Saturday Highlights: Veeva defied detractors when it launched a cloud life sciences biz a decade ago; Softbank and Foxconn to deepen ties with joint venture




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Veeva defied detractors when it launched a cloud life sciences biz a decade ago (TechCrunch)

Tech groups Softbank and Foxconn to deepen ties with joint venture (Reuters)

A self-driving Uber ran a red light last December, contrary to company claims
(The Verge)

Buffett Says $100 Billion Wasted Trying to Beat the Market (Bloomberg)
Calls Jack Bogle a hero.

German software firm to enter Richmond area
(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
-Considered Philly.

Internet of Things in the enterprise: The state of play (ZDNet)

Why the FCC delayed new privacy regulations for AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast
(Christian Science Monitor)





Philadelphia-based LLR Partners files for fifth fund

Tom Paine



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Philadelphia-based LLR Partners has filed with the SEC for it fifth fund (LLR Equity Partners Parallel V, L.P.), as reported by ProRata. The amount it is targeting for the new fund was not disclosed in the filing.

LLR EQUITY PARTNERS IV, L.P., which closed in 2014, raised $950 million.


2/24: Honeywell sues Icontrol & Alarm.com to block competitors from merging; Roku raising new funding round




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Honeywell Sues Icontrol & Alarm.com to Block Competitors From Merging (Security Sales & Integration)

Tableau, Microsoft, Qlik Lead Gartner's BI & Analytic Platforms Magic Quadrant
(CMS Wire)
Qlik still in leader's quadrant, but slipped a bit from last year.


Biggest Mistakes To Avoid When Reading the Magic Quadrant (Cindi Howson / Gartner Group)






Candy.com’s sweet solution for EDI-to-ERP e-commerce integration (Diginomica)
Using Dell Boomi.

Jornaya Introduces Tool Ensuring TCPA Compliance on Leads from Facebook Ads
(Mobile Advertising Watch)

Comcast gets portion of Viamedia’s $225M local ad monopoly suit tossed (FierceCable)


Roku Raising New Round of Funding (Fortune)
At a reported $1.5 billion valuation.

Does radio have a future? Philly's Entercom makes $4B leap with CBS Radio deal (Phiily.com)


Surge of New Capacity Expected in Top US Data Center Markets This Year
(Data Center Knowledge)
Northern Virginia continues to lead the way.

UPDATE: $100M deal has start-up founder eager for Trump bank reforms (Philly Deals)




2/23: Uber troubles; Any review of AT&T–Time Warner merger?




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Lyft launches in 54 more cities across the U.S. (TechCrunch)

Early Uber investors say they’re ‘disappointed’ in the company’s response to sexual harassment claims (TechCrunch)
No comment, as far as I can see, from First Round Capital.

Waymo, Google’s self-driving car division, sues Uber over alleged patent infringement (Ars Technica)


Is anyone gonna review this AT&T–Time Warner merger or what? (The Verge)
Think AT&T's position is that a review is not needed. See below:

Time Warner sells Atlanta TV station for $70M to Meredith as AT&T merger looms (FierceCable)
What the Superstation-now TBS-grew out of. Originally just a UHF channel in Atlanta, and Turner got a satellite uplink. Legend.

Arris Plummets 14% on M&A, ‘Shocking’ Outlook; Raymond James Defend (Barron's Tech Trader)


Attention, Yankees fans: Comcast nearing YES Network return date (NJ.com)


OLED Tech Leader Universal Display Beats Q4 Goals, Will Pay Dividend (IBD)



USA Technologies: Poised To Finally Start Creating Shareholder Value (Nathaniel Grob/ Seeking Alpha)


Infor – ‘Manufacturing is in crisis, digital is about survival’ (Diginomica)

Amazon cites First Amendment protection for Alexa in Arkansas murder case (TechCrunch)




Arrris to buy Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom after Brocade deal closes

Tom Paine



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As was rumored and reported upon in January, ARRIS International and Broadcom Limited today jointly announced that they have entered into an agreement for ARRIS to acquire Brocade Communication Systems Inc.'s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business for $800 million in cash, plus the additional cost of unvested employee stock awards, following the closing of Broadcom's acquisition of Brocade.

Some were skeptical that this deal would occur, but the reports in January were right on target. In addition, Arris' CFO signaled a possible move into wireless at a Wall Street conference in January.

"This portfolio will expand ARRIS's leadership in converged wired and wireless networking technologies beyond the home into the education, public venue, enterprise, hospitality, and MDU segments. ARRIS plans to establish a dedicated business unit within the company focused on innovative wireless networking and wired switching technology to address evolving and emerging needs across a number of vertical markets." Arris said in a statement announcing the deal.

Converged wired and wireless networking technologies, or 'hybrid networks', are the key. As I wrote last month, expect to see Ruckus technology deployed as Arris' two largest customers, Comcast and Charter, introduce wireless offerings this year. Making wireless cell networks and Wifi work smoothly together will be critical to the Cable companies' plans.

From January:

Why Arris might bid on Ruckus Wireless assets? For its own customers, of course


Startup Roundup: GovPilot and eureQa

GIVON ZIRKIND AND ESTHER SURDEN




                                     Michael Bonner of GovPilot and Badri Nittoor of eureQa. 
                                                  | Esther Surden / Marc Weinstein



GovPilot: GovPilot (Hoboken), a municipal software provider, released its newest software product, a mobile app called “GovAlert,” in both Android and iPhone versions. The app allows constituents to voice their concerns and send photos to their elected officials and to their municipalities immediately, in real time. Texts are automatically routed by zip code to the proper official/department for remedial action. And the app is free to constituents.

GovAlert is an outgrowth of GovPilot's software's “report a concern” feature, which was used quite successfully by Camden County in the summer of 2016 for mosquito control and Zika virus prevention, Camden Coutny freeholder Carmen Rodriguez, said in an article.

The app supports common non-emergency citizen complaints regarding such areas as mosquito control, animal control, buildings, businesses, construction, garbage, health and sanitation, traffic signals, parking and more. Once the complaint is classified, the user is prompted to describe the problem and provide a related image.

GIS software aids the government in analyzing the complaints, visualizing the problems, and responding more appropriately; also, the responses are given the necessary prioritization. GovAlert is integrated into GovPilot's municipality software, so it’s aware if a municipality is using GovPilot or not. If a municipality is using GovPilot, complaints via GovAlert are automatically streamed into the government's workflow, and GovPilot will advise the constituent of the steps being taken in the resolution process. For municipalities that are not using GovPilot, the complaints are texted to the mayor's office.







eureQua: eureQa (Cherry Hill), an SaaS automation platform for e-commerce testing, has raised $400K in follow-on funding from leading investors active in the Philadelphia area.

Participants in the current round included SRI Capital (Hyderabad, India), a seed-stage venture fund focused on the "as a service" economy and “deep tech,” along with Robert J. Ciaruffoli, former chairman and CEO of ParenteBeard (Philadelphia, Pa.); Walter Buckley, cofounder, chairman and CEO of Radnor, Pa.-based Actua (formerly ICG and Internet Capital Group); and Thomas J. Gravina, cofounder, CEO and chairman of GPX Enterprises (Philadelphia, Pa.), a private investment firm, the startup said in a release.

The company uses automation to bring speed, scale and efficiency to e-commerce software testing. Clients like Bare Necessities and Weight Watchers have reduced testing times by 85% and testing costs by 75% with the eureQa platform, eureQa claimed.

“Using eureQa, we are finding, validating and fixing a greater number of critical issues than we were before, and we are able to address these critical issues earlier in the project cycle. eureQa is key to our ability to hit our dates and launch with confidence, knowing we are stable,” said William Saccone, senior director, quality assurance at Bare Necessities (Edison).




Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is republished here with her permission.



The end of OTT




Simon Frost
Guest Contributor





There shouldn’t be a single person reading this short article that isn’t familiar with the term OTT. Since the meteoric rise of video delivered over IP-based networks of another party and famous, internet-based companies that built value-based businesses on the top of those providing internet connectivity, we have become familiar with the term.

Delivering video over IP isn’t new of course. It has been with us for over 15 years and the spectrum of quality, performance and content brands associated with IP video has been broad. What we have referred to as ‘IPTV’ was the service of television that the telecoms industry introduced (with an emulation of cable TV being their starting point). We have also called this managed IP video.

Our vibrant, wonderful media industry is getting increasingly complex to maintain the labels/categorisation and segmentation of focus that we have been using for many years. content owners, broadcasters, pay TV service providers (MVPDs) and internet disruptors are all emulating one another, merging to drive scale and connect powerful content rights with span of video distribution and subscription. None of this is very surprising, because what we see is a fundamental shift of how the most premium, professional video is distributed (non premium video exploded specifically because of the low-cost, simple ability to distribute via the internet).

I would like to make a call for action in 2017 - The OTT term is now outdated

All video in the future will be IP delivered; most of this video will be delivered via the internet rather than by private managed IP networks (we could have a deep discussion on what these terms could really mean, technology and business model and even if the internet is unmanaged or not for video). We will see the erosion of dedicated broadcast technology delivery networks for premium video, as linear TV services migrate into vast pools of on-demand choice and new linear ‘channels’ spring-up delivered solely online. This will take many years of course, but the direction is clear.

INTERNET VIDEO

So, I suggest that for 2017 and beyond we refer to ‘internet video’ as our new term to describe all forms of video over IP. We will in our discussions need to focus on the business models of internet video to understand the types, formats, and how premium it is (in the industry some have talked about YouTube as if it were always fix-it guides and cats on treadmills, spoken of Netflix as always premium entertainment, and Facebook video as social chat. These assumptions are already outdated with a huge merging of types of content across a global race to create the new mass-scale video distribution platforms adopted by consumers. Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram all have launched live video options).

Internet video will still need some sub-segmentation to understand it, but there isn’t a player across the current television business or the new internet giants that isn’t focussing their resources on winning in internet video. RIP OTT – you served us well.

Comment below if you agree, disagree or want to discuss the nuances of video delivery or the evolving business of television.


Thank you for reading. Simon Frost



Simon Frost is an executive industry leader operating in the converging landscapes of Broadcast Television, Internet and Telecoms. He left Ericsson, where he last served as Global Head, Media Marketing & Communications, at the end of 2016 to"find or create something disruptive, new and truly agile as the converging TMT industry really begins its transformation adopting new cloud-centric technologies and consumers migrate to pure IP delivered, cloud hosted experiences." In addition, he is engaged in Media industry consultancy and commentary


This article was originally published on LinkedIn, and is republished here with the author's permission.









2/22: Verizon, AT&T will both be running 5G tests in Jersey




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Verizon Testing Super Fast 5G Internet With Customers in 11 Cities (Fortune)

Nokia, AT&T Test 5G Streaming of DirecTV Now (Multichannel News)

Google Fiber-owned Webpass is bringing its wireless gigabit internet to Denver
(The Verge)


Arris nears deal to acquire Brocade's networking business -sources (Reuters)
In a deal that likely has much to do with the wireless plans of Arris' major cable customers. See my post from last month:
Why Arris might bid on Ruckus Wireless assets? For its own customers, of course

Entercom CEO Field says CBS deal could lead advertisers to 'rediscover' radio (Philly.com)

Gannett to consolidate printing and production facilities in Rockaway Twp. (Asbury Park Press)

Amazon exec joins MLB's video-streaming service as new CEO (CNET)

Why Spark's CEO says 2017 may be a 'historic year' for his gene therapy company (Philadelphia Business Journal)


Urban Outfitters Is Charging $45 for an AOL T-Shirt (Fortune)
Pay for the Yahoo(!) deal?

The 90s called: They want you to reengineer again with Deloitte and SAP (Vinnie Mirchandani / Enterprise Irregulars)




2/21: Comcast’s ‘Tech ETA’ feature goes wide; Probe of China trader shows how Comcast learned DreamWorks was for sale




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Comcast’s ‘Tech ETA’ Feature Goes Wide (Multichannel News)

Probe of China traders shows how Comcast learned DreamWorks was For Sale (Philly Deals)

Tosh in deeper financial doo-doo as banks turn up the pressure (The Register)
Its Westinghouse problem.






Lumos ends fiber spin-out plans, sells to private equity firm EQT Infrastructure for $950M (FierceTelecom)

Following Lumos’ sale, analyst fingers T-Mobile’s possible interest in Zayo (Fierce Telecom)

Google Fiber’s Webpass internet service coming to Seattle, job posting reveals (Geekwire)

Verizon Stock the Cheapest It’s Been in Fifteen Years, Says Moffett Nathanson (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)


Outcome Health snags Salesforce exec (Crain's Chicago Business)
Outcome Health is the former Context Media.


GE’s secret weapon is its training center on Hudson River (Boston Globe)



News from HIMSS 2017 with a local spin

Tom Paine



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Epic to add Geisinger spin-off xG Health Solutions care management content in EHR, population health platform (Healthcare IT News)

Epic's new app program tries to connect EHR networks (Modern Healthcare)

As Rometty prepares to open HIMSS, M.D. Anderson walks away from Watson (Med City News)

Salesforce builds out ecosystem for Health Cloud, adds better patient targeting, risk scoring (ZDNet)

Healthcare model: Choose Netflix over Blockbuster (Med City News)
"Zajac credits Stephen Klasko, the president and CEO of Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, as the person who is talking about the Netflix effect in healthcare."



Expert breaks down the difference between customer service and patient experience (Healthcare IT News)
Christine Holt of Holy Redeemer Health System said that the entire patient experience paradigm must include an emotional connection that produces loyalty.


Cerner IT support: 'We've flipped the model upside-down' (Kansas City Business Journal)









HIMSS17 Sessions to Get Excited About This Year (InstaMed)


From HIMSS 2/20/17 (HISTalk)

CloudMine and Redox Partner to Optimize Seamless and Secure Sharing of Healthcare Data in the Cloud

Dell Boomi Speeds Healthcare Innovation and Digital Transformation with Cloud Integration




With DHA's electronic health records system operational, Bono eyes next steps (Federal Times)

Siemens Healthineers Establishes Global Digital Ecosystem to Drive Digitalization of Healthcare














InstaMed sent a small army:





Things I learned at HIMSS17
(Med City News)



Big data? Not yet. At HIMSS, time moves slowly
(AthenaHealth)







Uncertainty surrounds nation's largest health IT gathering (Modern Healthcare)




Amazon & SAP: The geographical search for domain expertise

Tom Paine



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Amazon North America fulfillment center network 2015 /
MWPVL International (Click to enlarge)



Amazon announced at the beginning of the year plans to add 100,000 employees during 2017.

And these are not only fulfillment jobs. Amazon is geographically diversifying its workforce, not just in its fulfillment centers, but for higher-level development work as well.

It opened an office in Minneapolis in Mid-2016 , initially aiming for 100 employees, focused mostly on ecommerce and logistics, areas where the Twin Cities have a deep pool of talent. A source tells me Amazon plans to get much larger there. The talent pool in Seattle can not grow enough to keep up with its demand for talent.

Last month, Amazon announced a new office in Pittsburgh. It already has has 50 employees working in technical roles on Amazon Web Services and Alexa, and expects to add dozens more over time, NEXTpittsburgh reported.

Also last month, the Boston Globe reported that Amazon was looking for 100,000 to 200,000 square feet in downtown Boston. It already has substantial employment at Kendall Square in Cambridge.

Amazon also has ecommerce staff in New York. And of course it has Amazon Web Services' enormous US East data center operation in Northern Virginia.

Here is a listing of Amazon's fulfillment and distribution centers worldwide.

You can see the concentration around Philly and the Lehigh Valley. And Amazon's Prime Air is running numerous cargo flights out of Lehigh Valley International.

But while it has a scattering of non-fulfillment professionals in the Philly area, there doesn't appear to be any significant functional groups here. But its an intriguing idea.

---------

Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, SAP has been expanding its Pittsburgh operations. SAP will be adding 242 jobs there, along with some jobs in Newtown Square, the company announced along with Governor Wolf in January. It already has 579 employees inside the K&L Gates Center downtown.

While some of its Pittsburgh operations represent general regional functions, its also a major center for SAP's supply chain business.

It acquired Pittsburgh-based SmartOps in 2013, and SAP tells me that the Pittsburgh office will be the largest centralized presence for SAP's major supply chain entity, Ariba, outside of its headquarters in Palo Alto.

In case you haven't noticed, supply chain tech is hot. New technologies (in-memory, Cloud, IoT, AI, maybe even blockchain), are opening up new possibilities, and Amazon and the on demand economy are driving the use cases forward. Old mainframe systems were limiting. Pittsburgh, with its industrial legacy and universities, particularly Carnegie Mellon, has long been a leader in supply chain systems and implementations. Philly has some assets in that area as well.