Links 4/30/2014: Cable Show news; Comcast aims for 8 million WiFi hotspots

Pace Tightens Ties To The RDK (Multichannel News)
RDK Management is a Philadelphia-based joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

Comcast aims for 8 million WiFi hotspots (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Cable Show: Arris CEO: OTT Boxes Pose Threat & Opportunity
(Multichannel News)
Arris acquired Horsham-based Motorola Home from Google last year.

Cable Show: Rovi Cuddles With The Cloud (Multichannel News)
Rovi has a significant presence in the Philadelphia area.

Cox plans gigabit Internet for residential customers this year (Ars Technica)



F.C.C. Chairman Says Broadband Competition Is Lacking (New York Times)

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: Internet Will Not Be Divided Into “Haves” And “Have-Nots” (TechCrunch)


Twitter and TV Working Just Fine, Says Twitter (Re/code)
Different opinion from that of NBC's Alan Wurtzel.

Philly-based LeadiD Gets $7 Million Investment to Tell You Which Customer Leads Are Baloney (Re/code)
Led by Comcast Ventures, with Genacast Ventures also participating.

Unisys Brings On Grayling For Corporate, Product PR
(Holmes Report)

Sun Shines on Cloud Company Stocks After NetSuite Earnings (Recode)


SAP's Fieldglass buy raises a multitude of integration questions (SearchSAP.com)

IBM and marketing tech: How Big Blue plans to tackle Adobe, Salesforce, Oracle, and Sitecore (VentureBeat)

Links 4/29/2014: Netflix in traffic deal with Verizon; TIBCO expands in BI by acquiring Jaspersoft

Netflix signs traffic deal with Verizon following Comcast agreement last month (TechSpot)

Univision CEO joins small, mighty group of Comcast merger critics (Washington Post)

Cable industry gathers at time of growing competition and challenge (LA Times)


Philadelphia-Based Entrepreneurial Duo Sells SAP Supply Chain Practice to Ernst & Young (Marketwire)
EY had announced the agreement early this month.

SAP giving Ariba an in-memory energy boost with Hana (PC World)

SAP Rolling Out Single Support System for Cloud, SAP On-Premise (ASUG News)


NetSuite: Q1 Beats, Raises Year Rev View; SAP Fires Back (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

TIBCO Shakes Up BI Market With Jaspersoft Buy (Informatiom Week)

Big data hype didn't speed growth in the BI market, Gartner says (PC World)



Eighteen companies vie for massive IT contract (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Comcast apparently one of firms competing for part of contract currently held by Unisys.

Voxware raises Series 1 from Cross Atlantic and individual investors

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


Radnor-based Cross Atlantic Capital Partners and individual investors James Alexandre and W. A. Hitschler have led a Series 1 round of financing in Hamilton NJ-based Voxware, the company said last week. The amount was not disclosed.

This is not the first trip to the dance for the supplier of software for voice-driven warehousing operations, which was founded in 1994 by Ken Traub. It did an IPO in 1996, raising $20 million, but perhaps scaled up too quickly and then saw revenue dip from $23.4 million in FY 2008 to $12.6 million in FY 2010. So in 2010, Cross Atlantic, already a major shareholder at the time, made a further investment in Voxware in conjunction with a going-private transaction.

Current numbers are hard to come by, but “this round of funding is a testament to the success that Voxware has experienced since introducing our cloud-based voice solution to the market nearly 24 months ago,” said Keith Phillips, President and CEO of Voxware in a statement.

Voxware's LinkedIn page shows 64 employees, a rough though not always accurate proxy
for total employment. Voxware's voice picking software can optimize warehouse pick and pack operations, and is used for voice directed picking in many industries. It should be an attractive market given the amount of huge warehouses being built.

Links 4/28/2014: Comcast reaches deal with Charter to sell, trade subscribers

COMCAST AND CHARTER REACH AGREEMENT ON DIVESTITURES (Comcast Press Release)

Comcast Agrees to Sell Customers, Easing Time Warner Deal Path (Bloomberg)

NBC Pokes a Hole in Twitter’s TV Story (Re/code)


Former eBay and PointRoll Execs Busted For Insider Trading (Re/code)

Pfizer Still Wants AstraZeneca After Bid Rejected (Bloomberg)


Epicor focuses on Microsoft technology to speed up apps (IT World)
Epicor's Americas ERP business is based in Bensalem.

TIBCO Software Acquires Jaspersoft (Marketwire)
Pays about $185 million to fill out BI product line.


Project Liberty Digital Incubator startup applications due Fri. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Philly Tech People News 4/27/2014

Follow @phillytechnews



Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email




Innovative Solutions & Support, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Hedrick Announces Retirement Effective December 31, 2014 (Business Wire)

Wireless lobby group names former FCC member Baker as president (Washington Post)
Was most recently with Comcast's DC office.


Tucker Twitmyer leaves EnerTech Capital (Fortune Term Sheet)

DataGravity Appoints Jeff Boehm Vice President of Marketing (Business Wire)

In A Bid To Grow, Birst Changes CEOs (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital
Dispatch)

Comcast Close To $20B Cable Deal With Charter: Report (Deadline.com)

Aereo case audio now up

The audio from Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments in ABC v. Aereo is now available online.

You can stream it through your ISP, but the Supreme Court asks that you don't try to pick it up by using any little tiny antennas, since it isn't sure those are legal.

See also Summing up yesterday's arguments in ABC v. Aereo.

Links 4/25/2014: Ex-GSI Commerce, eBay unit chief Saridakis hit with insider trading charges stemming from acquisition

Ex-EBay Unit Chief, Five Others Settle SEC Insider-Trading Case (Bloomberg)

Netflix accuses Comcast of charging twice for the same internet content (The Verge)

Comcast Says Netflix Slowed Down Its Own Streams (Re/code)

Netflix researching “large-scale peer-to-peer technology” for streaming (Ars Technica)


Time Warner Cable cuts video subscriber losses, adds Internet clients (Reuters)

Amazon’s Shrinking Profit Sets Off a Seismic Shock to Its Shares (New York Times)

Pennsylvania PUC officer finds Lyft, Uber drivers easy to pursue in Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)


Oregon's Plan B: Ditch Its Own Health Exchange, Join Healthcare.gov (Bloomberg Business Week)

Comcast's RDK joint venture helps spur acquisition for one firm, new Philly office for another

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email




Two recent announcements both involve companies that support Philadelphia-based RDK Management LLC, a joint venture between Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global.

Cognizant, the Teaneck, NJ-based systems integration giant, has acquired itaas, an Atlanta-based firm that specializes in testing and integration services for video platforms and applications.

A key aspect of itaas' business is its role in supporting the RDK joint venture. Last fall, itaas was selected by RDK Management LLC to oversee community support services as well as technical support and training for licensees of the RDK. Most of itaas' approximately 200 employees appear to be based in Atlanta or India, plus some in Canada. It has no Philadelphia office listed among the locations on its website.

Also, a Dublin, Ireland-based company named S3 Group has opened a Philadelphia office to be closer to Comcast and the RDK initiative. The office, located at 1800 John F. Kennedy Blvd, will initially have seven employees, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. S3 helps manage the RDK code base.

The Reference Design Kit (RDK), originally developed primarily by Comcast, is a preintegrated software stack for set-tops, gateways, and other IP-capable devices. Comcast, through the joint venture, has made an effort to open it up and make it an industry standard. RDK Management says there are now more than 140 RDK licensees, and RDK applications will be on display by several of those at next week's Cable Show in Los Angeles.

The joint venture was formed last year, with Comcast veteran Steve Heeb being named its President and GM.

Links 4/24/2014: 'Welcome to Comcast Country'; FCC changing Net Neutrality regs?

Welcome to Comcast Country (New York Times)
Op-Ed by Daniel Denvir of Philadelphia City Paper.

Reports: FCC Poised For Changes To Net Neutrality Policy
(NPR)

Verizon Braces for Installment-Plan Impact After AT&T Surge (Bloomberg)


Verizon FiOS Still Growing, But Slowing (Multichannel News)

If HANA fails, SAP dies: Teradata CTO (Information Age)

Amazon Web Services sales up again (Gigaom)


FinancialForce gets a $50 million infusion (Silicon Valley
Business Journal)

Safeguard Scientifics Announces First Quarter 2014 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Always considerable amount of interesting, granular information in Safeguard's reports.

Qlik Tech Q1 Revenue Misses, Year View In-Line (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)


Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel agree to settle Silicon Valley hiring case (PC World)

Summing up yesterday's arguments in ABC v Aereo

Tom Paine

Follow @phillytechnews

 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



Below is a summary of some of the better analyses of yesterday's oral arguments in ABC v. Aereo in front of the Supreme Court.

Getting a grasp of the complex technology issues was difficult, as at least one justice openly admitted. Also, justices seemed reluctant to step on a 2008 appeals court ruling that upheld Cablevision Systems Corp's cloud storage video recorder.

While several justices were skeptical of the purpose of Aereo's technology, implying it was designed primarily to evade existing copyright law, most were very concerned about interfering with the future growth of cloud computing in its many different forms.

Comcast joined lead plaintiff ABC in appealing the case against Aereo to the Court. While some cable system operators where generally more sympathetic to Aereo than broadcasters were, Comcast of course is both of these through its NBC ownership.

First Round Capital and FirstMark Capital, another VC firm active in the Philly area, were
early seed investors in Aereo, which was then known as Bamboom Labs, in 2011. Others, led by IAC Corp's Barry Diller, came in later as major investors.

Philadelphia was originally scheduled to receive Aereo service in 2013 but that never happened, and it is now tentatively scheduled to receive it some time this year, probably
pending the decision in this case, which might come in June or July.


At oral arguments, Supreme Court isn’t sold on Aereo (Ars Technica)

At Stake in the Aereo Case Is How We Watch TV (New York Times)

U.S. justices show little support for Aereo TV in copyright fight (Reuters)

At Aereo arguments, can old-school analogies explain new technology? (Reuters Blog)

Supreme Court justices skeptical of Aereo, but wary of killing it (Fortune)

Cloud implications could save Aereo (SNL Kagan)


Justices Express Concern Over a Sweeping Aereo Ruling (Variety)

Why the Supreme Court, and You, Should Side with Aereo in the Legal-Tech Case of the Year (Yahoo Tech)