Saturday Highlights: Google intros insurance shopping site; Comcast has objections to California's merger conditions

Google Introduces Long-Anticipated Insurance Shopping Site (NY Times: Bits)

Like Uber for Wireless… (Kevin Werbach via Medium)
Wharton prof gives his view of what Google may be up to in Wireless.

Public cloud providers’ end game shouldn’t surprise anyone (Gigaom)


Comcast has tons of objections to California’s “approval” of TWC merger (Ars Technica)

SAP S/4HANA FAQ: Pricing and Licensing Implications (ASUG News)


The University of Pennsylvania’s Weiss Tech House Announces PennVention Semifinalists (Weiss Tech House)

Links 3/6: SAP to cut more than 2,000 jobs, but to hire about the same; NBC News brings back Lack as chief

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SAP to Reduce More Than 2,000 Jobs in McDermott’s Second Cut (Bloomberg)

Violin Memory's strings snap as losses DOUBLE from last quarter (The Register)

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Gets Predictive (Information Week)

Andrew Lack takes command of NBC's troubled news operation (LA Times)

NBC Makes It Official, Hiring Andy Lack As News Chief (Wall Street Journal: CMO Today)


Sling TV’s Web-TV Service Attracts at Least 100,000 Sign-Ups in Its First Month (Re/code)

Google Fiber incites SMB battle against CenturyLink, Comcast in Provo, Utah (FierceTelecom)

Google Fiber hikes rates for TV subscriptions for new customers (Kansas City Star)

Ad Tech's Rough Ride on Wall Street Continues With Latest IPO (Ad Age)

Links 3/5/2015: SunEdison buys Philadelphia-based Solar Grid Storage; Campbell's uses vending machines to quiz employees (in a good way)

Netflix: We Support Title II (Multichannel News)
Walks back CFO's comments.

Comcast Says Wi-Fi Not Ready For Prime Time (Investor's Business Daily)

Angelakis: Comcast Not Worried About OTT (Multichannel News)

Campbell’s quizzes its own employees with the ‘Snackbot’ (Digiday)


Safeguard Scientifics Announces Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2014 Financial Results (Safeguard Scientifics)

Safeguard CEO Zarrilli: “As we embark on 2015, we remain focused and disciplined. We have set out the following goals and objectives: to increase the total number of our partner companies to approximately 30; to realize continued growth in partner company aggregate revenue; to deploy $35 million to $50 million in new partner companies; to deploy $30 million to $50 million in follow-on funding for current partner companies; and to realize a minimum of two profitable exits.”

SunEdison Buys Philadelphia-based Solar Grid Storage for Battery-Backed PV and Wind Power (Greentech Media)

This Venture Capitalist Says We Have Entered a Tech Bubble (Bloomberg)

Heroku Enterprise launches, bringing Salesforce's app platform to the business (Computerworld)

Drexel to phase out Sacramento operations (Philadelphia Business Journal)

ExpenseWatch Debuts as a High Performer in G2 Crowd’s Expense Management Tools Grid Report (PR Web)

Veeva shares dive 21% today after strong earnings report

Tom Paine

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Despite beating earnings estimates for its Q4 FY 2015, Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), based in California, but having considerable operations in Radnor, plunged 21% in trading today.

For the Fiscal Year 2015 ending January 31, the SaaS life sciences firm reported yesterday afternoon that its earnings rose 68% to 37 cents a share, with revenue up 49% to $313 million.

Guidance for FY 2016, however, just meet expectations, which may have spooked some investors, who might have been expecting more. Revenue was guided at $390 million-$395 million, with EPS of 43 to 45 cents.

Veeva also announced it had acquired Qforma CrowdLink, a key opinion leader (KOL) information source for the pharma industry. Terms weren't disclosed. Although Qforma had an ownership structure I haven't quite figured out yet, with connections in Europe, its headquarters appear to be located in Morris Plains, New Jersey.

CEO Peter Gassner said that Veeva's more recently introduced offerings, content management system Vault and database service Network, are growing rapidly and are now contributing about 20% of revenue, up from 10% a year ago. Analysts have been watching to see how successful Veeva would be in growing beyond its core CRM business.

High-growth companies such as Veeva are often subject to rapid price swings due to slight variations in perceived outlook.

Links 3/4: Alibaba enters US cloud market; NBC Universal Plots Subscription Video Site for Comedy

Alibaba enters US cloud market, signaling global ambitions (PCWorld)

CIA’s secret Amazon cloud ready to roll (Gigaom)

Funds Think Warby Parker Is Worth $1 Billion (Bloomberg)


NBC News Is Said to Woo Former Chief to Return (NY Times)

Despite Weak Moment for NBC Sitcoms, NBC Universal Plots Subscription Video Site for Comedy (Ad Age)

Charter 'likely' to pursue Time Warner if Comcast deal falls through (St Louis Business Journal)

Comcast might pursue Netflix if Time Warner Cable deal fails (Investor's Business Daily)


Report Sees Cable Capex Heading South (Light Reading)


Nielsen to Acquire Data Specialist eXelate (Wall Street Journal: CMO Today)
NewSpring Capital one of major backers of New York-based firm; Acquisition price said by WSJ sources to be around $200 million.

Nextdoor Social Network Digs Deep Into Neighborhoods (NY Times)
Expected to announce investment round that would value it at over $1 billion today; Comcast Ventures is an existing investor.

Neighborhood social network Nextdoor just raised $110M at $1.1B valuation (Venture Beat)

Safeguard Scientifics leads $5 million Series A in CloudMine

Tom Paine

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CloudMine, the Philadelphia-based mobile cloud platform company, received a $5 million Series A investment led by Safeguard Scientifics and including several other local investors, it was announced this morning.

Although it still has a geographically diverse portfolio, Safeguard appears to be doubling down in Philadelphia. In addition to CloudMine, its local investments include Clutch, WebLinc, ThingWorx (acquired by PTC), longtime portfolio company Beyond.com, and Hoopla (which has since moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley but still has development offices in Malvern). In addition, it recently brought parts of healthcare technology companies Dabo Health and Syapse to the area, and also led an investment in Trice Medical of King of Prussia.

Last month, Safeguard announced it was moving its headquarters from the Route 202 corridor to a location near the Blue Route in Radnor, in part to have easier access to the entire Philadelphia area.

CloudMine, a mobile backend as a service (BaaS) provider, garnered considerable attention after it was founded in 2011 though it seemed to take a while in finding revenue traction. But it found its niche by focusing on verticals such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals and retail, where there are needs for rigorous data security. CloudMine has partnered with important cloud infrastructure players such as Rackspace and CenturyLink.

CloudMine's CEO is co-founder Brendan McCorkle. It had previously received $3.2 million in funding, according to CrunchBase. MissionOG, one of its early major backers, did not participate in this round. CloudMine currently has 16 employees.

Links 3/3: Fab.com fire sale completed; Newtown pharma company to buy Lockheed site

Fab.com’s Fire Sale Is Official (Re/code)

Newtown-based pharmaceutical company to acquire Lockheed Martin site (Bucks Local News)

Salesforce, SAP to get a shot of IoT data (PCWorld)

NetSuite CEO Nelson Talks the ‘End of the Beginning’ of Cloud Software Era (Re/code)


Andrew Lack said to be close to retaking top role at NBC News (LA Times)

Why Comcast, AT&T and other Internet providers might not sue the FCC after all (Washington Post: Switchboard)

Veeva Drops 10% Despite FYQ4 Beat; Says Will Buy Assets for Undisclosed Terms (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

Veeva Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2015 Results (Business Wire)

Veeva Systems Announces Intent to Acquire Key Opinion Leader (KOL) Solutions Business (Business Wire)

Philly Tech News Quotes & Tweets 3/2/2015

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For SAP, ORCL, it would take the former 30% and the latter 43% in CAGR growth through 2020 to reach $10B in Cloud product revenues.

— Albert Pang (@APPSRUNTHEWORLD) February 25, 2015

Awesome to see @Michael_Nutter and @rosettalue onstage together. Two people making stuff happen #PhillyInnovates pic.twitter.com/dYl63ji08S

— Charlie Isaacs (@charlieisaacs) February 18, 2015

Keith Olbermann suspended over Penn State tweets http://t.co/UYL64Iq34u

— WGAL (@WGAL) February 24, 2015

.@kdoctor observation: Buzzfeed is at 60% of traffic from social. Most newspapers at 8-10%. Big difference. #2015MegaConf

— Josh Awtry (@jawtry) February 23, 2015

Particularly important for #Qlik in the new Gartner MQ - increasing emphasis on governance, even for self service. We are unmatched there.

— Donald Farmer (@donalddotfarmer) February 23, 2015

MyPOV: here comes another @QlikView vs @tableau #dataviz deal.guess what? @QlikView is winning. We see them win more now #data2decisions

— R Ray Wang (王瑞光) (@rwang0) February 14, 2015

Snapchat is valued at $19 billion and Pinterest is valued at $11 billion. Cheers to them. My conclusion? Twitter and Uber are cheap.

— Chris Sacca (@sacca) February 19, 2015

Comcast Reports Small Profit in the Face of Regulatory Uncertainty (must have left out word "gain") http://t.co/9YJJHVtGqY

— tom paine (@phillytechnews) February 24, 2015

"After today, the only 'certainty'... is that we all face inevitable litigation and years of regulatory uncertainty."-Comcast EVP David Cohen


“If anyone doubts the hostility of the regulatory climate in Washington now, imagine how clear it would be on the morning after a rejection. These risks must at least be acknowledged" -Craig Moffet of MoffettNathanson, on outlook for Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger, after lowering his odds of it being completed from 70/30 to 60/40.

“We are very disappointed with the results of the auction. This has been a very difficult sales process and the results reflect that.” -William Baldiga, counsel for Aereo and partner at Brown Rudnick, in a statement.

Links 3/2/2015: Google gives more detail on wireless plans; U Delaware President Harker leaving for Philly Fed

Google’s Sundar Pichai: Google’s U.S. Mobile Network To Come In The ‘Coming Months’ (TechCrunch)

Venmo Money, Venmo Problems (Slate)

Pegasystems Takes on Salesforce in New Ad Campaign (Ad Age)

U Delaware President Harker leaving for Philly Fed (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Comcast Business to sponsor Carl Edwards in 4 races this season (AP via USA Today)

Comcast Orders Pace XG2v2 Hybrid Video Gateway (Donahue Reports)

Verizon's Shammo: We'll dispose of non-strategic assets for the right price, right terms (FierceTelecom)

Philly Tech People News 3/1/2015

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SAP Security Chief Said to Join Infosys to Work for Old Boss (Bloomberg)

Christie confidant Bob Grady joins private equity firm (Fortune)

Office Practicum Appoints New Chief Sales Officer

Revitas Demonstrates Strong Growth with Key Customer Wins and New Chief Financial Officer
Was previously CFO of Quintiq, which was acquired by Dassault Systemes.


BlackLine Appoints New CFO to Take Company Through Next Phase of Growth
Was previously CFO of Fiberlink (acquired by IBM). Joins the rapidly growing LA-based financial SaaS firm.

Comcast Ventures Brings ‘Catalyst’ Fund to Bay Area (Multichannel News)
Laurence Toney Joins VC Unit for Minority-Led Start-ups.

Charlotte Field Joins Charter (Multichannel News)
Last with Comcast.

Accolade Prepares for Continued Growth with Key Executive Appointments

Ancero names Peter M. Cava Jr. as Director of Operations

Saturday Highlights: US asks if Comcast, Time Warner Cable Restricted Video Deals; Comcast In Talks To Acquire Ad Technology Firm Visible World

U.S. Asks If Comcast, Time Warner Cable Restricted Video Deals (Bloomberg)

The net neutrality rules might not be available for weeks. That's ridiculous. (Vox)

Comcast In Talks To Acquire Ad Technology Firm Visible World (Wall Street Journal)


Apple-IBM partnership is more than a simple hardware distribution deal (Silicon Angle)
IBM Fiberlink's MaaS360 MDM big part of initial offering.