Simple SAP – the Plattner perspective (Denn Howlett/Diginomica)

The fall of SAY Media is a sign the barbell effect is increasing (Gigaom)


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Links 11/14/2014: At long last, Oracle & SAP settle suit; Online video leaders (including Comcast) form group to set standards



Oracle, SAP settle long-standing TomorrowNow lawsuit (PC World)

Salesforce Lightning Connect marries old apps to new (Computerworld)

Amazon Cloud: 10 New Insights (Information Week)

Net Neutrality Review Could Give Comcast an Out in the Time Warner Cable Deal (New York Times: DealBook)

FCC Asks AT&T for Info About Delayed Fiber Build-Out Because of Net Neutrality (Re/code)

Online video moguls team up to set standards, meet growing demand (TechHive)

Why digital marketing companies have become tasty acquisitions (VentureBeat)
Quotes LiquidHub CEO Jonathan Brassington.


Baystate Health opens shared space in Springfield for health care tech companies
(BetaBoston)
Wayne-based Medecision will be one of the initial tenants.

Pennsylvania filing business liens at accelerated pace thanks to new software (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)


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Edison Partners returns fire at out-of-town critics at IMPACT '14, but tends to find most of its own deals elsewhere



Tom Paine



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In a blog post entitled "Where's the Love for the City of Brotherly Love?", Edison Partners (Lawrenceville, NJ) General Partner Michael Kopelman wrote about how a panel of out-of-town VCs at 2014 IMPACT Capital Conference in Philadelphia late last month "dissed"(my words) the Philadelphia startup scene, paraphrasing their comments as saying "the Philadelphia region doesn’t have enough great companies, nor great entrepreneurs, to justify their 70-minute train ride or flight down from NYC or Boston."

The purpose of having an out-of-town panel(none of whom have closed a deal here) was to give Philly attendees an idea of how outside investors view the startup community here.

Kopelman then recites all the great companies Edison has helped build in Philadelphia over 30 years (true) that have been acquired, including Fiberlink (acquired by IBM), Verilogue (Publicis), Cadient (Cognizant), VirtualEdge (ADP), and Octagon (Accenture).

But Edison has not invested in a Philly metro-based company in quite some time. In fact, going through Edison's own funding announcements and CrunchBase I didn't find a single one going back to 2010, when there were follow-on rounds in some existing portfolio companies (including Health Market Science, which coincidentally announced today it was being acquired. Please let me know if I missed any.) There aren't too many Philly firms remaining in Edison's portfolio other than Neat Company, which I recently profiled. Also, there's Hamilton, NJ-based Billtrust, which took on Bain Capital Ventures as its lead investor two years ago, and Miria Systems of Media, PA. There were a couple of other small investments in central New Jersey.

When Edison raised its $249 million seventh fund in 2012, there were expectations it would deploy some of that capital in Philadelphia-area ventures. I'm not knocking Edison, which has an excellent track record (not believing in an overly provincial approach to VC investing), and I'm sure its people cover the region closely, but in fact most of Edison's recent investments have taken place in New York, Northern NJ, DC, with a few scattered in the midwest and south.


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Links 11/13/2014: Roberts: "Full Steam Ahead" for merger; LexisNexis to acquire Health Market Science






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Comcast says Time Warner deal going 'full steam ahead' (Reuters)

Comcast CEO: "I was embarrassed" by customer service debacle (Fortune Term Sheet)

Comcast won’t join the internet TV crowd, but still looks to test video service (Gigaom)

Comcast Launches ‘Talking Guide’ for Blind and Visually Impaired (Lost Remote)


LexisNexis Announces Intention to Acquire Health Market Science (Businesswire)
Health Market Science, based in King of Prussia, had backing from Edison Partners and Cross Atlantic Capital Partners.

Is OnDeck Capital the Next Generation of Lender or Boiler Room? (Bloomberg/Business Week)
OnDeck investors include First Round Capital and Sapphire Ventures (SAP's venture arm).


Uber Gets OK for Much of Pennsylvania, Not Philly (AP via ABC News)
UberX wins experimental license in PA(but not Philly), but must quit "anarchist ways"


Pennsylvania Pension Said to Offer $2 Billion Fund Stakes (Bloomberg)


Philly's AlphaPoint, a financial tech startup, rides the Bitcoin wave (Keystone Edge)

IMS Health turns to Amazon for hosting its cloud-based applications (GeekWire)


at 8:15 AM 0 comments

Links 11/12/2013: Wil Reynolds joins board of Philly Startup Leaders; Vishay lays out future vision







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LLR backs VersionOne (PE Hub)
Atlanta-based VersionOne has been backed by OpenView Venture Partners.

Obama’s call for an open Internet puts him at odds with regulators (Washington Post)


AT&T is putting its fiber deployment on ice over net neutrality — for now (Washington Post)

Comcast, Time Warner Oversold On Regulatory Worries: Analysts (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)


Vishay Focuses on the Connectivity, Mobility, and Sustainability Markets (Business Wire)

SEER Interactive Founder Wil Reynolds Joins Board of Philly Startup Leaders (Business Wire)

Meet the Mild-Mannered Investment Adviser Who's Humiliating the Administration Over Obamacare (Bloomberg)
Apparently, he's a Philly guy.

Alteva's Q3 UC revenues rise 7% amidst declining legacy voice declines (FierceTelecom)


Amazon Web Services reaches 1M business and government customers, with 40% revenue growth (GeekWire)

'The cloud is the new normal,' Amazon Web Services executive says (PC World)


SAP Seeks Silicon Valley Talent With Old-Fashioned Pitch (Bloomberg)


SmartThings to control Samsung's smart appliances (CNET)



at 8:43 AM 0 comments

Links 11/11/2014: SAP links up with Samsung; Neat cites seamless integration with Intuit QuickBooks Online






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Virtustream Nears $100 Million Revenue, Plans IPO in Year (Bloomberg)
Virtustream is rather closely aligned with SAP in terms of technology and running SAP applications in the Cloud, and SAP's VC arm is a major investor. In fact, I had thought that Virtustream might be a SAP acquisition candidate.

Lew Cirne’s New Relic Files to Go Public (Re/code)

SAP helps business embrace the internet of things (Beta News)

Samsung And SAP Partner On Mobile Devices For Business (TechCrunch)
Samsung's recent acquisition of IoT startup SmartThings one of the keys to partnership.

SAP hopes to help bring IoT to logistics and manufacturing (PC World)


SAP Helps Marketers Use Facebook Customer Data (Information Week)

Exclusive: Apple's enterprise assault gets into higher gear (Reuters)



AWS partners fight to fill gaps in Amazon’s hybrid cloud story (Gigaom)

Amazon Increasingly Duels Microsoft, Google in Cloud (Bloomberg)


Obama sparks fears over Comcast-Time Warner deal (CNBC)



STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT OBAMA'S COMMENTS ON THE OPEN INTERNET AND NETWORK NEUTRALITY (Comcast
Voices/Official Comcast Blog)

Canoe: 10 Billion VOD Ads Served (Multichannel News)

Neat Announces Seamless Integrations with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online (PR Web)


at 8:13 AM 0 comments

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Links 11/10: Obama Backs Title II for Net Neutrality; Lockheed Martin wins $107 million Camden tax break approval from NJ EDA



President Obama Backs Title II for Net Neutrality in Big Win For Activists
(Re/code)


Obama: Regulate broadband Internet like a utility so it 'works for everyone' (CNET)

Republicans Are Only Sometimes the Party of Uber (New York Times)

Uber told the state it wouldn't operate, then did (Philadelphia Inquirer)


Uber’s Next Billion-Dollar Financing Could Be A Convertible Debt Round (TechCrunch)


HEC vs HCP vs sERP – SAP’s cloud strategy all kinda works out (Diginomica)

SAP bags Microsoft cloud leader as its chief technology officer
 (Computerworld UK)

Comcast Working On Next-Gen X1 Gateway (Multichannel News)

Maurice Lévy Dropped $3.7 Billion on Sapient. Now What? (Ad Week)

Lockheed Martin wins tax break approval (Courier-Post)
So NJ is paying to keep jobs Lockheed says they would eliminate otherwise?

FolioDynamix Acquired by Actua Coporation
Edison Partners Exits Next-Generation Wealth Management Platform, Delivers 6X+ Return (PR Web)

[Safeguard Scientifics -backed] MediaMath puts funding round to work, acquires Rare Crowds (NY Business Journal: Tech Flash)

Online lender On Deck Capital files for IPO (Reuters)
First Round Capital and SAP are investors.


at 7:53 AM 0 comments

Philly Tech News Quotes & Tweets of the Week: Who needs CNN?; Verizon (through FiOS) destroying its own capital?











"So what happened? While we were deploying an upgrade to the X1 platform, we discovered an issue in the way the software that updates X1 was configured. We immediately stopped the deployment, and our engineers began working to identify the root cause and fix the issue," Comcast said.
-Comcast, apologizing for last week's nationwide X1 outages.



"[Consultancies] are entering our territory with some offerings which are respectable," said Mr. Levy. "We are competing and sometimes we are also collaborating." He referred to an example in which Publicis' DigitasLBi pitched for business against Accenture, and then shared another "funny case" in which Accenture is helping Publicis implement an SAP product. "There are a lot of areas where the lines are blurred. We don't know -- is it a supplier, client or competitor?"
-Publicis CEO Maurice Levy, during media call discussing Publicis' deal to acquire Sapient.

“You can’t build a company for 60 days; build for 60 years.”
-SAP CEO Bill McDermott, speaking on SAP’s recent performance to Technically Philly’s Christopher Wink during IMPACT '14 Conference in Philadelphia.


Tweet by early Half.com associate Chris Fralic, now a partner with First Round Capital.


at 5:10 PM 0 comments

Phiily Tech People News 11/9/2014: Neat, Rosetta name new CEOs; SAP grabs new CTO from Microsoft







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The Neat Company Names Jeff Dickerson Chief Executive Officer (PR Newswire)


Rosetta Names Eric Healy CEO (MediaPost)
Joined Rosetta from Sapient, which just agreed to be acquired by Rosetta parent Publicis, a few months ago. Rosetta is based in Hamilton, NJ.

Philly.com Hires Next City Editor
Diana Lind will be director of digital audience development. (Philadelphia Magazine)
Headline confused me a bit; thought Philly.com might be hiring its next city editor.

NBC Owned Stations Names Sarah Glover Head of Social Media (MediaBistro)
Comes from WCAU.

People moves: DreamIt Ventures CEO Kerry Rupp to step down and focus on fund
(Med City News)

BenefitVault Co-Founder Eric Raymond Stepping Down as Chairman and CEO; Cary W. Toner CLU, ChFC Named as Replacement (Press Release)

Cloudamize Adds to Executive Team With Experienced Leaders from Hewlett Packard and Amazon Web Services (PR Web)


SAP Hires Former Microsoft VP To Be Its New CTO (Redmond Channel Partner)

Comcast Hires Garcia To Multicultural Services Post
Last Served As GM Of Yahoo’s U.S. Hispanic Business (Multichannel News)

QVC host Lisa Robertson rocks shoppers by announcing she's quitting (USA Today)

QVC Promotes Ken O'Brien to Senior Vice President, Merchandising (MarketWatch)






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New York PSC to vote on Comcast merger Thursday (Albany Times-Union)

The future of SAP Business Applications (John Appleby/SAP Community Network)

Why Retailers Should Stop Selling Loyalty ( Andy O’Dell, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Clutch/SAP Blogs)


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New Uber Funding Round Could Value the Company at $25 Billion (Re/code)

SAP acquisition of Concur expected to close on Dec. 4 (GeekWire)


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