Rovi, with significant Philly area presence and roots, buys TiVo


Tom Paine



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Rovi, which yesterday announced it was acquiring TiVo for $1.1 billion, is based in San Carlos, CA, but has a strong Philly connection.

Of some 1000+ US employees, about 200 are located in the Philly area, according to Rovi's LinkedIn page .

Presumably, most are based in Rovi's location on East Swedesford Rd in Wayne, in view of Route 202.



What exactly Rovi does in Wayne, as opposed to its other locations, at this time is not entirely clear.

Much of Rovi's presence here can be traced to its (when it was called Macrovision) acquisition of Gemstar-TV Guide International in 2008. Gemstar-TV Guide was a 1999 combination of Radnor-based TV Guide (which Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought as part its acquisition of Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications for $3 billion in 1988) and Gemstar, and aimed to dominate not only the market for TV schedule listings but also the codes used to record programs to DVRs.

However, Gemstar-TV Guide shrunk in value in the circa-2000 tech crash and never really recovered. Gemstar's market capitalization fell from a high of $20 billion in 2000 to a low of little more than $1 billion in 2005.

Comcast and Gemstar-TV Guide International formed a joint venture in 2004, GuideWorks, LLC, to create and market interactive program guides for digital cable television, with Comcast owning a majority stake in the venture.

Rovi pulled out of the Guideworks joint venture in 2010.

Rovi, much like TiVo, exerts considerable effort protecting and gently reminding others of its presumed patent rights. In early April, Rovi filed suit against Comcast and its set-top suppliers, claiming they were infringing upon 14 of Rovi’s U.S. patents that deliver features such as remote recording, its AnyRoom DVR (multi-room) capabilities, and search for its X1 platform.


                                  Tom Carson
                                     Rovi President & CEO

John Burke, EVP & COO, appears to be Rovi's top ranking officer based out of Wayne. He
is a former top Motorola Home (now Arris) executive. Rovi President & CEO Tom Carson is a Villanova grad.

The combined company would take the TiVo name.



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Links 4/29: Rovi to buy TiVo for $1.1 billion; PayPal Says Federal Trade Commission Investigating Venmo



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PayPal Says Federal Trade Commission Investigating Venmo (Bloomberg)

 5 Lessons Venmo's Co-Founder Learned While Building a Twice-Acquired Company (Entrepreneur)

 Rovi to buy DVR maker TiVo for $1.1 billion (Reuters)

 TiVo is Dead. Long Live TiVo! (Zatz Not Funny)

 Rovi Could Owe TiVo $36.6M if Deal Crumbles (Multichannel News)

 Rovi Corporation Reports First Quarter 2016 Financial Results (Rovi)
Universal Pictures chief on Comcast's DreamWorks purchase: 'Movie business was everything they didn't like' (FierceCable)

 EMC World: Sources Say EMC Will Target AWS S3 With New Easy Storage Connectivity To Virtustream (CRN)
A few months back, a prominent analyst basically zeroed out Virtustream's value to the 'EMC Federation.'

 Ask Alexa what's playing on SyFy (Engadget)
SyFy, sn NBCU network, connects with Alexa in a way. Curious, though, at another small
sign of cooperation between a Comcast-owned property and Amazon.


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Links 4/28: Amazon Web Services Forges Ahead; Cloudamize Secures Additional $1 Million in Financing




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Amazon Web Services Forges Ahead Like There Is No Competition (Fortune)

Cloudamize Secures Additional $1 Million in Financing to Fuel Growth Strategy (PR Web)
MissionOG Leads Funding; Jonathan Palmer Named to Board of Directors

Amazon plans to 'significantly' increase investment in video as it goes to war with Netflix (Business Insider)

Google Gets Beaten to the Punch by AT&T on Super-Fast Broadband (Bloomberg)

SpaceX Wins US Air Force Contract For GPS III Launch (Defense News)

How the Comcast-DreamWorks deal came together so fast (LA Times)


Qlik Tech Said to Draw Bids From Thoma Bravo, Bain, Permira (Bloomberg)

Amazon Seeing ‘Momentous’ Change of Guard as Public Cloud ‘Booms,’ Says JP Morgan (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

Qlik Announces Strong First Quarter 2016 Financial Results (Qlik Technologies)


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Oracle acquires Textura for $663 million; Will combine products with those of Bala Cynwyd-founded Primavera


Tom Paine



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Oracle today announced the acquisition of Deerfield, IL-based Textura for $663 million. Textura provides cloud services for the engineering and construction industry.

Textura's products will be combined with Oracle's existing Primavera project-management suite - the result of a 2008 acquisition - in the Oracle Engineering and Construction Global Business Unit, Oracle said.

Primavera, founded by Joel Koppelman, was based in Bala Cynwyd and still has a significant presence there, although I'm not sure of its scope. I've got a call into Oracle to find out more. Primavera became a primary player in the Project Portfolio Management market for large construction and engineering projects. Koppelman, a Drexel and Penn grad, was also a thought leader in the Project Portfolio Management field. I don't recall anyone offering up the exact price that Oracle paid for Primavera, but my recollection says it was at least a couple of hundred million dollars in a down market.

Koppleman stayed on briefly following the acquisition by Oracle before leaving the software business.

Textura is a bit like SAP's Ariba, but for engineering and construction projects. Textura’s cloud  processes $3.4 billion in payments for more than 6,000 projects each month, Oracle said, and more than 85,000 contractors and subcontractors are connected to the platform.

Oracle says it plans to continue to invest in the engineering and construction industry.


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Comcast to acquire DreamWorks Animation


Tom Paine



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NBCUNIVERSAL ANNOUNCES DREAMWORKS ANIMATION ACQUISITION
 (Comcast)

How the Comcast-DreamWorks deal came together so fast (LA Times)




-DreamWorks Animation valued at about $3.8 billion.

-"Acquisition builds on NBCUniversal’s presence in family and animation space. DreamWorks Animation to become unit of Universal Filmed Entertainment."

-Illumination Entertainment (unit of NBCUniversal) founder Chris Meledandri to "help guide the growth of the DreamWorks Animation business in the future."

-Jeffrey Katzenberg will become Chairman of DreamWorks New Media, which will be comprised of the company’s ownership interests in Awesomeness TV and NOVA.

-Agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of DreamWorks Animation and Comcast, and the controlling shareholder of DreamWorks Animation has approved the agreement by written consent.

-Transaction is expected to close by the end of 2016.


Update: WSJ reports that Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will step down from the company if Comcast acquires it. Presumably, this gives more substantiation to the entire acquisition scenario.

Comcast is reportedly in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation, the Wall Street Journal reports.


The reported price, if a deal occurred, would be more than $3 billion, a premium over the studio's current market value of $2.35 billion.

DreamWorks, founded in 2004 as a new kind of studio, has had some major successes, but is often perceived as too small for a stand alone studio. Like a small driller, it suffers if it hits a few dry wells. Last year a series of less than successful releases forced the company to cut 500 jobs, close its studio in Northern California and make management changes.

For Comcast, the deal would expand its successful animation business, with major implications for its theme parks and international expansion.

But the LA Times cautions that there have been several prior discussions by others with DreamWorks that ended without results.

The Journal suggests a deal would make Comcast a more formidable challenger to Disney in family entertainment, bringing back memories of its failed attempt to acquire Disney in 2004. Comcast reports earnings tomorrow, but rarely comments on breaking news at that time.


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Links 4/27: Digital Ad Spending Surges to Record High; Amazon to open 2 NJ warehouses




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Oracle Combines Marketing Apps, Data Services (Fortune)

Digital Ad Spending Surges to Record High as Mobile and Social Grow More Than 50% (Ad Age)

Amazon to open 2 new facilities, provide 2,000 new jobs in N.J. (NJ.com)

Vox Media Names First CFO, Adds Former Yahoo President to Board (Bloomberg)

Venmo is growing ridiculously fast (Re/code)






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Comcast earnings: Good sub growth and other items of interest




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Comcast posts earnings of 84 cents a share vs. 79 cents estimate (Reuters via CNBC)

Here's Why Comcast Just Reported Strong Earnings (Fortune)

Smit: Comcast Hasn’t Seen an OTT Model ‘That Really Hunts’ (Multichannel News)

Comcast Rising on Q1 Beat; What Might Synergies Be with DreamWorks? Asks B Riley (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

Comcast raises trial data caps to a terabyte but won't commit to nationwide rollout (PCWorld)


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Comcast reported in acquisItion talks with DreamWorks (Update: WSJ reports Katzenberg would step aside)


Tom Paine



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Update: WSJ reports that Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will step down from the company if Comcast acquires it. Presumably, this gives more substantiation to the entire acquisition scenario.

Comcast is reportedly in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation, the Wall Street Journal reports.


The reported price, if a deal occurred, would be more than $3 billion, a premium over the studio's current market value of $2.35 billion.

DreamWorks, founded in 2004 as a new kind of studio, has had some major successes, but is often perceived as too small for a stand alone studio. Like a small driller, it suffers if it hits a few dry wells. Last year a series of less than successful releases forced the company to cut 500 jobs, close its studio in Northern California and make management changes.

For Comcast, the deal would expand its successful animation business, with major implications for its theme parks and international expansion.

But the LA Times cautions that there have been several prior discussions by others with DreamWorks that ended without results.

The Journal suggests a deal would make Comcast a more formidable challenger to Disney in family entertainment, bringing back memories of its failed attempt to acquire Disney in 2004. Comcast reports earnings tomorrow, but rarely comments on breaking news at that time.


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Links 4/26: Alibaba’s financial spinoff now world’s most valuable private internet company; Comcast earnings out in morning




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Alibaba’s financial spinoff is now the world’s most valuable private internet company (Quartz)

Comcast Q1: NBCU Film Weak, TV Ads Gain; Theme Parks Strong (Investor's Business Daily)

Comcast-backed start-up NextVR uses NAB to show it can take pay-TV viewers to the game (Daniel Frankel/ FierceCable)

Comcast WiFis with Wawa (Multichannel News)
Comcast/Wawa WiFi deal, though sponsored through Comcast Business, probably first time its offered consumer-reaching service beyond its footprint.

Time Warner's Turner Appeals to Film Nerds With Web-Only Service (Bloomberg)

ServiceMax brings performance metrics to field service (Diginomica)

Zuora moves to the center (Denis Pombriant/Enterprise Irregulars)


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Philly Tech People News 4/26/2016: Tirico leaving ESPN for NBC Sports




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Mike Tirico is leaving ESPN for NBC Sports (Washington Post)

Jarecke-Cheng Named Global COO of Publicis Healthcare Comms. (O'Dwyer's)


Sungard Availability Services Appoints Randy J. Hendricks to Board of Directors (PR Newswire)
Exec at Workday.

Diez, after $20M PointRoll sale, heads to NY (Philly Deals)

Aqua America Welcomes New Chief Information Officer (Aqua America)


SmartThings poaches Amazon engineering director to start simplifying the smart home (The Verge)

Workday names Sisco CFO (ZDNet)


eMoney Advisor's CEO, Ed O'Brien, Named One of 25 of the Most Influential People in the Financial Advisory Industry (eMoney Advisor)


Fingerpaint Founder Ed Mitzen Named Industry Person of the Year at 2016 Med Ad News Manny Awards (Fingerpaint)
Fingerpaint is based in upstate New York, but has a significant Philly presence.

Thomas M. Montgomery Elected Senior Vice President and Comptroller (Ametek


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Links 4/26: Regulators Approve Charter Communications Deal for Time Warner Cable; Microsoft, Dell reveal IoT plans



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Regulators Approve Charter Communications Deal for Time Warner Cable (NY Times)

Set Top Box Death Watch—Are You Kidding? (Rob Frieden / TeleFrieden)


Gannett Offers to Acquire Los Angeles Times Owner Tribune in $815M Deal (Hollywood Reporter)
People in Allentown can look forward to a slimmed-down Morrning Call if this deal goes through.

Newsonomics: After Gannett’s $815 million Tribune bid, here are eight things to look out for (Ken Doctor/Newsnomics)


SAP HANA enterprise cloud might even turn a profit in 2017
Rolling, two-year expansion planned for HEC (The Register)

After 16 Quarters Of Revenue Declines, When Will IBM Bounce Back? (Investor's Business Daily)


Microsoft extends the ‘Internet of Things’ to jet engines, refrigerators and more (GeekWire)

Dell Teams with GE, Microsoft, OSIsoft, PTC, SAP, Software AG and Others to Advance the Internet of Things (ARC Advisory Group)


Lutron lights up Amazon Echo’s life
(ReadWrite)

Electric Car Maker Fisker Has a New Name
(Fortune)
Not coming to Delaware any time soon (or probably never).

Uber drivers in N.J. want more flexibility (NorthJersey.com)


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