Toll Free Directory Assistance service, and joined Microsoft after it acquired Tellme in 2007, leaving in 2009 to start Flipboard along with his long-time associate Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, and Evan Doll.

Although Flipboard is based in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto), Scallon told me in a phone interview he maintains his primary residence in the outer western burbs (near Chester Springs) for family reasons, but he spends considerable time on the west coast. He says he simply hasn't had the time to get too involved with the Philly Tech scene, though he would like to attend some of Philly Tech Meetup's events.

Flipboard launched first for the iPad and then the iPhone, but it now a has a significant percentage of Android users and launched an app for Windows Phone in November. Its not clear whether Flipboard will ultimately be more of a content curator, aggregator or publishing platform, though I'd say now its a combination of all three. Scallon says Flipboard and others in the news reading app space are still trying to work out optimal business models for it, and there is frequent discussion ongoing among players in the industry.

Although Flipboard initially may have focused on larger publications (who sold their own ads), it has gradually broadened its base, allowing users to curate their own collections gathered from Flipboard content and encouraging more smaller self-publishers to use its platform. However, the issue of how to help smaller publishers monetize remains.

One new competitor is Medium, founded by Blogger founder and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Medium favors a more web-based approach versus Flipboard's primarily app-based approach. Another significant competitor could be a Facebook product, reportedly named Paper, which may be introduced in the coming weeks. After selling the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the Graham family holding company relaunched its news reader entrant, Trove.

Scallan says Flipboard is a happy Amazon Web Services user for all of its cloud services, and has no plans to move to more of a hybrid or private cloud architecture.

Update 1/29: Flipboard wants to look more like
traditional magazine (Gigaom)

Update 2/4: Facebook's Paper vs. Flipboard: Comparing mobile news apps (Mashable via San Jose Mercury News)

Links 1/23/2014: SAP seen facing difficult challenges ahead

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Comcast, Verizon dissolve joint product-development venture (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Basic story a few months old, though adds interesting details. Joint marketing of each other's products in some areas continues, but I wonder how much actually has been sold through this arrangement. I doubt its been much.

T. Rowe Price Wants Time Warner Cable and Charter to Talk (New York Times: DealBook)

Comcast To Trot Out New Tech, Features For Sochi Games (Multichannel News)
Philly will be one of test markets for ‘Instant On Demand’.




Comcast buys majority stake in its Center City HQ, sources say (Philadelphia Business Journal)


IBM And SAP Have A Tough Road Ahead Against Amazon's Low Margin Cloud (ReadWrite)

SAP's master plan: A look at the challenges ahead (ZDNet)

Lessons from the death of a tech Goliath (Fortune)
On Siebel Systems.

Workday rolls out revamped, HTML5-powered user experience (Computerworld UK)

Salesforce.com courts Microsoft .NET developers with new tools (PC World)



eBay CEO Says Icahn PayPal Spinoff Makes No Sense (Re/code)


Lenovo To Buy IBM's x86 Server Business (Information Week)

Quality Systems, Inc. Reports Fiscal 2014 Third Quarter Results (Business Wire)
Quality Systems' core business is NextGen Healthcare, based in Horsham.

MapQuest Transfers Local Listings Management To Yext (Search Engine Land)
MapQuest, which was spun out as a venture from RR Donnelly, originated in Lancaster. It
still has a presence there, last I checked, though its been diminished by Google Maps and AOL management indifference.

Philly Tech News Events Calendar Updated 1/23/2014

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Links 1/22/2014: Leonsis eyes eventual split from Comcast SportsNet?; Comcast may test selling energy in PA

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How OnCue helps Verizon modernize FiOS TV (nScreenMedia)

Big Cable Merger Jousting Enters Public Sniping Phase (Business Week)


Hyperlocal website EveryBlock to be resurrected by Comcast (Chicago Tribune)
EveryBlock will be under Comcast's supervision this time, as opposed to NBC's as it was in its previous life.


Ted Leonsis on eventually circumventing Comcast SportsNet (Washington Post)

Comcast May Soon Test Selling Electricity in Pennsylvania (GreenTech Media)
Toning down somewhat overblown headline from article.

Netflix posts Q4 profit of $48.4M, with 44M subscribers (CNET News)

EBay Says Icahn Proposes PayPal Spinoff, Board Nominees (Bloomberg)


VMware to buy mobile security firm AirWatch in $1.54 billion deal (Reuters)
AirWatch is in a similar market space - mobile security - that Blue Bell-based Fiberlink (acquired by IBM) is, but most analysts believe Fiberlink only received a fraction of the
price that AirLink got.

MemSQL Raises $35M Series B Led By Accel Partners (TechCrunch)
Previous investor First Round Capital participated again.

IBM Plans Layoffs, New Investments (Information Week)

Lessons learned from raising a first-time VC fund (Charlie O'Donnell/Term Sheet)
Charlie O"Donnell did a stint with First Round Capital before setting out on his own to start a Brooklyn-based seed fund, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, which just closed on Brooklyn Bridge Ventures Fund I, with $8.3 million in capital.

Zenefits raises $15 million: 'The hottest deal in Silicon Valley' (Fortune Term Sheet)
Andreessen Horowitz's (and SuccessFactors founder) Lars Dalgaard explains why.

NJ Software-Defined Network Startup Corente to be Snapped Up by Oracle

Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com


Corente, a privately held company based in Bernardsville that provides software-defined networking technology (SDN) for Wide Area Networks (WANs), is expected to be acquired by Oracle for an undisclosed amount. Corente was founded in 2007.

The proposed transaction, revealed Jan. 7, 2014, is subject to regulatory approval and other conditions, the company said. The transaction is expected to close in early 2014, and until that time the companies will operate independently. The company was not available for comment as to whether it will stay in New Jersey.

In a letter to its customers and partners, Corente said its software-defined WAN virtualization platform accelerates the deployment of distributed and cloud-based applications and services by allowing customers to “provision and manage global private networks connecting to any site over any IP network in a secure” manner.

Together, the letter said, Oracle and Corente are expected to deliver software-defined networking offerings that create “cost-effective, secure networks, spanning global deployments” and offer a complete technology portfolio for SDN cloud deployments that “virtualize both the enterprise data center LAN [Local Area Network] and the WAN.”

The goal of the combination is for Oracle to retain Corente’s domain expertise, some observers say, but there is some disagreement about how the company’s products will proceed once it is acquired.

Jim Zucco, chairman and CEO of Corente. | Via LinkedIn

Writing on TechTarget, Shamus McGillicuddy says that Oracle is not trying to “compete in the burgeoning SDN market. Instead, the company is improving the networking components of its own technology stack for cloud application delivery.”

He quotes Brad Casemore, IDC research director, as saying, "The SDN stuff that went out in the press releases, in my mind, is an intentional distraction … It's clear this is not a competitor to data center overlays, like VMware NSX. It's an adjunct technology. Oracle is not going to compete with Cisco. This is about their cloud services strategy. It will support other areas of their business."


In other words, don't expect Oracle to start selling Corente's technology as a standalone Oracle SDN product, the TechTarget article said. Oracle will support existing Corente customers, but Oracle's true intent is to incorporate Corente into Oracle's cloud applications stack, according to the McGillicuddy post.

Corente’s management team and employees are expected to join Oracle after the transaction closes and continue to focus on facilitating virtualization and capabilities in the area of software-defined networking technology, the company stated.

 In discussing how the acquisition will affect customers and partners, the company said on its website, “Oracle is currently reviewing the existing Corente product roadmap and will be providing guidance to customers in accordance with Oracle's standard product communication policies.”

 “Any resulting features and timing of release of such features as determined by Oracle's review of Corente’s product roadmap are at the sole discretion of Oracle. All product roadmap information, whether communicated by Corente or by Oracle, does not represent a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract.”



Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is republished here with her permission.

Chis Kuenne resigns from Rosetta to focus on new PE Firm

Tom Paine

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Chris Kuenne (Rosemark Capital website)

Chris Kuenne has formally resigned from the Hamilton, New Jersey-based digital marketing agency he founded and sold to Publicis for $575 million, Rosetta. The move was anticipated, as he had been serving Rosetta in an advisory, transitional role. He will now focus on his new private equity firm, Rosemark Capital Group, in addition to charitable activities and serving as an instructor at Princeton.

Kuenne founded Rosetta in 1998 and sold it to Publicis in 2011.

Philly Tech News reported in early December on the formation of Rosemark Capital, also referring to an excellent in-depth article on Kuenne by the Princeton-based publication US 1.

Links 1/21/2014: Verizon to buy Intel Media assets; SAP delays profit goals for Cloud push

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Comcast adds Barclays as adviser on Time Warner Cable deal: sources (Reuters)

Verizon to Purchase Intel Media Assets (Intel Newsroom)

Verizon Paying About $200 Mil for Intel’s Internet TV Group: Sources (Variety)


Why Verizon is buying Intel Media: it’s all about taking on Comcast (Gigaom)

Amazon Exploring Over-the-Top TV Service (Variety)



Verizon posts Q4 profit of $7.9B, adds 1.7M connections
(CNET News)



SAP Delays Profitability Target Amid Cloud Push (Bloomberg)

SAP to sacrifice margin for growth (Denn Howlett/Diginomica)


SAP going after Salesforce, Workday “with everything we have” says CEO McDermott (Computing.co.uk)

SAP Rejected by Supreme Court Over $391 Million Loss (Bloomberg)

SAP Customers Preparing for Critical “ERP on HANA” Upgrade
(ASUG News)

IMS Health: Pharma Companies Should Engage On Social Media (Information Week)