Philly partners with Salesforce to hold 'Innovation Summit' this Wednesday (the 18th)


Tom Paine



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On Wednesday (the 18th), the City of Philadelphia will hold its first Innovation Summit, in partnership with Salesforce, to explore the future use of technology to enhance customer service and citizen engagement. Mayor Nutter will host the event, which will run from 8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at the Pennsylvania Convention
Center.

Vivek Kundra, Executive Vice President, Salesforce Industries, Public Sector, and formerly the first CIO of the United States, will be among the speakers.

Among the subjects to be covered is Philadelphia's recently upgraded 311 system, which delivers services across social media, mobile devices, on the web, in the cloud and via phone call or in person visit to the service center. Salesforce designed the platform that operates the upgraded 311 system.

The event is free. Registration is here.

Update 2/20: Post-event reports from Government Technology and Information Week.


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Links 2/16: Infosys Acquires SaaS Provider Panaya; SAP's Plattner speaks out in blog post



Infosys Acquires SaaS Provider Panaya In Deal Valued At $200M (TechCrunch)

Freedom of Speech or the Facts of an Announcement (Hasso Plattner/SAP HANA Blog)


Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts (Enterprise Software Musings by Holger Mueller)

A rare interview with Salesforce cofounder Parker Harris (Business Insider)

Urban Outfitters Announces New State-of-the-Art Fulfillment Center (Marketwatch)

A Third Center City Skyscraper Not Currently on Planning Horizon, Says Comcast Corp. (CBS Philly)

AT&T's gigabit internet service arrives in Google Fiber's original city (Engadget)



Frontline Technologies, Creator of Aesop, Acquires CRS Advanced Technology, Creator of SubFinder (PR Web)

Oracle’s Challenge in Bloom: MarkLogic Redefines the Database
(Barrons Tech Trader Daily)

David Plouffe, Obamaworld and Uber: Yes They Can? (Ryan Ray/ SaintPetersBlog)


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Philly Tech People News 2/15/2015








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Ed Sabol, Who Elevated Football Founding NFL Films, Dies at 98 (New York Times)

AWeber Names New Vice President of Engineering (Business Wire)

Unisys Appoints Venkatapathi "PV" Puvvada to Lead Federal Systems Business (PR Newswire)

SHI Promotes Craig Calle to Help Spearhead New Growth Opportunities (Business Wire)

Everyday Health Names Michael du Toit as President (PR Newswire)

Trice Medical Appoints Craig Carra as Chief Financial Officer (Globe Newswire)

Cozen O’Connor Welcomes Ellen Grady as Member (Cozen O’Connor)


Deloitte's first female CEO: 'Don't stand still' (Fortune)
A Lehigh graduate.


Jive Software Names Elisa Steele Permanent CEO (Re/code)

Dropbox Replaces Insider CFO With Former Motorola Executive (Re/code)

Winiarski Joins NBCU as EVP in Ad Sales (Multichannel News)


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Labels:



Comcast to ‘mobilize’ triple-play business (The Donahue Report)

James L. Dolan, a Consummate 1 Percenter
(New York Times)


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How SAP's American CEO Runs a German Company (Video/ Wall Street Journal)






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Saturday Highlights: California ALJ recommends Comcast/TWC approval; Gartner on why private clouds fail



Emergence Capital raises new, $335M fund for cloud, enterprise mobile, & collaboration investments (VentureBeat)
Investments have included Salesforce.com, Veeva Systems, Box, SuccessFactors, and Yammer.

California ALJ Recommends Comcast/TWC Approval (Multichannel News)

Heartland Acquires Dinerware & pcAmerica (Vertical Systems Reseller)

Problems Encountered by 95% of Private Clouds (Tom Bittman/Gartner Blogs)

Informatica seeks advisers to revive sale process - sources (Reuters)


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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Marketing to Doctors (HBO)





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Links 2/13: Heartland Payment & Qlik acquisitions; PBJ - Is Comcast assembling parcels for third tower?



Heartland strengthens its position in the hospitality and retail POS markets through the acquisition of Point-of-Sale companies Dinerware and pcAmerica (Business Wire)
Stops POS development at Leaf, takes write down.

Qlik Bolsters Advanced Reporting Capabilities with Acquisition of NPrinting (Business Wire)


Exclusive: Third Comcast skyscraper possibly in the works as Center City block bought piece-by-piece (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Curious: How much organic (non-acquisition) growth does Comcast expect and why do they need so many headcount at HQ?

Powell: NCTA Highly Likely To Sue FCC Over Title II (Multichannel News)

FCC's Pai: Net-neutrality proposal is secret Internet regulation plan (LA Times)

Verizon Can't Upgrade Baltimore Because Parts Are 'Hard to Find' (Broadband Reports)



IBM cloud chief: ‘We’re in a marathon’
(VentureBeat)

Book a hotel room on Instagram (USA Today)
With Curalate's assistance.

Ben Franklin approves investment of $1.9 million in 11 companies (Ben Franklin Technology Partners)

Burning questions following SAP S/4HANA announcement (Brian Sommer/Diginomica)


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Links 2/12: Jet.com gets $590 million valuation before selling anything; LinkedIn cracks down further on API access



Jet.com secures a $600M valuation — before it’s even launched a site (VentureBeat)
Founded by the Wharton grad who founded Quidsi (Diapers.com), which was bought by Amazon. Penn-related MentorTech Ventures has a (small) stake in Jet.com, as it did in Quidsi.

Amazon challenger Jet is worth $590 million... sort of (Fortune)

Billionaire John Malone buys big stake in Lionsgate; Starz may benefit (LA Times)

Gulfstream a Memory, Apotheker Hauls His Bag to Tech Startups (Bloomberg)

hybris takes charge of front-facing SAP assets – launches marketing tool to fill gaps (Diginomica)

Marketo, Sprinklr Partner with Hybris on Marketing Solution (CRM Magazine)


Dropbox Replaces Insider CFO With Former Motorola Executive (Re/code)
Dropbox' new CFO was CFO at Adelphia, the Pennsylvania-based cable company, after it imploded due to an accounting scandal. Comcast later picked up part of it.

LinkedIn takes aim at developers with plans to lock down most of its APIs (The Next Web)


To save on IT outsourcing, Minneapolis takes over help desk
(Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
Dumping Unisys.

Make Enterprise Software People Actually Love
(Harvard Business Review)


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Swiss firm acquires Malvern's Akcelerant for $50 million plus potential earnout

Tom Paine



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Swiss financial software firm Temenos Group AG has acquired Malvern-based financial software provider Akcelerant. The price is $50 million plus a $5 million potential earnout.

Akcelerant's website carries the tag line "not just for collections any more," reflecting its roots. It says it now has a full set of modules covering the entire financial services customer relationship management function. Its primary market is the credit union space.
Jay Mossman / LinkedIn 

Jay Mossman, who founded Akcelerant in 2000, is a veteran Philadelphia area entrepreneur, having run another financial services software firm, Premier Solutions (sold to SunGard), earlier in the 90s. His earlier experience was mostly in technology with financial services companies.

Akcelerent has 130 employees and is expected to achieve revenue of $15 million this year, and be at breakeven, Temenos says.

Temenos said in a statement that "the acquisition is key to Temenos’ North America growth strategy, especially within the US. It follows the 2013 acquisition of Trinovus, a software-as-a-service technology provider, and creation of the Temenos USA division. The purchase of Akcelerant will also give Temenos additional scale and presence in the region and enable it to offer a broader portfolio of products to new and existing customers."

Mossman and his current management team will remain in place.


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Links 2/11/15: Decline and fall of NBC News?; Conshy's Gladstone Analytics gets partner, investment







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Skies darken over Comcast merger (The Hill)

The decline and fall of NBC News(Politico)

Tech Dealmakers See Media Content, Chips Driving M&A (Bloomberg)

The Daily Startup: AppDirect Raises $50M to Distribute Cloud-Based Software (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital
Dispatch)



Aequitas Capital Partners with [Conshohocken-based] Gladstone Analytics (PR Newswire)
Aequitas Capital says it "has made an investment in and established a partnership" with Gladstone Analytics.

Cerner closes 2014 with big revenue, earnings gains (Modern Healthcare)

Fieldglass Achieves Significant Growth In 2014, Accelerates Strategic Initiatives (PR Newswire)
Fieldglass was acquired by SAP last year.

S/4 HANA: It’s not R/3, and it’s not 1992 either (part II) (Joshua Greenbaum/EA Consult)

Salesforce.com's Revamped Partner Program: New Tier Calculations, Training, Annual Fee (CRN)

IBM sues Priceline over patents, because Prodigy was cool (Ars Technica)

New Set-Tops for Comcast, Charter (Light Reading)

Comcast revamps Xfinity stores to improve customer experience (Philadelphia Inquirer)


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