Saturday Highlights: Report: Uber lags competition in self-driving progress; Princeton prof goes west to start another




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Hulu is said to get NBC cable channels in test of online service (Bloomberg via Sun-Sentinel)
Just testing, no word on any agreement between Hulu and part owner NBC on content.


First Evidence of Fifth-Generation Apple TV and tvOS 11 Possibly Spotted in Developer Logs (MacRumors)


Industry Clouds: An At-Scale Grass Roots Trend Changing IT Life within Sectors (Enterprise Tech)

Uber Sharply Lags Competition in Self-Driving Progress (Fortune)

Meet 'Professor X,' the AI genius who left his lab at Princeton to beat Uber, Google, and Intel at their own game
(Business Outsider)


IBM, Salesforce CEOs attend Trump roundtable with German Chancellor Merkel (The Hill)



3/17: Alarm.com has 5mm subs with Icontrol deal; SAP Updates Vora Query Engine for Better Business Analytics




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Alarm.com Has 5 Million Subs in Wake of Icontrol Deal (Multichannel News)
Also nets multi-year exclusive deal with ADT.

SAP Updates Vora Query Engine for Better Business Analytics (CIO Today)

Analyst: AWS growth could ‘moderate’ as Microsoft and Google see new cloud momentum (GeekWire)

To Compete With AWS, Oracle Will Need More Data Centers (Data Center Frontier)


ModCloth announces it has been bought by Wal-Mart's Jet.com (Pittsburgh Business Times)

Ohio Taxpayers on the Hook as Venture Fund Can't Pay Bondholders
(Bloomberg)





Reports from MuleSoft's IPO: Impact on iPaaS market, including Dell Boomi

Tom Paine



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Business Software Firm MuleSoft Prices IPO Above Range (Fortune)

MuleSoft: Software Upstart Soars 43% in IPO Open (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)

MuleSoft soars 46% on first day of trading ((TechCrunch)

MuleSoft's first day close gives it a market value slightly north of $3 billion.

Hummer Winblad and Morgenthaler Venture Partners were early in and the biggest IRR winners on MuleSoft. At the offering price, Hummer Winblad shares were worth $450 million. That could build a new arena at Princeton.

Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA and SAP-funded Sapphire Ventures were other major holders. Sapphire's 6.8 percent stake is worth about $197 million. Salesforce led MuleSoft's final round

Dell Boomi, the integration play too hot to spin off (yet) (Diginomica)

Dell Boomi CEO: Acquisition Of ManyWho Will Help Partners 'Bring Solutions To Market Very Rapidly' (CRN)

Blackstone Acquires Cloudreach For Access To iPaaS Market (Donavan Jones / Seeking Alpha)
This is curious.



MuleSoft CEO Wants to Build the ‘Salesforce of Software Integration’ (Fortune)



Ring comes to Philadelphia, inheriting Zonoff's former employees

Tom Paine



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Ring is coming to Philadelphia, by inheriting most of the 80 or so employees of Malvern-based Zonoff who where being let go, reports Stacey Higginbotham on her site, STACEY on IoT .

Apparently, Zonoff was attempting to complete a deal in which it would be acquired by Honeywell, but that fell through. Higginbotham says the relationship between Zonoff and its largest strategic investor, ADT, had frayed due to ADT's changing priorities after being taken private by Apollo Group last year.

Ring, based in Santa Monica and known for its ubiquitous doorbell video ads, has raised $209 million, including $109 million in January. Zonoff raised $35.8 million.

Zonoff Founder & CEO Mike Harris is also onboard with Ring, Higginbotham reports, and Ring will be looking for new offices in the Philadelphia area. All Zonoff employees received job offers from Ring.

Ring's sales had been to this point driven primarily by a single product, while building market acceptance for a broader platform, as Zonoff tried to do, proved to be much more difficult.

No word on if or how Zonoff's installed base will be supported. I checked out Zonoff's website and found crickets - no news on this.

There is also the issue of Zonoff's IP assets. Unless other arrangements have been made, those are presumably the investor's to dispose of.

I hadn't realized that First Round was in Ring's Series A ($15.5M Pre-Money Valuation).





Dell Boomi buys SanFrancisco-based startup ManyWho

Tom Paine



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Dell Boomi has acquired San Francisco-based ManyWho, which provides an agile, enterprise-level, cloud-based, application development platform in a low-code environment.

ManyWho "simplifies workflow automation and allows businesses and developers to turn business processes into rich software applications to connect employees, customers and core systems," Dell Boomi said in its press release.

"The acquisition unlocks the ability for businesses to maximize best-of-breed cloud applications, driving efficiency, increasing time to value and building a competitive advantage. With the addition of ManyWho, the Boomi platform provides customers with the enabling technology to address the challenges of Hybrid IT. Now, the platform allows businesses to connect, manage data changes, ensure data quality and re-establish efficient business processes across your IT landscape."

ManyWho was founded in 2013 by Steve Wood and Dave Norris, who sold their previous startup, 'Informavores', to Salesforce in 2009. ManyWho had financial backing from two companies, Salesforce, "personally sponsored by Marc Benioff", and Corvisa, according to a 2015 ManyWho press release. Funding was about $1.3 million, according to CrunchBase.

Boomi says it plans to keep ManyWho’s employees and existing operations, while continuing to invest in additional engineering, channel, marketing, professional services, support and sales capability.




3/16: Walmart subsidiary Jet.com to buy ModCloth for less than $75m




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Top U.S. Pay TV Providers Lost 795K Subs in 2016: LRG (Multichannel News)

Walmart subsidiary Jet.com to buy ModCloth for less than $75m (TechCrunch)

First Round Capital was among the first-in institutional investors in then Pittsburgh-based ModCloth. With exception of Warby Parker, most of its fashion-related investments haven't worked out to well.
Former URBN execs couldn't turn it around or raise more capital. Interesting move by Jet.com's Marc Lore.


A Content Breakdown for Hulu’s JV Partners (CableFax)

Oracle’s Larry Ellison Belittles Amazon and Microsoft (Fortune)

Corporate database containing 33 million employee records leaked online
(TechSpot)
The names were in Dun & Bradsteet's database.


Veeva "deepens partnership with Salesforce"; Open to interpretation?

Tom Paine



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(Some phrases from an earlier version were modified for increased clarity.)


Veeva Systems ( NYSE: VEEV ) built its initial platform, Veeva CRM, on top of Salesforce's Force.com.platform. It has since added several elements to what it calls its 'Commercial Cloud' (encompassing CRM) which are integrated with Veeva CRM. Veeva remains committed both contractually and strategically to Salesforce for a long time, the company assures me. (The current contract actually extends through 2025.)

The other side of Veeva's business, regulatory and clinical, which more than doubled in revenue in the last quarter and may in the not too distant future account for a majority of Veeva revenue, is built upon Veeva Vault, which is a completely proprietary Veeva platform.

There is no publicly known point of contention between Veeva and Salesforce, though the arrangement takes a big bite out of Veeva's margins. Veeva CEO Peter Gassner, who came out of Salesforce, knew the Force.com platform because he had a hand in developing it, and it suited Veeva's original purpose of getting up and running quickly with low fixed investment. It was a brilliant strategy. But the future of the Veeva-Salesforce relationship beyond Commercial Cloud seemed unclear to some outside observers. .

Meanwhile, Salesforce has used Veeva as Exhibit A in portraying the potential for building vertical market solutions on its platform. And Veeva was on the list of Salesforce's potential acquisition targets that was hacked and wikileaked late last year.

Yesterday, under the headline "Veeva Deepens Partnership With Salesforce, Announces New Product Integration ," Veeva announced new integration between Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Veeva CRM, as well as support for Salesforce Service Cloud with Veeva Vault.

Salesforce Chairman and CEO Mark Benioff was quoted as saying, “Veeva has been an outstanding partner over the past decade, and Peter has been an outstanding CEO. Our expanded collaboration is a great next step for our joint customers and we look forward to working with Veeva into the next decade to help move the life sciences industry forward.”


This could mean little, or it could be significant. The variable cost of an incremental SaaS subscription is minimal. I verified today with a Veeva spokesperson that the two Salesforce clouds will not be sold as add-ons to Veeva customers, they will just be available to them, and integrated with the Veeva clouds.

This availability is definitely a benefit to Veeva customers, though its not clear whether this is primarily economic, or ease of use through integration. Its also not clear to me what Salesforce has to gain economically, if it is virtually giving away the life sciences market for two very important clouds. Perhaps this should be seen in the overall context of the dynamics of the Salesforce-Veeva relationship. For Salesforce, it could be a "land and expand' strategy to ultimately position itself to sell other clouds (think Einstein, IoT, Health Cloud) into Life Sciences. But anyway, it leaves the door open for future collaboration between the two cloud companies.

Based in Pleasanton, CA, Veeva has significant market development resources in Radnor, as well as a large customer base in the region.



Veeva Deepens Partnership With Salesforce, Announces New Product Integration





Veeva Deepens Partnership With Salesforce, Announces New Product Integration

Business Wire Business WireMarch 14, 2017
PLEASANTON, Calif. & BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Veeva Systems (VEEV) today announced new integration between Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Veeva CRM, as well as support for Salesforce Service Cloud with Veeva Vault. The companies are building upon their long-standing partnership to help life sciences deliver a more coordinated and consistent experience for healthcare professionals. For the past 10 years, Veeva has been Salesforce’s preferred worldwide CRM provider for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Over this time, the two companies have extended their innovation and leadership positions in cloud and together now have more than 250 joint customers.

“Veeva has been an outstanding partner over the past decade, and Peter has been an outstanding CEO," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO at Salesforce. “Our expanded collaboration is a great next step for our joint customers and we look forward to working with Veeva into the next decade to help move the life sciences industry forward.”

“Salesforce is a cloud pioneer that has transformed how companies connect with their customers,” said Peter Gassner, founder and CEO of Veeva. “We’re excited to build upon our 10-year partnership and, together, help life sciences companies develop deeper relationships with healthcare professionals and create a better customer experience.”

Veeva and Salesforce Deliver More Effective Customer Interactions

Built on the Salesforce Platform, Veeva CRM is core to Veeva Commercial Cloud, which brings together customer data, compliant content, and multichannel engagement for life sciences companies to deliver the experience healthcare professionals have come to expect. The integration of Veeva CRM and Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows information to be shared between the two cloud solutions so that sales and marketing teams can have a complete view of customer engagement.

Marketing activities and data from Salesforce Marketing Cloud are available in Veeva CRM, while all Veeva CRM data and multichannel interactions, including Veeva CRM Approved Email, Veeva CLM, and Veeva CRM Suggestions, flow directly into Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Now life sciences customers that use both cloud solutions can have full visibility into face-to-face and digital interactions so they can deliver a cohesive and consistent experience to healthcare professionals.

Veeva Vault for Compliant Content to Salesforce Service Cloud

Veeva Vault is a unified suite of applications that delivers a single source of truth for regulated content and data across the enterprise. Life sciences companies that use both Veeva Vault and Salesforce Service Cloud can respond to and fulfill customer service requests through Salesforce Service Cloud with approved, compliant content from Veeva Vault.

Healthcare professionals rely on fast, accurate information from pharma and biotech customer service teams. Through the Veeva Vault API, teams can author, search, and access compliant documents without ever leaving Salesforce Service Cloud. Additionally, all doctor interactions are logged so that customer service and support can track progress through analytics tools in Salesforce Service Cloud and Veeva Vault.

Additional Information

For more on Veeva CRM: veeva.com/CRM
For more on Veeva Vault: veeva.com/Vault
Connect with Veeva on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/veeva-systems
Follow @veevasystems on Twitter: twitter.com/veevasystems
Like Veeva on Facebook: facebook.com/veevasystems

About Veeva Systems

Veeva Systems Inc. is a leader in cloud-based software for the global life sciences industry. Committed to innovation, product excellence, and customer success, Veeva has more than 500 customers, ranging from the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs. Veeva is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. For more information, visit veeva.com.

Salesforce, Salesforce Platform and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

Forward-looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements, including the market demand for and acceptance of Veeva’s products and services, the results from use of Veeva’s products and services, and general business conditions, particularly in the life sciences industry. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon Veeva’s historical performance and its current plans, estimates, and expectations, and are not a representation that such plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved. These forward-looking statements represent Veeva’s expectations as of the date of this press announcement. Subsequent events may cause these expectations to change, and Veeva disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Additional risks and uncertainties that could affect Veeva’s financial results are included under the captions, “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” in the company’s filing on Form 10-Q for the period ended October 31, 2016. This is available on the company’s website at veeva.com under the Investors section and on the SEC’s website at sec.gov. Further information on potential risks that could affect actual results will be included in other filings Veeva makes with the SEC from time to time.

® 2017 Veeva Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Veeva and the Veeva logo are trademarks of Veeva Systems Inc.

Veeva Systems Inc. owns other registered and unregistered trademarks.


View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314005568/en/





HIStalk Interviews Bill Marvin, CEO, InstaMed




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This interview the website HISTalk did with Bill Marvin, CEO of Philadelphia-based InstaMed, will probably provide the most insight on what the company is all about and the problems InstaMed is tackling in healthcare payment systems.

Bill Marvin

HIStalk Interviews Bill Marvin, CEO, InstaMed

Founded in 2004, InstaMed has raised $126 million in venture funding, per Crunchbase.




3/15: Larry Ellison talks smack about AWS again; A look at FDA nominee Gottlieb




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FinancialForce Hires Oracle, NetSuite, Veteran as Marketing Chief (Fortune)

Oracle earnings: more licensing declines expected as cloud transition continues (Marketwatch)

Oracle shares pop after earnings beat (CNBC)

Larry Ellison talks smack about AWS again, claims Oracle cloud is faster and cheaper (VentureBeat)

Ellison: "Both our SaaS and PaaS businesses are doing great, but I’m even more excited about our second generation IaaS business. Our new Gen2 IaaS is both faster and lower cost than Amazon Web Services. And now our biggest customers can run their largest and most demanding Oracle database workloads in the Oracle Cloud — something that is absolutely impossible to do in the Amazon Cloud."

Its no wonder Ellison owns an NBA team; he can trashtalk with the best of them.

Mulesoft's upsized IPO likely to be better for tech IPOs than Snapchat's success (Silicon Valley Business Journal)


SAP is now hosting VMs in its cloud. Just don't call it HANA (The Register)

The return of Parker Conrad (Dan Primack / Axios)

San Francisco reveals latest #Resist effort – resisting sub-gigabit internet access (The Register)

A statistical guide to Scott Gottlieb, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FDA (Med City News)


How 'populism' in Europe pushed France's Suez to pay $3.4 billion for Philly's GE Water (Philly.com)

PayPal's Venmo Beats Back Facebook; Next Up: Google (IBD)




3/14: First Round-backed Roblox a hit with kids, raises $92 million; Toshiba mulls selling Westinghouse




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Roblox raises $92 million in funding for its Lego-like virtual game world
(VentureBeat)
Prior funding in San Mateo-based Roblox was led by Altos Ventures and First Round Capital, dating back to 2009, with a total investment of $10.5 million. I noticed it was hot when recently I saw it near the top of the app download list.


Could and should Microsoft buy Citrix? (Mary Jo Foley /ZDNet)

Zenefits founder Parker Conrad takes another crack at HR onboarding (TechCrunch)


Toshiba Mulls Selling Westinghouse, Delays Earnings Report (CIO Today)

Toshiba Mulls Sale of Controlling Stake in Westinghouse Unit (Bloomberg)


Layer3 TV Launches in La La Land (Multichannel News)

Changes coming for 530,000 Time Warner Cable customers in Charlotte (Charlotte Observer)


ADT Reveals 2017 Plans, Protection 1 Integration, Connected Home Opportunities (CE Pro)

Google said it plans to build software platforms allowing mobile operators to run network services in virtualized environments. (RCR Wireless)


Techdirt looks to have lawsuit brought by software developer, represented by Hulk Hogan case lawyer, thrown out (Talking New
Media)