Links 5/6/2014: Ben Franklin funds nine startups; Did SAP place too much emphasis on HANA?

Tom Paine

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Ben Franklin Approves $975,000 for Nine Early-Stage Companies (Ben Franklin Technology Partners)

Alibaba Files to Go Public in the U.S. (New York Times: DealBook)

SAP Shakeup Puts Focus Where It Belongs (Information Week)
Was too much hype built around HANA?

SAP and VMware Head for the Future Together
(New York Times: Bits)



Salesforce combining Radian6 with Buddy Media to create Social Studio (PC World)

Report: PE firm wants to sell Austin's Epicor Software for $3.5 billion (Austin Business Journal)
Epicor's Americas headquarters for its ERP business is in Bensalem.

Workday takes another shot at Oracle, SAP with recruiting app
(PC World)

Here’s what Tableau CEO Christian Chabot thinks about competing against Microsoft, MicroStrategy and everyone else
(GeekWire)


EPAM Acquires Jointech, Expands China-Based Delivery Capabilities (EPAM)

Comcast Goes Wide With X1 Upgrade (Multichannel News)

Comcast Commits to RDK-B (Light Reading)


Shammo: No comment on Comcast-TWC, FiOS plans on track (FierceCable)

BioTelemetry, Inc. Reports First Quarter 2014 Financial Results (Globe Newswire)

Links 5/5/2014: More on SAP shakeup; Tableau continues rapid growth

SAP tech chief Sikka steps down in management shakeup
(PC World)

SAP after departure of tech chief Sikka: The big questions (Computerworld)


SAP Management Shakeup: Hana Mastermind Leaves (Information Week)

Tableau posts 86 percent increase in Q1 revenues, net loss rises to $5.6 million (GeekWire)


TrialNetworks Joins the DrugDev Family of Technology-Driven Solutions to Advance the Common Goal of Enabling More Efficient Clinical Trials (Business Wire)
DrugDev is based in Audubon PA & London.

Google Search competitor DuckDuckGo teases major revamp, beautiful new design (VentureBeat)



Putting the Odds on a Publicom Collapse (Ad Age)

Slidejoy Wins Wharton Business Plan Competition Perlman Grand Prize (Wharton Entrepreneurship Blog)

Level 3 accuses five unnamed US ISPs of abusing their market power in peering (Gigaom)
Doesn't say if Comcast is one of them.

Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3 Blog)



Universal Display Drops 8% on Report Samsung Nixes OLED TV Production Expansion (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Boomi co-founder Rick Nucci launching new venture, Guru

Tom Paine

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I first had a hint that Boomi co-founder and Philly Startup Leaders President Rick Nucci was preparing to launch a new startup when I saw this tweet by him a couple of weeks ago, communicating about his LaunchRock site, usually a sign that something is up:

.@LaunchRock i can log in to your site, but my launchrock site is down: http://t.co/53Dp3muHl2

— Rick Nucci (@ricknucci) April 23, 2014

Indeed he is, and Walnut Street Labs reports it is called Guru, has already been funded and has been hiring, and plans a formal product announcement on June 16. Not much information so far, except that "Guru lets you capture, verify, and share your facts and answers, right from the apps you use every day." You can see its LinkedIn site here.

Nucci will be at Walnut Street Labs in West Chester on Tuesday (May 6) from 9 to 10am. His topic will be "My Ten Favorite Startup Mistakes."

Philly Tech People News 5/4/2014

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LiquidHub Hires Stephen Racioppo as Chief Operating Officer, and Announces Amsterdam Office Addition (Business Wire)

OneTwoSee Appoints Rick Bergan EVP of Business Development and Sales (PR Web)


Bill Bolton Joins Adminovate as Chief Development Officer (Business Wire)

InterDigital Announces New Chief Technology Officer (Globe Newswire)


NBCU names New CFO
(Multichannel News)

Sunday Highlights: Vishal Sikka leaves SAP; other changes

Alibaba I.P.O. May Unleash Global Fight Over Users (New York Times)

SAP AG: Executive Board Personnel Changes (SAP)
Vishal Sikka, Executive Board Member in charge of Products and Innovation, departs.

SAP: Sikka resigns. Three questions that need answers. (Diginomica)



SAP’s Venture With China Telecom Helps Double Cloud Sales
(Bloomberg)

With IPO Hopes Fading, Square And Box Face Reality Of Commodity Products (TechCrunch)

Comcast to bring its X1 service to L.A., New York within year of merger (Reuters via Chicago Tribune)

Comcast nears deal to stream EA games to TVs: sources (Reuters)

What's Happening To The SaaS Market? (TOMASZ TUNGUZ)

University of Texas-Austin goes with Workday for finance, HR, payroll

Tom Paine

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Workday, the up and coming enterprise cloud company, has targeted higher ed as one of its
key verticals, reflecting the backgrounds of co-founders Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri, who built a major presence in that market at Peoplesoft (acquired by Oracle).

Workday announced one of its biggest higher ed wins this week, The University of Texas at Austin. I haven't been able to confirm exactly what incumbent they are replacing (no response to my inquiry to Workday).

Why the release from Workday now, I'm not sure. UT announced on one of its websites that it had selected Workday last September and said in December that the contract had been approved by the UT System's Board of Regents.

This FAQ about the selection process posted on a UT website is interesting. It seems to indicate that Peoplesoft was the only competitive bidder.

This contract covers financial administration, human resources and payroll only. Another
RFP will be sent out for student information system bids. Workday is developing a student
information system and is beta testing it with some institutions.

Workday's existing higher ed customers include Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown and Yale.

Of course Ellucian, formed through the merger of SunGard Higher Ed and Datatel, is another large player in the market. Ellucian still has a large presence in Malvern.

Another interesting announcement this week came from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. It said it was replacing its Oracle system with one from Netherlands-based ERP vendor UNIT4. I had not known that UNIT4 was active in the higher ed market.

Links 5/2/2014: Fortune: Invite Media founders raise 9 figure round for big data cancer fighting venture

Google Ventures leading nine-figure investment in Flatiron Health (Fortune Tech)
Flatiron was founded by Invite Media founders Zachary Weinberg and Nat Turner. Amazed they got so far so quickly. Taking on big challenge - cancer, using big data.

HOW LEBOW STUDENTS HELPED SAP HIRE EMPLOYEES ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM (Drexel Now)

News Corp: Moving SAP ERP to Amazon cloud will save ‘tens of millions of dollars’ (Computerworld)


As Netflix Resists, Most Firms Just Try to Befriend Comcast (New York Times)

House Judiciary Sets Comcast Witnesses (Multichannel News)


AstraZeneca rejects Pfizer's raised bid of $106 billion (Reuters)

Links 5/1/2014: AT&T talking to DirecTV?

AT&T has approached DirecTV about takeover: WSJ (Reuters)

AT&T Could Probably Buy DirecTV. But Why? (Re/code)


Senator Franken, Comcast’s fiercest critic, tries to lure allies from Silicon Valley (Washington Post)

Sprint Said to Plan T-Mobile Bid as Banks Pushed to Fund
(Bloomberg)

John Malone’s Liberty Global Almost Invested in Aereo (Variety)

Rovi Reups With Arris (Multichannel News)

Box may delay IPO, but it's not for sale (Fortune Term Sheet)

Oracle cobbles together social properties for Marketing Cloud strategy (ZDNet)

Outbrain rising stars – interview with Michael Brenner, SAP (The Guardian)


Fiberlink connects IBM's mobile pieces (SearchConsumerization)

Accolade buys Newtown Square software company
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

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.