Links 5/21/2014: McDermott now SAP's sole CEO; Comcast Shareholder Meeting draws flack inside and outside Kimmel

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SAP’s McDermott Counts On Faster Decision-Making as Sole CEO (Bloomberg)

SAP says no plan to return to having two CEOs (Reuters)


Cisco CEO: 'Brutal' Times Are Coming For The Tech Industry (Business Insider)

Salesforce Forecast Tops Analyst Predictions on Cloud Sales (Bloomberg)


Flurry of acquisitions redraws Salesforce.com partner landscape (ZDNet)

Perficient Acquires IBM Smarter Commerce Division of Trifecta Technologies (Business Wire)
Trifecta, based in Allentown, is selling its IBM-related Business for $13.7 million to
focus on its Salesforce business.



Netflix Enters Germany, France in Biggest Move Since 2011 (Bloomberg)

Verizon Eyeing Cloud-Based Video Jukebox (Home Media Magazine)


Comcast CEO Grilled Over Company Politics, Employee Wages at Shareholders Meeting
(Hollywood Reporter)

Merger Protests Greet Comcast Corp. Annual Meeting at Kimmel Center (CBS Philly)


Comcast Completes Jersey Shore Upgrades
(Multichannel News)

AT&T-DirecTV deal may smooth path for Comcast-Time Warner approval
(AP via San Jose Mercury News)


Amazon will have 10,000 robots in its warehouses by year’s end, Bezos says (Geekwire)

Google reportedly plans to target businesses with Wi-Fi (Gigaom)

Clutch Unveils ClutchConnect™ Partnership Program (Business Wire)

Veeva Systems, at Philadelphia Summit, launches new offerings

Tom Paine

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Cloud life sciences vendor Veeva Systems is holding its annual Commercial Summit in Philadelphia this week (May 20-21), as it usually does. Although it is based in Pleasanton, CA, Veeva has its US marketing and customer functions in Radnor, and of course many of its large Pharma clients are located in the area. The Summit, held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, has about 850 attendees this year, according to Veeva.


Veeva had one of the most successful of recent IPOs last October, ending its first day of trading with a share price of $37.16 and a market capitalization of $4.5 billion. Its shares have leveled off from that frothy start to $19.66 (and a $2.5 billion market cap), probably more due to the pounding the SaaS/Cloud sector has taken than any significant changes in its fundementals.

At its summit today, Veeva announced the Veeva Commercial Cloud for life sciences. Commercial Cloud appears to build upon Veeva's principle product platforms, Veeva CRM, Veeva Network, and Veeva Vault, integrating software, interactions, data and content.

Commercial Cloud also adds several new features, including Veeva Align (resource allocation and alignment across customers and territories), Veeva CRM Meetings (for meeting planning and coordination), Veeva CRM Engage (a social communications tool), and Veeva CRM Co-broswe (a screen sharing app).

Also today, Veeva and Horsham-based Symphony Health Solutions announced plans to integrate their data sources on life sciences vendors' customers. Veeva Systems and Symphony Health Solutions are pre-aligning Veeva Network’s customer master and Symphony Health Solutions’ prescriber datasets. Unique identifiers from each company will be embedded in both datasets to provide a seamless, efficient, and accurate match, the companies said in a release.

In building out its "industry cloud", Veeva has partnered with several other healthcare IT firms and data suppliers, including a few from the Philadelphia area.

In Veeva's most recent quarter ended in January, revenue was $62.8 million and net income
was $6.25 million, up from revenue of $39.8 million and net income of $5.7 million a year
ago.

Links 5/20/2014: SAP to acquire SeeWhy; NBC wins prime-time for first time in decade

Tom Paine

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4 years on, OpenStack still can't get in the door (Infoworld)

SAP to Acquire SeeWhy, the Real-Time Behavioral Marketing Company (SeeWhy Blog)

SAP To Acquire SeeWhy For Marketing Push
(Information Week)

SAP and Microsoft: The Frenemies’ Next Partnership is in the Cloud (ASUG News)



Jibe Secures $20 Million to Transform Hiring Market (Business Wire)
Round led by SAP Ventures; this is Jibe, not Jive, which SAP Ventures is also an investor in. (Correction: SAP Ventures was not an investor in Jive.)

Salesforce Rises On Earnings Beat, Improved Outlook (Re/code)


Verizon Absolutely Does Not Want to Buy Dish Network (The Wire)

Apple reportedly will pay ISPs for direct network connections (Ars Technica)

Protest Planned for Comcast Shareholder Meeting (Multichannel News)

NBC Wins Prime-Time TV Ratings for First Time in a Decade (Bloomberg)


Democrats grill FCC chairman on Internet fast lanes and ISP mergers (Ars Technica)

Urban Outfitter shares take a spill (AP via Business Week)
Sales at Urban Outfitter-branded stores dive.

DuckDuckGo Relaunches & Starts To Look Like A Real Search Engine
(Search Engine Land)

Links 5/19/2014: SAP, Microsoft strengthen product ties; Monetate competitor Optimizely raises $57 million

Microsoft, SAP Strengthen Ties With Mobile, Data, Cloud Partnership (TechCrunch)

Connecting Microsoft’s mobile and cloud solutions to the universe of data in SAP software (Official Marketing Blog)

SAP Quietly Closes Its Billion Dollar Acquisition of Fieldglass (Spend Matters)


Rackspace On The Block? (Information Week)

Proposed Time Warner-Comcast merger decision process begins [in New York
State] (New York Post)

In Wi-Fi, Comcast sees an opportunity to kneecap wireless providers (Washington Post)

It’s not a “fast lane” but Comcast built a CDN to charge for video delivery (Ars Technica)

Optimizely raises $57 million for website testing platform (San Francisco Business Times)
Monetate competitor.

AstraZeneca Rejects ‘Final’ Offer by Pfizer (New York Times: DealBook)

AT&T to acquire DirecTV (Coverage Highlights)

AT&T to Acquire DIRECTV (AT&T Press Release)

AT&T to buy DirecTV for $48.5 billion as cellular growth eases
(Reuters)

AT&T to buy DIRECTV (SNL)

AT&T to Buy DirecTV for $48.5 Billion in Move to Expand Clout (New York Times: DealBook)

Consumers and experts weigh in on AT&T-DirecTV deal (LA Times)

DirecTV deal with AT&T includes NFL Sunday Ticket exit clause (LA Times)

AT&T Says It Wants to Sell Web TV, Too (Re/code)

AT&T Pushed by Comcast to Move on DirecTV After Year of Talk (Bloomberg)

Universal Display Corp.'s organic light-emitting diode has been financial boon for Ewing-based company
(Times of Trenton)

Nebraska firm acquires Plymouth Meeting-based Health Advocate for about $265 million

Tom Paine

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Nebraska-based West Corporation announced Friday it had acquired Health Advocate of Plymouth Meeting, a company that uses people and information technology to help client's employees navigate their way through the healthcare process.

West says the purchase price for Health Advocate, which had 2013 revenue of about $86 million, was approximately $265 million. West said Health Advocate has more than 10,000 client relationships, including many of the nation's largest employers.

Health Advocate's president and CEO is cofounder Michael J. Cardillo. The company has more
than 600 employees, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. It was founded in 2001 by a small group of former U.S. Healthcare executives.

Accolade, another company based in Plymouth Meeting which was founded in 2007, offers
similar services and is roughly the same size as Health Advocate.

Philly Tech People News 5/18/2014

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NBCUniversal names new Telemundo president (LA Times)

Michael Willner To Head Comcast-Charter Venture (Multichannel News)

Musical chairs at Cisco, Cablevision, Comcast (FierceCable)

Comcast Taps Cisco Tech Vet (Multichannel News)


Hulu hires Netflix's Jenny Wall as marketing chief (FierceCable)


Infor nabs SAP, Oracle alums to lead sales push (ZDNet)

Bill Green jumps to Dilworth Paxson (Philly.com)


Blackstone Charitable Foundation Names Alisha Chaudry Slye National Director of its Campus Entrepreneurship Program “Blackstone LaunchPad” (Business Wire)

Nationally Ranked PR Agency Gregory FCA Names Joe Anthony New Partner (Business Wire)

Comcast's Cohen: What I clearly said on Wednesday was taken out of context (or is now inoperative)

Tom Paine

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On Wednesday, Comcast EVP David Cohen told a MoffettNathanson Communications Summit in New York that he expected "usage-based billing" - data caps with overage fees - to reach all Comcast customers (which by that time might be virtually all cable customers) within five years. Comcast is currently testing varying limits in several trials around the nation; In 2012 it suspended its 250 GB data cap.

Specifically, Cohen said, "I would predict that in five years Comcast at least would have a usage-based billing model rolled out across its footprint." See transcript (pdf).

The next day Cohen posted this on the Comcast corporate blog, "CLARIFYING DATA CAPS & PRIORITIZATION", saying that "some of my comments have been picked up out of context and misinterpreted in a number of places." While discussing Comcast's ongoing tests, Cohen adds, "to be clear, we have no plans to announce a new data usage policy." But he offered no absolute denial that such a plan might be implemented at some point in the future.

Thoughts From NetSuite’s SuiteWorld: What’s wrong with calling it ERP and CRM? (Mint Jutras)

AT&T, DirecTV Said to Aim to Complete Deal by Monday (Bloomberg)


Comcast-TWC Deal Cast in Shadow by FCC Ruling, Says Hundt (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Links 5/16/2014: Uber said to be seeking round at $10 billion valuation

Uber Said to Be in Funding Talks for More Than $10B Value
(Bloomberg)

Internet Week New York shows how far the city's tech sector has come
(New York Daily News)

SAP to axe 1,500 jobs due to cloud shift (ZDNet)

Amid turmoil, questions loom for SAP at Sapphire (PC World)

Sapphire Now 2014 Aims to Show Off New SAP Structure, Connect Customers
(ASUG News)


Creative Cloud crash casts long shadow over Adobe’s Marketing Cloud pitch (Diginomica)




Rackspace Pops On M&A Signal; AT&T, HP, Cisco Loom (Investor's Business Daily)

Confirmed: Christie supporter given equity stake in company connected to NJ pension cash (PandoDaily)

CEO Spotlight: InterDigital’s Bill Merritt focuses on M2M (RCR Wireless)


First Opinion Raises $1.4M To Update Its Text-A-Doctor App (TechCrunch)
Although First Opinion is based in San Francisco, Dr. Vik Bakhru, a Philadelphia-based physician who also has a MBA from The Wharton School, has built up staffing so users
can get prompt responses.