Uber pressures regulators by mobilizing riders and hiring vast lobbying network (Washington Post)

PetSmart to Sell Itself to Investor Group for $8.7 Billion (New York Times: DealBook)
PetSmart's deal in August to acquire Plymouth Meeting-based Pet360 for $130 million plus a potential $30 million earnout was apparently for cash - at least the upfront portion - so former Pet360 equity holders don't seem to gain much by the premium paid for PetSmart.

Philly Tech People News 12/14/2014: First Round's Morgan will head advisory board to NY State venture fund; Sparta Systems' Martinson named NJBIZ Exec of the Year

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First Round Capital partner Howard Morgan will head up a voluntary advisory board for newly established $50 million venture fund for the State of New York.

Human Resources Executive Online reports that Rudy Karsan, who sold Kenexa to IBM for $1.3 billion in 2012, left IBM this summer, and is now running his own firm, Karlani Capital, which is based in Philadelphia. Philly Tech News added a few more details.


Sparta Systems' CEO, Eileen Martinson, Named NJBIZ Executive of the Year (PR Newswire)


Michael Gausling of Originate Ventures
(Keystone Edge)

Famed sports agent Leigh Steinberg partners with Philadelphia entrepreneur (Philadelphia Business Journal)


Anaplan hires SAP veteran as EVP operations (Business Cloud News)

Former SAP COO Mike Morini Joins KidoZen (The VAR Guy)

Renowned Population Health Experts Make Up Advisory Board for Intel-GE Care Innovations™ Validation Institute (Care Innovations)
Advisory Board will be chaired by David B. Nash, MD, MBA, founding dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health (JSPH) and professor of Health Policy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.


InterDigital Principal Engineer Named IEEE Fellow (Globe Newswire)

PA SERS Board Unanimously Selects New Chief Investment Officer; Reports Investment Performance (PA SERS Press Release/pdf)


Janney Montgomery Scott Names Cliff Booth and Joe Culley as Co-Heads of Investment Banking (Business Wire)

Enradius Digital Marketing Launches Philadelphia Office (PR Newswire)

Jodi Robinson Joins Charter (Multichannel News)

Foundation poured for new Comcast tower

Around 2am this morning (or last night, depending on your perspective), the foundation for the new Comcast tower started being poured, according to Comcast-owned NBC 10. Sixteen million pounds of cement were used, delivered in 400 truckloads of concrete.

NBC 10 has photos.

See the video from NBC 10:

Saturday Highlights 12/13/2014: Comcast to pay $50 million to settle Philly-area class-action suit

Comcast to pay $50 million in class-action suit (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Exploring the Inc. 5000 List with Qlik
(import.io blog)

INC. 5000 Meet the 10 Companies Proving Why It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Inc.)

'Pretargeting' Can't Work on Inferences Alone (Ari Jacoby/Ad Age)
Ari Jacoby is CEO of New York and Philadelphia-based Solve Media.

Wholesale providers add more dark fiber to their service diet (FierceTelecom)

Links 12/12/2014: NY State launches $50 million venture fund; Comcast expands hyperlocal EveryBlock service

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CenturyLink bulks up its cloud, buys Cognilytics (ZDNet)
Cognilytics does SAP Hana implementations.

CenturyLink expands high-speed gigabit Internet in Seattle to 20K homes (Geekwire)
CenturyLink advancing on two different fronts.


East Beats West In IT Rivalry, Investors Say (CRN)


Comcast Expands Reach Of Hyper-Local Info Service (Multichannel News)

New Relic’s IPO Spikes 31% In Initial Trading (TechCrunch)

Chinese Tech Giant Baidu to Invest $600 Million in Uber, Says Report (Wired)


The 30 Most Successful UPenn Alumni Of All Time (Business Insider)
Interesting list, although I'm not sure I agree with some selections. One who I didn't realize went to Wharton was John Sculley.

New York State Will Start $50 Million Venture-Capital Fund (Bloomberg)
First Round Capital's Howard Morgan will lead a voluntary advisory committee, and the fund will be managed by Brian Keil, a former managing director of a $250 million venture-capital fund sponsored by NBC Universal and General Electric Capital Corp (before Comcast acquired NBCU).

N.J.'s $118 million canceled social service contract did not protect state's interests, auditor says (NJ.com)

Princeton Scientists 3D Printing LEDs Into Contact Lenses (Medgadget)

Marin County Board OKs $14 Million for Civic Center Computer Program (TechWire)
Replaces scrapped SAP implementation.

Links 12/11/2014: Ben Franklin Approves $1.6M for Nine Early-Stage Companies

Ben Franklin Approves $1.6M for Nine Early-Stage Companies (Ben Franklin Technology Partners SEP)

eBay planning to cut 10 percent of workforce ahead of PayPal split (TechSpot)

New Cable Subs Gravitating To Broadband-Only Service (Multichannel News)

Casey, Toomey urge approval of Comcast-Time Warner merger (Philadelphia Inquirer)

No vote yet on Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger (Albany Times-Union)
No action yet by New York Public Service Commission.


Michael Wolff on NBC News' Ratings Woes: Too Many Execs, No Real Power (Hollywood Reporter)

FCC on Verge of Giving Online Video Providers a Key Ruling (Hollywood Reporter)


COMCAST ADMITS TO CUSTOMER BILLING MISTAKES (6ABC.com)


LendingClub was forged by the financial crisis (Fortune)

HHS will push broader reach for information technology (Modern Healthcare)

Fact check: Microsoft exec says Amazon is just half a competitor in the ‘hyper-scale’ cloud (Geekwire)

Salesforce introduces custom AppExchange storefronts (Computerworld)


Book Reviews: SAP Nation and Stacking the Deck (ZDNet)

2014 Year in Review: SAP’s Cloud Strategy (ASUG News)

IBC joint venture Tandigm Health selects technology vendor (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Links 12/10/2014: Charter's Rutledge: OTT is ‘Playing With Fire’; First IBM-Apple niche apps released

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Virginia-based Canvas raises $9M for enterprise mobile app platform (VentureBeat)
Return investor Osage Venture Partners participated in the round.

Marketing tech: $6.2 billion in funding and acquisitions in last 3 months (VentureBeat)


News Analysis: Inside the First Industry-Specific Mobile Apps by the IBM MobileFirst for Apple iOS Partnership ( R "Ray" Wang / Enterprise Irregulars)

IBM Apps For Apple iOS: Not Siri Meets Watson (Information Week)

2014 Year in Review: Evaluating SAP
(ASUG News)


SAP Jam is Now iOS App Ready
(Mobile Enterprise)


Engineers on the rise (Philly.com)
Check out the way Philly.com's new website design is used in this story.

Comcast on home Wi-Fi lawsuit: Customers get “real benefits” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Rutledge: OTT is ‘Playing With Fire’ (Multichannel News)

Exclusive: WeWork finalizing massive new funding round (Fortune)
Can't find any plans for Philadelphia now.

Lending Club Prices I.P.O. at $15 a Share, Surpassing Expectations (New York Times: DealBook)

Meet Xtium’s new Chief Executive Office
(Xtium Blog)

The Effect Of HubSpot’s CRM Launch On Salesforce (TechCrunch)

Where in the world is Kenexa founder Rudy Karsan? In Philadelphia, investing in startups

Tom Paine

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Rudy Karsan / Twitter profile

Human Resources Executive Online reports that Kenexa founder Rudy Karsan, who sold Wayne-based Kenexa, the Human Resources SaaS business he built, to IBM for $1.3 billion in 2012, left IBM at the end of August after serving as GM of IBM's Smarter Workforce group. Apparently IBM wasn't interested in pursuing some of his more far-reaching ideas.

Karsan has started a new venture, Karlani Capital, woking out of downtown Philadelphia. It is described as more of an operating company than a VC firm, although it is investing mostly in early-stage ventures. There are already 13 portfolio companies. Only one, Relay Network, is in the Philly area. Another, FanDuel, based in New York, is a fantasy sports site that has already reached a valuation near $200 million.


Interestingly, the article reports that Karsan has also moved from his suburban mansion to a condo near his downtown office.

Links 12/9/2014: Oracle wants you to try its cloud; Comcast sued for turning home Wi-Fi routers into public hotspots

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Reveal more, negotiate lower fees, Pennsylvania Auditor General tells pensions (PE Hub)

Comcast sued for turning home Wi-Fi routers into public hotspots (San Francisco Chronicle)

Time Warner Cable CEO Targets TV Sub Growth in 2015, Talks Comcast Deal (Hollywood Reporter)

Cheaper viewing packages to charm 'cord-cutters' (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Rutledge: OTT is ‘Playing With Fire’ (Multichannel News)

Exclusive: HBO to outsource streaming technology in blow to 'backstabbing' CTO (Fortune)
Outsourcing to MLB Advanced Media, which I believe is an Amazon Web Services user (as it Netflix).


Why LinkedIn Should Pay Attention to Salesforce’s Most Important Acquisition to Date (Sandhill)

Oracle humbly suggests that you try its cloud (Gigaom)
Effort led by former SAP exec Shawn Price.

SAP’s Concur Says It Continued to Invest in Travel Tech Startups (Skift)


Tech’s Lost Chapter: An Oral History of Boston’s Rise and Fall, Part One (Re/code)

Bergdorf Goodman enhances customer service with cell phone chargers (Luxury Daily)
Provided by Philly startup ChargeItSpot, which just finished raising a round of $3.2 million, as reported by Technical.ly Philly.

Links 12/8/2014: Did you know Lincoln Financial owned radio stations? (now they won't); Comcast revives @Home name in a way

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SAP Readies a Big Business Marketplace (New York Times: Bits)

SAP CEO sees company staying independent in long term -paper (Reuters)

EnosiX Raises $4.25 Million to ‘Mobilize’ Data From SAP Software

‘Things’ Are Heating Up: What’s New in the Internet of Things (Knowledge@Wharton)

Senate Bill Exempts Low-Risk Medical Software, Apps from Regulation (Health Data Management)

In Wake of Delhi Ban and Rape Allegations, Uber to Make Changes Abroad (Wired)


Entercom to Acquire Lincoln Financial Media for $105 Million (Radio World)
Had forgotten Lincoln Financial was in the radio business. Think it picked it up as part of some other financial transaction. Entercom is based in Bala Cynwyd. (As I thought, it came along from the acquisition of Jefferson-Pilot in 2006.)

A token farewell: SEPTA, Philly transit embraces tech, paying by phone (AP via Lansdale Reporter)

Meet the Inventor: Comcast chief software architect Sree Kotay (Steve Donohue/The Donohue Report)

Comcast Business Reinvents Telework with New Ethernet @Home Service (Business Wire)
Interesting choice of name. Comcast's original internet service carried the @Home name, until the JV of the same name (later Excite @Home) it operated under went bust around 2000 and Comcast operated its own service.

Qlik Takes On Tableau In Data Visualization (Information Week)
Qlik is headquartered in Radnor.

Gartner, IDC: Hyperscale Data Centers Drive Server Sales (Data Center Knowledge)

Microsoft and Accenture partner to build new hybrid cloud system (TechFlash)


Why CenturyLink just bought disaster-recovery company DataGardens (VentureBeat)

Philly Tech People News 12/6/2014: Concur president Raj Singh on going from $8 million to $8 billion through a ‘series of pivots’

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Concur president Raj Singh on going from $8 million to $8 billion through a ‘series of pivots’ (GeekWire)

Evan Shapiro Joins NBCUniversal as Exec VP of Digital Enterprises (Variety)

Kony appoints former SAP cloud, mobile head to lead ME, APAC (Business Cloud News)

Pfizer exec leaving to run Bucks County CRO BioClinica (Philadelphia Business Journal)

BizTech’s Applications Practice Director named Oracle ACE
(BizTech)

RAM Technologies, Inc. Adds New Director of Implementation Services to Support Record Growth (PR Web)

Philip Faris Joins Citadel as Vice President, Digital Delivery (Citadel Banking Blog)