Links 8/27/2014: Comcast dominates Boston sidwalks; NewSpring leads round in Mobiquity

Comcast’s Attempted Monopoly of Boston’s Sidewalks (Boston.com)

Time Warner Cable Internet outages across the country (AP via CBS News)

Benioff’s Salesforce.com Makes Community Cloud Push (Re/code)

Salesforce.com CRM upgrade puts heavy emphasis on mobile (PC World)


Despite a loss, Workday beats Q2 expectations with strong outlook
(ZDNet)

VMware extends virtual workspaces to mobile devices (PC World)
SAP a key partner.

Square aims to raise $200M at $6B valuation (Silicon Valley Business Journal)

Wellesley mobile tech firm Mobiquity adds $5M in funding (Boston Business Journal)
Radnor-based NewSpring Capital led the round. Mobiquity has an office in Philadelpia.

Amazon Opens Up Its Enterprise Cloud Storage Service Zocalo To All (TechCrunch)

Amazon’s next move in the cloud wars might be in Ohio (VentureBeat)

Links 8/26/2014: Comcast predicts merger completion in early 2015, as final comments are due to FCC

Comcast Predicts Time Warner Cable Deal Completion in Early 2015 (Bloomberg)

Netflix Petitions FCC to Block Comcast Time Warner Cable Merger (Wired)

DISH petitions FCC to deny Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger (CNBC)


Comcast allegedly trying to block CenturyLink from entering its territory (Ars Technica)



Canadian cable giants launch a Netflix rival (Engadget)

Nordstrom Wants You to Shop on Instagram (Business Week)
With Curalate's help.

Comcast relaunches local content app EveryBlock Philly (Telecompaper)


Synchronoss Cashes In On The Cloud And Mobile (Investor's Business Daily)
Synchronoss is based in Bridegwater, NJ, with engineering offices in Bethlehem.


Why PACER removed access to case archives of five courts (Washington Post)

Links 8/25/2014: SAP's simplicity drive not so simple; New York State's concerns with Comcast/TWC merger

NYPSC Has Concentration Concerns With Comcast/TWC (Multichannel News)

Here’s How Amazon Might Take Over Brick-and-Mortar Retail (Re/code)

SAP's Simplicity Push Is Not So Simple (CIO)

AT&T agrees to conditions with feds in $48.5B DirecTV purchase (NY Post)

DirecTV Reportedly Close to NFL Sunday Ticket Extension (Hollywood Reporter)

HubSpot Files for $100M IPO (Bostinno)

How Google’s ‘Fiberhood’ Strategy Is Spreading
(Wall Street Journal: Digits)
Although its not widely known, Comcast is offering 505 meg FTTH service in selected residential neighborhoods.

Bearing Down on Data Upstarts
New York Times

Philly Tech People New 8/24/2014

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Michael Reh, Sanjay Rajagopalan of Vishal Sikka's core team in SAP quit (Times of India)

Software AG hires SAP executive Eric Duffaut as chief customer officer (InfotechLead.com)


Workday Appoints President of Education and Government Business (Msrketwire)

2014 #PhillyGeekAwards winners [updated with photos] (Newsworks)

SAP takes steps to simplify pricing and licensing (PC World)

Nutter, 50 other mayors support Comcast purchase plan (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Regulators Want Comcast to Cough Up Lots More Data About Its Internet Policies (Re/code)



Salesforce.com breaks the $5bn run rate as Benioff builds a five legged stool (Diginomica)

Links 8/21/2014: Comcast pursues college market thru OTTP; Salesforce forecast for year tops estimates

Comcast pursues college market with TV via computer (USA Today)

AT&T brings gigabit broadband to Silicon Valley, challenging Google Fiber's own plans (PC World)

Comcast Rises In U.S. Ethernet Rankings (Multichannel News)

Salesforce Forecasts Full-Year Revenue Topping Estimates (Bloomberg)


Monetate Launches Testing & Targeting Marketing Platform (EWeek)

Transactis Raises $11 Million Series D Financing Led by Safeguard Scientifics; Ranks #420 on 2014 Inc. 500|5000 (Marketwatch)



The Information: PayPal Spinoff Not Dead at EBay (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Salesforce.com Still Benefiting From ExactTarget Deal (Investor's Business Daily)

Cerner Takes Medical IT Drive Global With Siemens Buy (Investor's Business Daily)

Level 3 Opens Northern Virginia Data Center (Data Center Knowledge)

Delaware native, Obama vet Plouffe named Uber's "campaign manager"

Tom Paine

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Uber yesterday announced it had hired what it referred to in a blog post as the "leader of Uber's campaign", former Obama aid and campaign manager David Plouffe.

David Plouffe / Wikipedia

Plouffe, 47, was born in Wilmington, and attended St. Marks High School and the University of Delaware. He left the University prior to graduation in 1989 to begin his full time political career, but later completed his degree there in 2010.

Plouffe's actual title will be senior vice president of policy and strategy. The move reflects Uber's intent to mount a massive campaign to take on the regulatory agencies of the world who often defend traditional taxi businesses. Plouffe said he planned to run Uber’s communications efforts much like a political race. Traces of that have already been evident, with a heavy emphasis on social media as was used in the Obama campaigns.

Just got press release from @uber w/ testimonials from politicians about @davidplouffe. Uber's not a company. It's one big campaign.
— Jessica Lessin (@Jessicalessin) August 20, 2014

Plouffe's role might be compared to that of David Cohen of Comcast, although Cohen is also
an attorney in addition to having considerable political experience.

Uber, which was recently funded at an $18 billion valuation, received an early seed round
led by First Round Capital. Its cofounder and chairman, Garret Camp, had worked with
Josh Kopelman as founder of StumbleUpon, in which First Round Capital was (and is) an investor.

Links 8/20/2014: Dodgers TV deal issue in Comcast-Time Warner deal; Uber opens up API

Dodgers TV Row Fuels Unease Over Comcast-Time Warner Deal (Bloomberg)

Employee metrics show how Comcast pushes customer service reps to make sales (The Verge)

Netflix CEO: ‘Don’t Give In To Big ISPs’ (Multichannel News)



Uber Opens API in Bid to Be Everywhere (Re/code)


Menlo, Benioff And More Pour $35M Into Flash Virtualization Startup PernixData (TechCrunch)


Fanatics, the Online Sports Retailer, Gets Executive-Level Overhaul
(Re/code)
Fanatics, based in Jacksonville, is majority owned by Michael Rubin's Kynetic LLC.

R programming language gaining ground on traditional statistics packages (PC World)

Philadelphia medical-device company cuts its workforce by 35%
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

Links 8/19/2014: WebLinc raises $6m from Safeguard Scientifics; Cohen implies Netflix, Dish should not be permissable buys for Comcast

WebLinc Raises $6M Series A From Safeguard Scientifics To Expand Its Fast-Growing eCommerce Platform (TechCrunch)
After 20 years of bootstrapping, WebLinc accepts institutional funding.

Weblinc/Safeguard Scientifics press release

B2B and B2C platform provider WebLinc raises new funding (Internet Retailer)


Clinical trials tech firm Clinverse closes on $9.1M (WRAL TechWire)
Edison Partners led the round with $5 million. Clinverse, based in Durham, competes with
Philadelphia area companies Greenphire and CFS Clinical (Drug Development Corp) in the clinical trial payments management market.

OpenView Venture Partners raising $250 million (Fortune Term Sheet)
Boston VC firm backed Philly ventures Monetate, NextDocs and Xtium.



#TPIAspen, day 2: Comcast's Cohen on what counts as 'too big' — Apple, Uber, others newly sync up with TechNet — Latest on net governance (Politico: Morning Tech)
Cohen: DISH, Netflix deals would cause "horizontal" issues for Comcast; Note for future reference.

Fandango finalizes a truce with the FTC after exposing your movie ticket data (Engadget)
Comcast unit apparently lacked adequate security for mobile movie ticketing.

SAP plans big investment to boost its business in Africa (PC World)

SAP Signs with Bayern Munich in Big Data Soccer Deal (WSJ: CIO Journal)

PayPal Introduces One-Touch Mobile Payments, Thanks to Braintree and Venmo (Re/code)