Links 1/16: SAP says Europe's new privacy law will hurt startups; Intel launches new IoT retail platform, plans $100 million retail tech investment



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SAP says Europe's new privacy law will hurt startups (Business Insider)


SAP software company to bring 242 new jobs and facility to Pittsburgh (NextPittsburgh)


Sage signs X3 trio to cloud 'big business' ERP combo (The Register)

Marketo CEO Steve Lucas on theCUBE: Massive consolidation is coming to marketing tech (Silicon Angle)

Rutgers catching up on 12K unpaid bills after tech glitches (NJ.com)


Intel launches new IoT retail platform, plans $100 million retail tech investment (ZDNet)





Sunday Highlights: Trump team's FCC plans; Marijuana dispensaries hit by hack of sales software



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Exclusive: Trump Team Embraces FCC Remake Blueprint (Multichannel News)


SAP SuccessFactors migration to HANA begins in earnest (Diginomica)

Marijuana dispensaries hit by hack of sales system (Boston Globe)



Iron Mountain's Pennsylvania mine expands to hold data secure (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via Allentown Morning Call)

Yellow Cab, Long a Fixture of City Life, Is for Many a Thing of the Past (New York Times)

Why I’m NOT a ‘B2B SaaS’ investor (VentureBeat)

SaaS Startup One-Slide Financials Dashboard (Dave Kellogg / Enterprise Irregulars)



Saturday Highlights: VC, Boomi CTO give 2017 Enterprise software forecasts



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Salesforce’s Quip acquires Unity&Variety, a startup founded by Facebook veterans (VentureBeat)

This start-up hopes to be the high-tech answer for pet owners' many needs (Philly.com)

Comcast/NBC fired and insulted Trump and now faces a grudge-holding president (Philly.com)

Enterprise IT trends for 2017: ‘Fog’ computing, Internet sensors, the second coming of silicon … (Dharmesh Thakker, Battery Ventures / VentureBeat)

Dell Boomi 2017 Predictions: A glimpse into the future of business and personal technology (Michael Morton, Chief Technology Officer of Dell Boomi / VM Blog)

It’s Time to Transform ERP into a Systems of Engagement (Dion Hinchcliffe/Enterprise Irregulars)



Links 1/13: Arris may buy Brocade’s networking tech for $1 Billion: VC brother of Jared Kushner is thrust Into spotlight



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Brother of Jared Kushner Is Thrust Into the Spotlight (NY Times)

This Set-Top Box Maker Might Buy Brocade’s Networking Tech for $1 Billion
(Reuters via Fortune)
Guess this what Arris' CEO meant when he said on at an investor conference on Thursday, wireless … what happens in wireless, should we be more involved in that?".


Telecom Merger Talks Might Pick Up If FCC Auction Fails
(Investor's Business Daily)

Amid HQ relocation, Monetate cuts jobs & adds others (Philadelphia Business Journal)


DirecTV Now appears to be a complete mess
(The Verge)

Netflix's high-risk investment strategy a house of cards: Analyst (CNBC)

Uber driver charged in alleged beating of passenger, lawyer says (NJ.com)

Clemson U, Carnegie Mellon to Develop Robots for Advanced Manufacturing (Campus Technology)
Clemson should stick to what it does best. Maybe robot football players?


Clutch Acquires Persio to Extend Mobile Marketing Capabilities Deal follows $5.25 million in new capital and addition of Larry Stone to Board

Business Wire
Clutch Acquires Persio to Extend Mobile Marketing Capabilities
Deal follows $5.25 million in new capital and addition of Larry Stone to Board

January 12, 2017 09:02 AM Eastern Standard Time
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Clutch, a customer management and marketing analytics company, has acquired intelligent mobile promotions platform Persio in a deal that will add powerful new mobile marketing capabilities to the Clutch platform.

“With this acquisition, the Clutch platform is the first to support the marketer with a comprehensive view of customers across all buying and marketing channels. The addition of Persio’s intelligent mobile platform will allow us to deliver these experiences instantly and with greater context.”
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“Marketers have been pressed into using sales platforms that were never the right tool for the job, and because of that, they’ve had to bolt on additional solutions to solve new needs as they arise,” said Clutch CEO Ned Moore. “With this acquisition, the Clutch platform is the first to support the marketer with a comprehensive view of customers across all buying and marketing channels. The addition of Persio’s intelligent mobile platform will allow us to deliver these experiences instantly and with greater context.”

The transaction puts Clutch in a position to capture a bigger share of the $32 billion marketing technology industry, just as brands are increasingly looking to automate mobile solutions to deliver shipping notices, rewards, coupons, brand messages, and more. At the same time, their marketing departments need a technology stack that can do the work of several vendors hired to solve discrete problems.

“Clutch built its business on unifying data to give marketers an actionable, complete view of their customers, and blending our capabilities with theirs is just natural,” said Persio co-founder Nick Doulas. “Together we can integrate customer data into virtually every marketing activity, from loyalty and gift to direct mail or e-commerce, and of course, mobile.”

Clutch plans to make the new mobile functionality available to clients in the first quarter of 2017. The transaction closed in December.

A strong complement to other channels, SMS marketing has seen increased demand among brands and retailers looking to reach mobile customers in real time. In fact, SMS messages have a 98 percent open rate and 90 percent of SMS messages are opened within three minutes.

Persio, founded in 2012, has led hundreds of successful campaigns for retailers with inventive mobile marketing techniques like mobile scratch-and-win offers, image and video text messages, and promotions for mobile apps. More than 10 million subscribers receive this type of content from Persio clients, who typically send 40 million messages per month from the platform. A company might send an SMS message to remind its customers that their loyalty points are about to expire, wish them a happy birthday, review customer service, or invite a lapsed customer to return. Clients also take advantage of higher response rates on mobile, using it to reinforce messaging from other channels like email.

Ned Moore will remain Clutch’s CEO. Nick Doulas, co-founder of Persio, will be staying on as Head of Product. The combined company, which will retain the Clutch name, will employ a total of 75 in the Philadelphia suburbs and in Persio’s existing offices in Chicago.

In addition to acquiring Persio, Clutch secured a $5.25 million round of funding and added a new seat on its board of directors. Larry Stone will take that seat, bringing more than 27 years of executive experience to Clutch. He is a veteran of the payment processing industry where he developed deep expertise in managing companies and accelerating their growth. He currently serves on the board of directors at JetPay and acted as principal of Mercury Payment Systems, where he successfully shepherded the firm to its 2014 sale to Vantiv.

“Clutch has driven tremendous growth with its combination of comprehensive marketing technology, customer data management, and hands-on partnerships with clients,” Stone said. “As a board member, I’m dedicated to helping the company build on that momentum and grow its platform.”

About Clutch

Clutch’s Integrated Customer Management platform delivers customer intelligence and personalized engagements empowering B2C brands to identify, understand and motivate each segment of their customer base. Its advanced marketing platform integrates customer data across point-of-sale, ecommerce, mobile and social channels, delivering personalized engagements and increasing the value of each customer. Headquartered outside of Philadelphia, Clutch’s solutions impact over 65 million consumers of over 800 brands. Clutch is a proud partner of Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE), NewSpring Capital and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

About Persio

Persio is an intelligent mobile marketing platform that uses behavioral and demographic data to drive revenue, acquisition and retention for SMS, app and web. Designed simply and with an intuitive UI, the cloud-based solution efficiently manages the mobile campaign process from start to finish. Marketers can create content, identify and target customer segments, deploy promotions, run tests and analyze results for multiple offer types including rich content, gamification, offers and discounts.

For more information visit clutch.com, follow Clutch Holdings on LinkedIn or @ClutchSuccess on Twitter.

Contacts
Gregory FCA for Clutch
Matt McLoughlin, 610-228-2123
matt@gregoryfca.com




Links 1/12: AT&T Says CEO Did Not Discuss Time Warner Merger with Trump; Arris CFO Potts: It’s possible we could expand into wireless



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Verizon Increasing Internet Speeds To Not-Quite Gigabit Rates (Fortune)
Starts the 14th, but costs more; Philadelphia one of the initial markets.


AT&T chief executive, Trump meet amid planned Time Warner merger
(Reuters)

AT&T Says CEO Did Not Discuss Time Warner Merger in Trump Meeting (The Street via Philly.com)
Did they discuss golf? Or the view from Trump Tower?


Shaw launches white label X1 service, BlueSky TV (FierceCable)

Arris CFO Potts: It’s possible we could expand into wireless (FierceCable)


Amazon to add 100,000 full-time U.S. jobs, many in fulfillment centers (Marketwatch)

Novartis, Pfizer join with Big Biopharma peers to create tech standards that streamline how HCPs access info (FierceBiotech)
Veeva Systems seems to be coordinating this.


You could soon have to pay streaming-video sales tax (CIO)


Walmart goes Workday, not SAP



Tom Paine



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Walmart has chosen Workday as its HCM (Human Capital Management) vendor, reportedly besting the incumbent, SAP's SuccessFactors.

Walmart has over 2 million employees. It has been using SAP HCM and SuccessFactors.

A Wall Street analyst initially disclosed the signing of the yet unnamed customer, and Investor's Business Daily picked up the story. A quick look at a list of the world's largest employers suggested it might be Walmart, and Workday soon confirmed it was in a statement.

Workday (NYSE:WDAY) shares rose almost 10% after news of the deal came out.


Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri had spoken in November about how SuccessFactors (and Oracle Fusion) had difficulty in scaling:

"And what I’d say is, actually we’re seeing the first wave of failed [SAP SuccessFactors] Employee Central and failed [Oracle] Fusion implementations in Europe. That’s not marketing, that’s just the reality — when you get to a certain scale, neither of those companies have been able to get large customers live. So people have gone down that path with a project, failed, and come back to Workday."

Walmart had agreed to roll out SuccessFactors 1n 2010, but its unclear what degree of success it had in doing so.

Just in late November, SuccessFactors landed Microsoft and its 114,000 employees. But a column today by Mary Jo Foley jn ZDNet suggests that Microsoft might build its own HCM apps, to tie into LinkedIn, though those apps might not be geared to massive customers.









Links 1/11: Microsoft said to be developing its own human capital management apps; Verizon turns to SevOne for SD-WAN Visibility



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Mossberg: Streaming TV is beginning to look a lot like cable (Recode)

Universal Display Plays to Packed House at Needham Conference (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)


Workday Stock Pops As Analyst Reports Biggest HR Deal Ever (Investor's Business Daily)
A retailer with over 2 million employees globally? Any guesses? Workday reportedly beat out SAP on this one.
Its Walmart.

Workday Halted, Jumps 7%: WMT Deal Relieves Concerns, Says Drexel (Update) (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

Microsoft is developing its own human capital management apps (ZDNet)


Oracle's Cloud Strategy: A Fine Balance (TechNewsWorld)

Verizon Turns to SevOne for SD-WAN Visibility (Light Reading)







SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP® Leonardo IoT Portfolio




SAP Introduces Jump-Start Enablement Program for SAP® Leonardo IoT Portfolio

PR Newswire PR NewswireJanuary 10, 2017

WALLDORF, Germany, Jan. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (SAP) today announced a jump-start enablement program for its Internet of Things (IoT) innovation portfolio. The program is intended to help customers connect the emerging world of intelligent devices with people and processes to achieve tangible business outcomes. Following through on SAP's recently announced commitment to invest €2 billion in IoT over five years, the IoT portfolio combines adaptive applications, Big Data applications and connectivity in packaged solutions across line-of-business and industry use cases ranging from connected products, assets and infrastructure to vehicle fleets, markets and people.

SAP Logo.
SAP Logo.
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Named SAP® Leonardo, SAP's IoT portfolio takes its name from a figure known for ushering in a groundbreaking era of science and discovery. For more on the SAP Leonardo brand, please see here.

"Moving from things to outcomes is about new business processes such as Industry 4.0, new business models and new ways for people to live and work," said Dr. Tanja Rueckert, executive vice president, Digital Assets and IoT, SAP. "With SAP Leonardo, we connect 'things' with business processes that are instantaneous and proactive, and with people who can manage more effectively with augmented intelligence and autonomous systems. Our SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio delivers on SAP's commitment to produce superior business value through enterprise IoT innovation."

Easier IoT Adoption: Jump-Start Pilot Program and Introductory Pricing
SAP is introducing a jump-start program as part of its SAP Leonardo Labs global enablement network to help organizations identify and validate IoT pilots and use cases. A consultative service staffed by SAP line-of-business and industry experts, the jump-start program is a multiphase engagement featuring design thinking to match IoT innovations with customer strategies and objectives in achievable pilots with a clear path to business value. Available worldwide, the jump-start program is intended to ease the first steps of the IoT journey, producing pilots that define business cases for full-scale IoT strategies and further deployment.

SAP is also introducing promotional pricing for the IoT jump-start program featuring a simple, fixed cost for software and services to cover the pilot and first year of usage for SAP Leonardo IoT solutions including SAP Connected Goods, SAP Vehicle Insights, SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service and SAP Asset Intelligence Network. By setting a defined price for services and key solutions in the SAP Leonardo IoT portfolio, the introductory offer provides transparency and eliminates budget uncertainty, enabling customers to establish IoT pilots with clear scope, length and pricing. More information on the jump-start program and pricing offer can be found here.

A Unique Ability to Connect People, Things and Businesses
SAP Leonardo reaffirms an innovative value proposition, extending from SAP's enterprise core into automation and intelligence at the edges where IoT data is created. With SAP HANA® as its platform, SAP Leonardo offers intelligent IoT applications, business services for development, technical services for processing high-velocity data and an intelligent edge to process information at the device level. SAP Leonardo combines SAP's unique strengths, including 45 years of business process knowledge across 25 industries and leadership in Big Data management, in end-to-end offerings addressing the following areas:

Connected products for new insights into lifecycle management, sourcing, response and supply, and digital supply networks; and the design, manufacturing and delivery of smart, connected products across all industries
Connected assets to track, monitor and analyze fixed assets, including manufacturing and maintenance business processes, to reduce costs and increase equipment uptime
Connected fleet to enable businesses and public service organizations owning moving assets (such as vehicles, robots, fork lifts and autonomous vehicles) to improve services and safety, visibility to logistics and service quality
Connected infrastructure for new digital operational intelligence from physical-infrastructure systems, construction and energy grids enabling improved service, efficient operations and compliance and risk mitigation
Connected markets to enable new production, and business models of local relevance and at the right timing for customer and marketing insights, digital agribusiness, smart ports and smart cities
Connected people for more insightful, collaborative work roles, health management and smart home environments connecting people and communities and providing better, more personalized lifestyle experiences
For more detail on the portfolio, see here.

SAP Leonardo Event
SAP also announced plans for its first global SAP Leonardo event. Bringing together SAP customers, partners and IoT experts, the event will showcase the latest in IoT innovations and effective business strategies. The event will take place from July 11–12, 2017, in Frankfurt, Germany, at the KAP EUROPA. More information about the event, including the agenda and registration details, will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

More information on customers achieving business success with SAP Leonardo can be found here.

For more SAP news, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to the boardroom, warehouse to the storefront, desktop to a mobile device – SAP software empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 335,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.


Malone: "In Trump administration maybe Comcast & Charter could merge, would be a lot of synergies"




Tom Paine



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Speaking with investor Gordon Crawford this morning at Lionsgate’s Investor Day series of briefings for Wall Street following its acquisition of Starz, Liberty Media (and Liberty Broadband) chairman John Malone discussed the outlook for M&A during a Trump administration. Through Liberty Broadband, Malone controls about 20% of Charter Communications.







Remember that it was a similar, seemingly offhand (nothing he says is offhand) comment by Malone about the need for consolidation in the cable industry that started the race for Time Warner Cable, with Comcast's effort block and Charter ending up the winner.

Malone also suggested that that three major cable TV companies could jointly enter the wireless business by acquiring T-Mobile U.S. Inc.


Links 1/10: Monetate moving HQ to NY: Comcast looms large at CES



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Local success story Monetate moving HQ out of Philadelphia region (Philadelphia Business Journal)






Comcast Threatens to Sue Philly Over Salary History Ban (AP via ABC News)

Comcast looms large at highly connected, highly crowded CES (FierceCable)


SAP to add nearly 400 jobs at Pa. offices (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

A tale of two conferences: AWS storms ahead, HPE seems to flounder (The Register)

Ex-ITT students want to join suit to get debt canceled ( USA Today)

Blackstone looks to buy another division of GE (NY Post)
GE Water is based in Trevose.

DuPont to spend $200M to upgrade Wilmington facility, create incubator (Philadelphia Business
Business Journal)