Philly Tech People News 11/8/2015: Eatroff joins Comcast as EVP, Global Corporate Development and Strategy.
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Robert L. Eatroff has joined Comcast Corporation as Executive Vice President, Global Corporate Development and Strategy.
He will join Comcast in January 2016 from Morgan Stanley in New York where he was Managing Director and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for the Americas. He will report to Michael J. Cavanagh, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Comcast Corporation.
Mr. Eatroff will succeed Alexander D. Evans who will join Michael J. Angelakis, former Chief Financial Officer of Comcast, in January 2016 at the new strategic company Mr. Angelakis formed in partnership with Comcast that will focus on investing in and operating growth-oriented companies. He also succeeds Bob Pick, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, who is retiring at year-end and will consult for the company on special projects.
Mr. Eatroff earned his MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University. He will be relocating from New York City to Philadelphia.
The word "Global" in Eatroff's title probably has particular significance.
Accolade, the Plymouth Meeting-based corporate health services firm, announced that Rajeev Singh has joined the company as chief executive officer and member of the company's Board of Directors. Singh most recently was co-founder, President & COO of Concur prior to its acquisition by SAP last year for $8.3 billion. Also, two other former Concur execs will join the company; Michael Hilton, another Concur co-founder, and Rob Cavanaugh will both be in senior operating positions. Along with their additions a dual headquarters structure will be established with a Seattle headquarters to complement the one in the Philadelphia area.
Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII), announced this week the election of Jeffrey H. Margolis as the independent chairman of the board of directors, effective immediately. Margolis succeeds Sheldon Razin, 77, founder, who has served as the chairman of the board since the Company’s inception in 1974.
Following his decision to retire as chairman, Razin will continue to serve on the board as chairman emeritus. Since founding Quality Systems more than 40 years ago, Razin has led the Company to its industry leadership position in the continually evolving healthcare information technology sector, with an installed user base that spans 85,000 providers across 4,000 clients.
Quality Systems' principal business is Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare.
Jim Brady, a former sports and executive editor at WashingtonPost.com and currently the CEO of Spirited Media, is the new public editor at ESPN.
Brady will start on Nov. 15 and serve for 18 months in the role, which was formerly called the ombudsman. Brady will be charged with providing "independent examination, critique and analysis of ESPN's programming and news coverage on television, digital, print, audio and other media," ESPN said in a statement.
Brady has more than 20 years of experience in digital and print news at AOL, the Washington Post, Digital First Media (where he served as editor-in-chief) and currently at Spirited Media, which runs the mobile news platform Billy Penn in Philadelphia.
CoreDial, LLC, a leading cloud communications software and services provider, announced that Caitlin Clark-Zigmond has joined the company as Vice President of Product Management for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS).
Ms. Clark-Zigmond comes to CoreDial from Comcast Business, where she served as Senior Director of Product Management since 2013. Her core focus, among other responsibilities, was managing advanced voice solutions, specifically Comcast’s Business VoiceEdge platform. She also previously worked for companies such as unified communications wholesaler, New Global Telecom (NGT), and enterprise video provider, Level3. She now joins CoreDial with over 20 years of experience in the telecom and unified communications industries.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania announced Thursday Chris Satullo will be its new professional in residence for the 2015-16 spring semester.
Satullo was the former WHYY executive who was reportedly forced out recently over policy disagreements.
Sunday Highlights: Recounting what happened to GSI Commerce; Comcast responds to cap criticisms
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How Campbell is taking cues from tech to reorganize internally (Digiday)
Trade In, Trade Up (Joseph DiStefano / Philadelphia Inquirer)
On remnants of Ebay Enterprise / GSI Commerce. Amazing how closely Rubin's account of what happened with GSI Commerce and Ebay, as retold by DiStefano, is in sync with my account here written before the IMPACT event, though I've never discussed the matter with Rubin or any of his associates.
Comcast says it publicly outlined its usage-based pricing philosophy back in 2010 (FierceCable)
In the cloud, beware the sinking ships (David Linthicum/Infoworld)
The cloud wars explained: Why nobody can catch up with Amazon (Business Insider)
QVC: Usual pattern; Low overall US Growth, but higher mobile & web growth; Amazon's possible entry threatens status quo
Tom Paine
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QVC Group (QVCA) reported its results for the 3rd quarter 2015 on this past Wednesday.
QVCA (NASDAQ: QVCA) consists of West Chester-based QVC's worldwide businesses, about 38% of HSN, and 22% of the equity in TripAdvisor.
QVC US revenue increased 4% to $1.4 billion in the third quarter, while operating income grew 5%. QVC.com revenue (originating from the website) as a percent of total US revenue increased to 48%; QVC US mobile penetration accounted for 52% of QVC.com orders. Overall, QVC's US web sales grew 15%. The acquisition of Zulily closed at the completion of the quarter, so its results were not included in QVCA results.
However, due to unfavorable cuurency fluctuation, according to QVCA, QVC's consolidated worldwide revenue decreased 1% in the third quarter to $2.0 billion. International revenue decreased 10%.
While the growth in ecommerce and mobile transactions is important and necessary, some percentage of those orders are simply replacing busineess from existing customers rather than coming from new customers. Even if it were all new revenues, it would take quite some time before QVC might emerge as a growth company given the continued detorioration of its older (mostly telephonic) orders base.
"There's been no growth in the number of consumers shopping by television in three years. The majority of their business is repeat customers, but the number of new viewers isn't growing," said Britt Beemer, chairman and CEO of America's Research Group, a retail consulting agency, as quoted by the Tampa Bay Times.
 |
| Entrance to QVC headquarters / Pennsylvania Center for the Book) |
But QVC has been on a well-orchestrated PR campaign recently, seemingly aimed more at the financial community. Besides the Zulily acquisition, they've also been touting a new QVC app on Apple TV , and there was also a well-timed feature in the Washington Post, among other articles.
But the news that sent the closely knit home shopping industry into overdrive was a well-substantiated report by Seattle-based GeekWire posted on October 28 outlining Amazon's plans to enter the market. Obviously Amazon sees TV shopping as one outlet among numerous ecommerce buying possibilities, but its unclear whether Amazon could bring either the technology or showmanship need to increase TV shopping's percentage of the overall ecommerce spend.
There has even been speculation, far-fetched at this point, that Amazon may eventually try to acquire QVC.
Despite its slow growth, QVC has been very good at generating cash flow. That has given it a current market valuation in excess of $19 billion. Actually, QVCA was created as one of Liberty founder & Chairman John Malone's tracking stocks, which help investors focus on a company or group of companies with distinct characteristics, and maybe gives management more freedom to manuever.
One thing executives emphasized in the earnings call - yes, QVCA has its own earnings call now (transcript courtesy of Seeking Alpha) - is the work its put into making its software more responsive and personalized. Personalization often refers to Monetate, though QVC has been working with Monetate for several years now.
Phorum '16: Call for papers open, deadline November 13
Tom Paine
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The sponsors and organizers of next Spring's Philly Phorum (think baseball season, with the tag line, "Its got to be better than last year") entitled "Systems of Insight", to be held on April l4 at the new Fillmore Philadelphia, are particularly eager to get as broad a range of inputs for the event as possible. See the full press release here .
It has opened its call for papers, looking for experts in new technologies, architectures, systems, processes and integration driving Systems of Insight. Proposals are being sought for conference sessions on topics including information management, Big Data platforms, architectures, machine learning, natural language processing, predictive analytics, IoT, security, governance, data-driven engagement and integration.
If the term "call for papers" sounds too academic, don't be put off by it. The Phorum people wants to hear what you've got to say, in a simple, organized manner. No particular degree level is required.
The deadline to submit proposals, which should include a speaker’s bio, success stories, failures and/or lessons learned is November 13.
So submit you proposal today (or soon). Please send your bio and a two to three paragraph subject brief. Email your information or request more details at speakers@phorumphilly.com.
Links 11/6: PeopleLinx announces new release; Verizon weighs sale of enterprise business
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PeopleLinx announces new release as sales tech landscape takes shape (VentureBeat)
QVC’s U.S. web sales rise 15% in Q3
(Internet Retailer)
But QVC's total US revenue only inched forward 3.6%.
Forgot that since QVC now has its own tracking stock (QVCA), its got it own earnings call as well: ( transcript here on Seeking Alpha. )
QVCA, wich also includes a roughly 30% stake in HSN and a small bundle of ecommerce businesses, has a market cap today of over $19 billion.
Verizon weighing $10 billion sale of enterprise assets - sources (Reuters)
Since Comcast has said they would like to build a similar business, I wonder if? Actually, I doubt Comcast would care
to be encumbered with old equipment and long legacy contracts. I think they'ed rather start from scratch, with the
help of some small strategic acquisitions.
Square Inc IPO to value company at up to $4.2 billion (VentureBeat)
Comcast data caps aren’t about congestion, leaked memo shows (PC World)
Piling on: not a serious or thoughtful assessment of whether Comcast faces real capacity constraints. They do.
HR tech firm snags $2 million, hopes to shake up market (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Jet.com logs more than 1 million customers (Internet Retailer)
Nice news to put out while many ponder its possible demise.
Salsa, DonorPro Announce Deal (The Non-Profit Times)
Amazon to Launch its First Cloud Data Centers in UK (Data Center Knowledge)
SAP wins but did Oracle even bid?
Steve Brooks
Enterprise Times
 |
| Lloyds Register begins new dawn with SAP cloud ERP software |
On Sunday (10/25) Larry Ellison, CTO and Executive Chairman of the Board at Oracle made his opening keynote at the event and was dismissive of SAP as he stated: “We now compete with Salesforce.com and a new company called Workday in applications, those are the companies that we see most frequently when we sell applications in the marketplace. We virtually never ever see SAP, this is a stunning change. The largest application provider in the world is SAP, but we never see them in the cloud, and we sell a lot of applications in the cloud.”
This latest announcement by SAP questions not only the above statement but also one wonders what the Oracle sales team have been doing. Large cloud wins by Oracle and SAP have been, unlike Workday who seem to be gaining customers at both their expense, quite often.
What are Lloyds Register doing?
In the past companies announce wins that seem trivial once the actual detail is understood. While there is no revelation about the value of the deal itself and for how long it will be, there are several pertinent facts that are relevant.
Lloyds Register is not a small company. It has £1 billion turnover with 9,000 employees operating in 78 markets supporting more than 60,000 clients. Those markets are rapidly changing, each becoming digital at a different rate of change. To meet this challenge Lloyds Register has embarked on a major transformation program. They decided to look for a solution that would be part of that program and enable the changes required to the company’s finance, project management, project resourcing and human resources processes.
After an “extensive review of cloud technology vendors”, one assumes that this included Oracle, Workday, SAP and Netsuite but the actual names of the vendors were withheld, Lloyds chose SAP, as Andrew Punter, transformation director, Lloyd’s Register commented in the release:
“We are 255 years old, but standing still is just not an option. Today, businesses like Lloyd’s Register are global, we need the most modern, mobile, easy and user-friendly solutions possible to ensure we provide the right people with the right tools to make their jobs easier.
“SAP Business ByDesign and SuccessFactors can remove complexity and allow our team to focus on business innovation, not process.”
This will not be a small project, with a two year implementation plan one wonders exactly how much cloud revenues that SAP will be able to book during that two year period either.
The solution chosen, will be delivered using Software as a Service (SaaS) via SAP Business ByDesign and SuccessFactors on the SAP HANA platform. It will support the multi-language and multi-currency requirements that Lloyds Register has. More importantly Lloyds Register will be moving to a shared service operating model and this new solution will enable that.
It will be interesting how quickly the solution comes online as Lloyds Register are committing to a continuous release cycle for the solution updates. For SAP this is an important win though as Cormac Watters, Managing Director UK and Ireland at SAP commented: “Lloyd’s Register has a tremendous heritage of innovation which is why we’re so pleased to be collaborating with them on this major strategic initiative. We look forward to helping them transform the way they work and simplify their business processes.”
The SAP win is not just a blow to Oracle but as Lloyds Register were looking for new tools to support their full HR lifecycle, from “hiring to retiring” it will also be a loss to Workday. That SAP has won what appears to be an HCM centric opportunity will be a blow and one that SAP will hope to leverage in the future.
Conclusion
Whether Ellison, or his speech writers should have modified their tone a little in the keynote is worthy of note. The timing of this announcement by SAP seems rather opportune though, but despite that this it is a big win for SAP, SAP HANA and its cloud solutions. Lloyds Register has global brand recognition and SAP will no doubt hope to leverage that in the same way that Oracle did last year. With a two year implementation one hopes that the project goes well for SAP and Lloyds Register as this is clearly a major project.
If Oracle never see SAP in cloud bids, perhaps they need to enter more bids themselves. Ellison’s comments do bring into question how much cloud business they are actually going after. Perhaps this is one reason why they opened up their partner channel to all comers in another announcement at Openworld.
This article originally appeared in the Enterprise Times and is republished here by the permission of its author.
Links 11/5: Cask Data will develop sales team with $20M funding, led by Safeguard Scientifics; Tableau soars again
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Comcast brings data caps to more cities, says it’s all about “fairness” (Ars Technica)
Comcast's Past, Present and Future (Fortune)
Is $300m ARR the New $100m? (Enterprise
Irregulars)
Software startup Cask Data will develop sales team with $20M funding, led by Safeguard Scientifics
(Silicon Valley Business Journal)
Tableau Software Soars 17% on 3Q Earnings (TechCrunch)
Google and SAP enter patent agreement, open door for other collaborations (Inside SAP)
Where the importance of a press release announcing a partnership is directly correlated to the level of the individuals quoted from each side.
Layoffs Hit Gumroad As The E-Commerce Startup Restructures (TechCrunch)
First Round had participated in both the seed and Series A for Gumroad. From reading this TechCrunch article I have absolutely no idea what is happening to Gumroad which leads to the following logical alternatives:
A) I am having my usual evening dip in reading comprehension (no mood-altering substance, just tired) or
B) The writer of this article also has absolutely no idea what is happening to Gumroad.
Links 11/4: FanDuel expects fewer ads, more laws, and no IPO anytime soon
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iPipeline hiring developers, analysts as sales jump (Philly Deals)
FanDuel CEO: Expect Fewer Ads, More Laws, and No IPO Anytime Soon (Bloomberg)
As we were saying: "Its too early to say, but there's a chance that DraftKings and FanDuel may have suffered irreperable damage from the alleged insider dealing scandal at DraftKings, Even if every one is cleared of wrongdoing, it still puts the spotlight on them and its unclear whether states and the federal government will continue to find their games legitimate." Philly Tech News: 10/25/2015.
Wi-Fi Alliance tries to win consumer support as LTE-U showdown looms (PC World)
EPAM Reports Results for Third Quarter 2015 (Globe Newswire)
Revenue increased to $236 million, up 22.5% over the same period last year. Quarterly diluted EPS on a GAAP basis was $0.44, up from $0.38 in the third quarter of 2014.
EPAM Systems, based in Newtown, now has a market cap of almost $4 billion.
MeetMe Reports Third Quarter 2015 Financial Results
Mobile Revenue Increased 73% Year Over Year
Like Facebook, MeetMe has almost completed its transition to mobile, achieving 81% of revenue from mobile in its last quarter.
Ex Comcast exec creates the "anti TV channel" (Press of Atlantic City)
Union leader: Philly.com 'gutted' by layoffs (Philadelphia Inquirer)
CenturyLink Meets Q3 Earnings Expectations; Considers Selling Data Centers (CRN)
Jet: Clear sailing or desperation for ecommerce startup's next financing round?
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Jet.com raises $500 million from Fidelity
(Fortune)
Actually, the Wall Street Journal's description of Jet's position is that it is much more tenuous than that, and that the $500 or $550 million has not actually been committed yet.
This is a shorter version of the WSJ article on Jet, carried by Dow Jones on another site, no subscription required.
From the Journal article:
"The new round of funding would value Jet, which began operations in July, at $1.55 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments is in talks to lead the round with a $90 million investment, according to these people. They said the financing wasn't yet closed.
When Jet began the fundraising effort in October, it had hoped for a $2 billion valuation, the Journal reported earlier. Over the summer, Jet discussed a valuation of $3 billion with investors."
Somewhat disparate views; perhaps tomorrow we'll get clearer picture.
Links 11/3: Ebay Enterprise sale completed, company carved up
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Zeta Interactive Acquires eBay Enterprise’s CRM Business (TechCrunch)
eBay Enterprise Business Taken Private, Broken Up (Fortune)
At Impact: Do Philly tech investors think too small? (Philly Deals)
While cable TV "unbundles," streaming services bulk up (Fortune)
Comcast CEO on Notoriously Bad Customer Service: 'Steady Improvements' (Fortune)
Comcast Seeks to Learn From Descartes (Light Reading)
UKISUG conference will help you understand how SAP’s future roadmap suits you (CloudPro)
Microsoft nixes unlimited OneDrive storage for Office 365 users, caps free space at 5 GB (Geekwire)
IBM Buys Gravitant, Aims To Create Default Cloud Broker Platform (CRN)
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