Weekend highlights: Penn Medicine launches a new Center for Digital Health; The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI



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Could blockchain be the fabric that ties existing data siloes together? (Healthcare Informatics)


The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI
(MIT Technology Review)


Penn Medicine launches a new Center for Digital Health (iMedicalApps)


Intel Pulls Out of OpenStack Effort It Founded with Rackspace (Fortune)






Is American Retail at a Historic Tipping Point?
(NY Times)

Somewhat nilistic article; Where will it all end?


Pa.'s ailing nuclear industry looks to Harrisburg for salvation (Philly.com)

Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined (NY Times)


Princeton’s Ad-Blocking Superweapon May Put an End to the Ad-Blocking Arms Race (MotherBoard)



4/14: Uber shows some numbers; NewSpring Capital invests in Bucks County telecom company



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NewSpring Capital invests $14.3M in Bucks County telecom company (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Tiny WYBE-TV gets an offer - $131.5 million - it couldn't refuse (Philly.com)

Uber, Lifting Financial Veil, Says Sales Growth Outpaces Losses (Bloomberg)

Feds Arrest Former Susquehanna International Group Engineer For Theft Of Trading Code (Forbes)


Comcast Wins Spectrum – What's Next? (Light Reading)





Verizon considering topping AT&T's bid for Straight Path: source (Reuters)

Anaplan grows into a platform play – is that enough? (Brian Sommer / Diginomica)

Microsoft, Oracle, NetSuite: Why Some Cloud Deals Are Fake News (Fortune)





DC Sales AI company Afiniti valued at $1.6 billion, files for IPO (VentureBeat)

B2B PAYMENTS IBM Targets Pharmaceuticals With Blockchain Supply Chain Tech (Pymnts)


Comcast Corporation Statement on FCC Broadcast Incentive Auction Results (Press Release)

Business Wire
Comcast Corporation Statement on FCC Broadcast Incentive Auction Results
April 13, 2017 03:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time
PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The FCC today announced the results of the Reverse and Forward auctions of its Broadcast Incentive Auction. Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) participated in both auctions.

In the Reverse Incentive Auction, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations relinquished spectrum in three of its duopoly markets – New York (NBC - WNBC), Philadelphia (Telemundo - WWSI), and Chicago (Telemundo - WSNS) – and received total proceeds of $481.6 million. In each of these markets, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations retained the channel with the superior coverage and sold the second station in order to channel share as provided in the FCC’s rules. Once the three relinquishing stations vacate their spectrum, WNBC will channel share with WNJU, WWSI will channel share with WCAU, and WSNS will channel share with WMAQ.

In the Forward auction, Comcast invested $1.7 billion to acquire spectrum in the markets identified in the FCC’s Public Notice. Comcast cannot comment further on the Forward auction results until the FCC’s anti-collusion quiet period ends.

About Comcast Corporation

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology company with two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation’s largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses. NBCUniversal operates news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures and Universal Parks and Resorts. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

Contacts
Comcast
Jenni Moyer, 215-286-3311
jenni_moyer@comcast.com




SAP Promotes Proven Leaders to Strengthen the Company (Press Release)





SAP Promotes Proven Leaders to Strengthen the Company

PR Newswire PR NewswireApril 13, 2017

WALLDORF, Germany, April 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (SAP) today announced newly expanded responsibilities of key executives. Robert Enslin and Bernd Leukert will shift and expand their portfolios as members of the Executive Board of SAP SE. The Supervisory Board of SAP SE has named Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan to the Executive Board. The moves underscore SAP's commitment to customers' ongoing digital transformation and its effort to foster top talent.


"I am pleased that executives such as Rob, Bernd, Adaire and Jen are stepping into bigger leadership roles to transform the way we drive innovations with our customers," said Hasso Plattner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

In addition, two new leadership assignments were announced for current EMEA President Franck Cohen and SAP Cloud Platform President Bjoern Goerke. Cohen will become chief commercial officer and Goerke chief technology officer.

"We have always considered it a privilege to nurture careers and leaders," said Bill McDermott, CEO and Member of the Executive Board. "SAP is a company focused on innovation, scale and growth. I'm proud of this leadership team and know they are poised to keep SAP on the rise."

The Supervisory Board has asked Enslin, head of Global Customer Operations, to be president of the new Cloud Business Group. He will oversee SAP® Ariba®, SAP Fieldglass®, Concur®, SAP SuccessFactors®, and SAP Hybris® solutions as well as the SMB Solutions Group organization. Leukert, head of Products & Innovation at SAP, will expand his portfolio to accelerate SAP's platform and digital transformation strategy. Enslin and Leukert will jointly lead key growth businesses at SAP, ensuring that development teams and customer-facing teams are in lockstep with one another from the design thinking and innovation process to customer-facing initiatives.

With Enslin's increased focus on cloud businesses at SAP, Fox-Martin and Morgan will ascend to the co-presidency of Global Customer Operations, overseeing all SAP regions and building on their success in the Asia-Pacific-Japan region and North America, respectively. Fox-Martin will oversee EMEA and Greater China. Morgan will oversee the Americas and Asia-Pacific-Japan regions. As chief commercial officer, Cohen will lead SAP's channel business as well as assume responsibility for all sales processes and go-to-market initiatives across SAP. As CTO, Goerke will advance the company's technology strategy and serve as a key external spokesperson.

All changes will be effective May 1, 2017.

Steve Singh, president of Business Networks and Applications, will leave SAP SE at the end of this month. Singh collaborated closely with Enslin, and together they transitioned Concur solutions into the SAP product family. Singh built a strong foundation for business networks at SAP and plans to focus on other entrepreneurial interests outside of SAP.

"Steve Singh's character and entrepreneurial spirit are greatly admired around the world," McDermott said. "When SAP acquired Concur Technologies, we knew Steve would play a significant role in strengthening the SAP cloud portfolio. We also knew he would eventually go back to his start-up roots. We could not be more grateful for everything Steve has done."

Read More

























4/13: Windstream to acquire Broadview Networks; Comcast Gets Unshackled With NBC Deal Curbs Expiring Next Year



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Free TV? Viacom, AMC, Discovery Said Eyeing Online Bundle (Bloomberg)

FCC Could Announce Broadcaster Auction Results on Thursday (Reuters via Fortune)

That's today. Big news could be what Comcast has won.

T-Mobile spends $8 billion for 45% of spectrum at FCC auction (Ars Technica)




T-Mobile wants to paint the country purple, or whatever shade that is.

Comcast will receive $481.6 million from auctioning spectrum it controlled in 3 TV markets; it invested $1.7 billion to acquire spectrum, less than some had anticipated.

Moffett: Comcast Bought Less Spectrum Than Expected (Multichannel News)

Comcast Gets Unshackled With NBC Deal Curbs Expiring Next Year (Bloomberg)

Hulu’s live TV service rumored to cost $39.99 per month (The Verge)



Windstream Strikes a Second Time, to Acquire Broadview (Telecom Ramblings)

Broadview has considerable operations in the Philly area, emanating mostly from its 2006 acquisition of ATX.

goTenna Series B fuels vision to make short-range communication possible anywhere on the planet (TechCrunch)

Penn-related MentorTech Ventures is one of its investors.

Former Flex CEO Wants to Upend the Multi-Trillion Dollar Construction Industry (Fortune)

A new Unicorn, interesting strategy.

NYC’s beleaguered startup scene looks for a win with Yext IPO (VentureBeat)





4/12: CEO Judy Faulkner on Epic Systems; Wireless Won’t Replace Cable, For Now, Says Moffett-Nathanson



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Qualtrics raises pre-IPO round at $2.5 billion valuation (Dan Primack / Axios)

Her way: Epic Systems CEO Judy Faulkner talks about trusting her vision (Journal Times)
Faulkner grew up in New Jersey, and attended Dickinson College in Carlisle before heading to the midwest.


Paul Singer’s son screws up, hits ‘Send’ on email to merger target (NY Post)

Walmart Taps Jet.Com Playbook to Offer Discounts on Order Pick Up (Fortune)

Edge Giants Pitch Pai on Preserving Title II-Based Rules (Multichannel News)

Comcast Versus AT&T: Wireless Won’t Replace Cable, For Now, Says Moffett-Nathanson (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)





Trump Aides Talked to Oracle’s Safra Catz About an Administration Job (Fortune)

Oracle CEO: We Can Beat Amazon and Microsoft Without as Many Data Centers (Fortune)

NextGen Healthcare [ Horsham ] to acquire Entrada for $34 million (DotMed)

Southeastern Pa. medical device company files for bankruptcy (Philadelphia Business Journal)


Philly Parking Authority will kill pay-by-app system as firm mysteriously leaves town (Philly.com)












Anaplan: Who needs a CFO? Or a CEO for that matter


Tom Paine



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From The Information :

"The list of companies considered potential IPO candidates that don’t have CFO hires is long, and includes Tanium, Qualtrics, Cloudflare, Anaplan, Stitch Fix, Illumio, Gusto, Freshdesk and Jam City. Some of the largest private companies like Uber and Slack also have notably still not hired CFOs."



Of course, Anaplan went about a year without a CEO, before bringing on Frank Calderoni as CEO at the beginning of this year. Calderoni was once CFO of Cisco Systems, so perhaps the temporary lack of a CFO doesn't worry him much. But Anaplan is expected to IPO soon, perhaps this year, so arrival of a new CFO should be forthcoming.

Calderoni's brother, Bob Calderoni, who also has a CFO background, is chairman of the board at Anaplan, and was CEO of Ariba when it sold to SAP in 2012, later serving as president of SAP Cloud before leaving the company in 2014. Both Calderonis started out with IBM.

Philly guy and ex-iPipeline President ( also ex-Ariba and SAP) Paul Melchiorre was named Chief Revenue Officer of San Francisco-based Anaplan more than a year ago.

Actually founded in the UK, Anaplan is among a group of new breed cloud-based enterprise performance management platform vendors (Adaptive Insights, Tidemark and Host Analytics among the others) whose products enable enhanced cross-functional, dynamic business planning. It has raised over $200 million, was valued at slightly more than $1 billion in its last round, and achieved over 75 percent annual year-over-year subscription revenue growth and $120 million total revenue in its recently ended FY '17.

SAP is a competitor.

See Anaplan grows into a platform play – is that enough? by Brian Sommer in Diginomica.



4/11: Pennsylvania Issues Revised Ruling on Sales Tax Treatment of Software-Related Services; Altice USA Files IPO Documents



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Risks of New Technology Highlighted by Medication Errors in Pennsylvania Hospitals (Government Technology)

Pennsylvania Issues Revised Ruling on Sales Tax Treatment of Software-Related Services, Creating a Refund Opportunity for Some Taxpayers (Reed Smith LLP)

Altice USA Files IPO Documents
(Multichannel News)

Altice Files IPO Plans That Could Raise $1 Billion, Value At $20 Billion (IBD)


Comcast Cable's technology exec Kotay quits for personal reasons (Philly.com)


Deloitte upgrades to S/4HANA to align global financial processes (Computerworld)

LinkedIn steps closer to CRM as it gives Sales Navigator an enterprise boost (TechCrunch)


From The Information :

"The list of companies considered potential IPO candidates that don’t have CFO hires is long, and includes Tanium, Qualtrics, Cloudflare, Anaplan, Stitch Fix, Illumio, Gusto, Freshdesk and Jam City. Some of the largest private companies like Uber and Slack also have notably still not hired CFOs."

Of course, Anaplan went about a year without a CEO, before bringing on Frank Calderoni as CEO at the beginning of this year. Calderoni was once CFO of Cisco Systems, so perhaps the temporary lack of a CFO doesn't pain him. But Anaplan is expected to IPO soon, perhaps this year, so arrival of a new CFO should be forthcoming.

Calderoni's brother, Bob Calderoni, is chairman of the board at Anaplan, and was CEO of Ariba when it sold to SAP in 2012.

Philly guy and ex-iPipeline President ( also ex-Ariba and SAP) Paul Melchiorre was named Chief Revenue Officer of San Francisco-based Anaplan more than a year ago.

Actually founded in the UK, Anaplan is among a group of new wave cloud-based enterprise performance management platform vendors (Adaptive Insights and Host Analytics among the others) whose products enable enhanced cross-functional, dynamic business planning. It was valued at slightly more than $1 billion in its last round, and said it expected to exceed $100 million in revenue last year. SAP is a competitor.







PACT Announces Phorum 2017 Demo Pit Finalists

PACT Announces Phorum 2017 Demo Pit Finalists

Eleven technology startups set to compete for ‘Phorum Phorward’ Best-In-Show Recognition

Philadelphia, April 10, 2017 – PACT, the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, today announced the finalists for the popular Demo Pit at Phorum 2017, its annual enterprise technology strategy conference. This year, eleven startup companies from the Mid-Atlantic region will demonstrate their cutting-edge technologies and compete for Phorum 2017, Phorum Phorward “Best in Show” award.

51maps
51maps.com
51maps allows organizations easy access to their entire application portfolio to run on consumer devices in a manner that is more secure than locked down PC's behind the firewall, delivering a seamless, native feeling, role-based experience on any device. Its application bus technology securely integrates any application (legacy, custom, cloud, or native) without changing source code allowing employees to pass information between disparate applications. The audit capability allows organizations to gain visibility, down to individual key strokes, around all user activity for the purposes of fraud investigation, productivity improvement, training, time & motion studies and much more.

DivvyCloud
Divvycloud.com
DivvyCloud software enables enterprises to achieve their cloud computing goals by simplifying and automating security, compliance and cost optimization of public and private cloud infrastructure. Using DivvyCloud, customers leverage programmatic Bots to identify and remediate common cloud problems in real time. DivvyCloud was founded by veteran technologists who understand first hand what is necessary to succeed in today’s fast-changing, multi-cloud world.

Fishtown Analytics
Fishtownanalytics.com
Fishtown Analytics is building a modern workflow for data analysts. Its product, dbt (data build tool), helps analysts write modular, high-quality analytic code by borrowing elements of the software development workflow. dbt is open-source, and used in production today by analytics teams at Casper, Seatgeek, Credible and dozens of other companies.

Journey Sales
Jouneysales.com
Journey Sales makes it easier for your customers to buy with Smart Rooms, an Account-Based Selling solution built on Salesforce®. Smart Rooms are private customer experiences built for each account and opportunity, where buying and selling teams can engage, collaborate and build consensus. With Smart Rooms, enterprises create personalized buying experiences for their strategic accounts at scale and
build deeper relationships for improved cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Executives receive deep insight into accounts of who is most engaged and what they are engaging with to predictably close more valuable deals.

Pulse Infoframe
Pulseinfoframe.com
Focusing on rare disease, cancer and patient reported outcomes, Pulse Infoframe, a data insights and precision knowledge company, delivers real-time analytics and visualization to advance knowledge, improve outcomes, generate real-world evidence and accelerate time-to-value. Pulse Infoframe, a 21st Century asset for healthcare, uses its software to capture and aggregate data from multiple sources, making it available to relevant stakeholders and offering numerous benefits including dramatically improved efficiency, productivity and collaboration, which are required for value-based care.

RiskLens
RiskLens
RiskLens empowers large enterprises and government organizations to manage cyber risk from the business perspective by quantifying it in dollars and cents. As the leading provider of risk quantification software, RiskLens enables its customers to understand their cyber risk exposure in financial terms, prioritize their risk mitigations, measure the ROI of their security investments, and optimize their cyber insurance coverage. RiskLens is the only cyber risk quantification software purpose-built on FAIR, the only standard quantitative model for cyber security and operational risk.

TimelinePI
Timelinepi.com
TimelinePI is a SAAS-based analytics and visualization platform that provides a new approach to understanding operational data in the context of its related business processes. Using its patent- pending Timeline Analysis approach to analyze event data, TimelinePI accepts event data from any number of systems and automatically reconstructs the underlying business process logic behind the data. A variety of pre-built analyses to quantify process performance, identify process execution issues and perform root cause analysis are available to users. The TimelinePI platform also supports operational monitoring through its continuous assessment of new event data to determine if any adverse conditions occur and can immediately notify business operations personnel so they can act.

TopBox
topbox.io
Founded by customer experience industry veterans, TopBox was created to fill the void of customer contact analytic solutions that yield truly actionable insights and a clear ROI. TopBox’s cloud-based application analyzes your customer interactions by automatically transcribing, interrogating and categorizing them to reveal the root cause of customer experience, product, sales, marketing and operational problems. With a subscription pricing model, easy installation, unlimited user licenses, and an intuitive user interface, TopBox is unlike anything on the market.

VitalTrax
Vitaltrax.net
VitalTrax is transforming the clinical trial experience for patients, sites and study teams. VitalTrax delivers a complete patient engagement and data collection solution comprising an enterprise web application for study teams and a mobile application for patients. VitalTrax delivers Wing Enterprise, a cloud-based solution for clinical study teams to set up, recruit patients and run trials efficiently and effortlessly. VitalTrax also offers Wing, a mobile application that transforms the patient experience during the trial from the beginning to the end.

Widget Brain
http://widgetbrain.com/
Widget Brain is passionate about creating smart solutions that have a real impact on daily life: algorithms that lower CO2, improve recycling rates, deliver faster, prevent critical failures and decide autonomously. Widget Brain is ambitious in achieving its vision of the future - a connected universe of things, capable of outperforming everything else in the analogue world in terms of superior service, lowest costs, and compatibility with other smart devices. They cover the full digital ecosystem, including smarter cities, smarter factories, and smarter supply chains. Its customers use Widget Brain software to monitor their water pumps to detect leaks, forecast fill rates in waste containers to optimize service routes, and collect usage data to monitor equipment and predict maintenance moments.

Wylei
Wylei.com
Wylei is pioneering the use of AI and Machine Learning to change the way marketers connect with consumers by dynamically assembling content, optimizing each creative, and enabling personalization at scale. With the first predictive video solution on the market, a patented dynamic content assembly engine, and proprietary machine learning technology, Wylei drives dramatic conversion lifts and customer engagement with video, email, web, social, and mobile marketing campaigns
and now Facebook Predictive Ad campaigns. At the same time, our solutions learn for you. Wylei ingests and processes massive amounts of data in real-time, enabling micro, on-demand segmentation and predicts the optimal variation of content, assembles it in real-time and delivers it to the right person, at the right moment. Wylei has partnered with and counts as clients some of the largest companies in the world and proves over and over again the power of AI to achieve the highest marketing ROI.


“Attendees look forward to the Demo Pit competition every year,” said Sean Dowling, Vice President of Osage Partners and a member of the Demo Pit selection committee. “This year’s group of finalists offers a fresh glimpse of companies solving real-world problems. Each year, our pool of participants grows and it makes the selection process even harder. We have a tremendous group for Phorum 2017 and are excited for them to take the stage and share their stories with attendees.”

Phorum 2017 Demo Pit judges include David Drahms, Partner, Osage Venture Partners; Lisa McCann, Principal, Enterprise Shared Services of Information Technology and Security, Vanguard; and Robert J. Moore, Chairman, Stitch. The Demo Pit is sponsored by Osage Partners.

Hosted by PACT and sponsored by Fairmount Partners and LiquidHub, Phorum 2017: Digitizing the Enterprise – The Future is Now, will feature lightning talks and panel discussions by industry analysts, technology visionaries and business executives including Geoffrey Moore, Peter Coffee, Liz Herbert, Mukhtar Ahmed and others.


For the latest details, agenda and other details about Phorum 2017 or to reserve your ticket, please visit PhorumPhilly.com.

About Phorum
Phorum is an annual technology strategy conference that gathers the Nation’s leading minds and most innovative solutions around a single, trending topic. Hosted in Philadelphia, this intensive, one-day event includes insights from the Nation’s most authoritative experts; up-close interaction with relevant technological solutions and learnings from business leaders with first-hand experience capitalizing on what is new. For more on Phorum or to purchase tickets for Phorum 2017, visit www.phorumphilly.com.
About Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT)
PACT’s vision is to be the go-to resource for fast growing companies, and a driver of entrepreneurship and innovation in the Philadelphia region. PACT provides its members with valuable content and connections to capital, coaching, and customers that will accelerate their growth and success, and to collaborate with other organizations to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in the region. www.philadelphiapact.com
Media Contact:
Kevin Jurrens
Broadpath
215 644-6504 kjurrens@broadpathpr.com


eClinical sector remains of high interest to PE: CRF viewed as next target (PE Hub)


Tom Paine



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From PE Hub Buyouts (Subscription)

"The eClinical sector remains of high interest to PE
Vitruvian's CRF (Plymouth Meeting) viewed as next eClinical target of scale to go
Bracket Global (Wayne), ERT (Philadelphia) and BioClinica (Doylestown) all commanded mid-teen multiples of EBITDA."

Bracket Global was just acquired by Genstar Capital.

Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV), with offices in Radnor, is also about to enter the market.




The Westinghouse blame game / CNBC