Don't Believe Everything You Read in Medical Journals

Elsevier Health Sciences, the huge Philadelphia-based publisher of medical journals, is dealing with a little embarrassment right now, at the least.
Apparently, its Austrialian unit published content favorable to Merck, including its controversial Vioxx drug, without revealing that journals publishing those articles were in fact paid for by Merck. The practice, which Elsevier says stopped in 2005, came to light in a court case in Australia involving Vioxx. See AP article here and Elsevier's apology here. The story was first reported by The Australian newspaper; The Scientist reported last week on the full magnitude of the problem.

Daily Links 5/8/09: First Round Capital's "Office Hours" planned for Philly

Liberty Media Reports First Quarter Financial Results (PR Newswire via MSN Money)
QVC revenue down 10%.

E-commerce stocks rebound rapidly, up 36% for 2009 (Internet Retailer)

TicketLeap Goes Anywhere With Online DIY Box Office Solution (TechCrunch)

Calling all Philadelphia Entrepreneurs (Redeye VC)
First Round Capital's "Office Hours" coming to Philly on May 18.

Boomi Wins 2009 CODiE Award for Best On-Demand Platform (Marketwire)

Newtown’s Lockheed Martin secures $1 billion satellite deal (Bucks Local News)

Universal Display Corporation Announces First Quarter 2009 Financial Results (Business Wire)
Behold The Future! OLED Gadgets Arrive (Motley Fool)

Motorola Preps Phone-Enabled TV Remote
Vendor Targets Q4 For Rechargeable Voice Remote For IPTV Set-Tops (Multichannel News)

An interview with Ralph Roberts, Part 2 (Comcast Voices)

MedQuist Reports First Quarter 2009 Results (PR Newswire via MSN Money)

Philly newspapers get 60-day stay from lawsuits (Associated Press via The Legal Intelligencer)



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Earnings Highlights 5/7/09

• Entercom revenues decline 21%: President & CEO says “The best thing that can be said about the first quarter of 2009 is that it is now behind us". (Press Release)

• Checkpoint Systems revenues decline 24.2%; reports small loss. (Press Release)

• Heartland Payments Systems shows growth in transaction volume and revenue (23.4%), though same store sales decline; reports small loss after charge of $12.6 million related to "processing system intrusion". (Press Release)

• Safeguard Scientifics reports 41% revenue growth and small reduction in net loss; Life Sciences segment performs better than IT segment. (Press Release)

• Internet Capital Group reports core company revenue growth of 12% year-over-year; net loss declines 38% excluding hedge charges. (Press Release)

• SunGard revenues up 2.5%; EBITDA down 1%. Press Release

Philadelphia Flyers Rock! - When It Comes To Customer Experience, That Is (ZDNet Blogs)

Reversing course, city won't be providing free election results online (Philadelphia Daily News)
Update: Election results back online (KYW)

Philly's Brian Tierney on Web Future, Federal Aid and Bankruptcy (Editor & Publisher)
Interesting move: Philly.com President Eric Grilly leaves for Comcast. (More)


SAP vs. Oracle: Who’s ahead in the count on the maintenance fee issue? (SAP Watch)

SAP job market: Building a future in an SAP career (SearchSAP.com)

Exclusive: Upcoming Verizon FiOS TV features (Gear Live)

Clearwire now offering WiMAX in Atlanta (MuniWireless)
Could Philly be next?



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Daily Links 5/6/09: SAP Buys Highdeal, TruePosition Awarded More Damages

SAP buys Highdeal for its pricing and rating software (Computerworld)
SAP Wins Race to Buy Highdeal (Light Reading)

InterDigital Announces First Quarter 2009 Financial Results
Strong Revenue, Profitability and Free Cash Flow Excluding Repositioning Charge (Business Wire)

Cloud software matures as economy boosts allure (Reuters)

TruePosition Wins $20 Million in Additional Damages in Patent Infringement Case Against Andrew Corporation (Business Wire)

TicketLeap Anywhere Launches Today - Check out the Demo Video! (TicketLeap Blog)

Senator Calls for New Net Neutrality Rules (PC World)

Bio-Imaging Technologies, Inc. d/b/a BioClinica™ Announces First Quarter 2009 Financial Results (Business Wire)

Bio-Imaging Technologies bids for growth with acquisition of etrials (Philly.com: Philly Inc)

DailyCandy's Levy: CEO's Exit Won't Stop Growth (Media Bistro: Fishbowl NY)

Wawa picks new provider as SAP turns some managed hosting over to partners (SearchSAP.com)

Post-breach, Heartland plans aggressive encryption project
Heartland to use end-to-end encryption to ward off cyber-crooks (Network World)

Sestak: Specter's not a reliable Democrat (Politico: The Scorecard)

Startup software company wins Smeal's entrepreneurship competition
(Penn State Live)

Army gets TerraSight license from Sarnoff (NJBIZ.com)



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Daily Links 5/5/09: Sanovia Raises $8 Million in Venture Funding

Sanovia Raises $8 Million in Venture Funding Led by Chrysalis Ventures (Business Wire)

Bio-Imaging Technologies to Acquire etrials Worldwide
(Business Wire)

SAP makes Business Suite 7 available — should you upgrade? (SAP Watch)
SAP's Revenge
When Oracle says ''best of breed,'' think integration headache. (Forbes)


SAP-IBM's Alloy application pushed to BlackBerry (Computerworld)


Spring – Hyperic - the future of Internet Infrastructure (Bickel Blog)

Startup of the Day - ColdLight (Microsoft Startup Zone)

Comcast's Project Cavalry: The March of 28 Million DTAs (Multichannel News)

Lockheed Martin Develops Platform to Improve Precision of Software Models (PR Newswire)

Synygy Announces Best Quarterly Performance in 18-Year History
Contract Wins, Expansions, and Renewals Add Up to Record Profit (Business Wire)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Announces New $125 Million Revolving Credit Facility (Business Wire)

VINtek prospers during difficult times for auto dealers and lenders (Philly.com: Philly Inc)

Report: Apple in Talks to Buy Twitter (Digital Media News)
Not sure if I buy this yet, although Apple certainly has cash to burn. It just seems, well, so unApple.

Microsoft BI Team Gears Up for 2010 (Intelligent Enterprise)

DSL Extreme Launches Rebranded FiOS
'Fiber Extreme' now available across Verizon's footprint.. (Broadband Reports)

Social Media Blurs Lines Between Advertiser and Publisher (Health Content Advisors)

As demand for online services grows, libraries look to stimulus cash to boost Internet speeds (Allentown Morning Call)



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Youth and veteran groups protest virtual army centers (ars technica)


Local Planet Completes Seed Round Funding
Philadelphia Start-Up to Help Families Make Better Purchasing and Ownership Decisions (Marketwire)

Waste Management: Dropping SAP Took Toll on Earnings (PC World)

Oracle aims at Microsoft with upgraded Beehive collaboration (IDG via Reuters)

Why Comcast Has To Worry About Hulu (Silicon Alley Insider)

Liberty splits off DirecTV into new larger unit (Reuters)

Technitrol Reports Q109 Results, Board Declares Dividend (Business Wire)

Heartland Payment Systems' PCI Compliance Is Reinstated (Dark Reading)

Rohm and Haas’ Phila. HQ building for sale (Philadelphia Business Journal)

GSI Commerce and Bath & Body Works Extend E-Commerce Agreement to 2015 (PR Newswire)

Agilence to Provide Effective Loss Prevention Solution for Retailers Through Integration with Axis Network Video Products (Business Wire)

Money for health information technology (WHYY)

CenTrak Introduces World's Thinnest Active RFID Tag (PR Web)



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Philly Tech Events

New AGI leader focuses on growth (Daily Local News)

Losses at Unisys run into Q1
Japan stalls mainframe deals (The Register)

Quarterly Shipment Numbers: Q1 2009 (Media Experiences 2 Go)

Flaw found in electronic voting machines
Deleted votes don't register on audit logs and could go uncounted (Allentown Morning Call)

Auditor general raises Rendell's hackles (Philadelphia Inquirer)



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People News 5/3/09

Sujit Banerjee Joins Element Partners
(PE Hub)

David R. King to Receive MAC Alliance Entrepreneurial Award
Raymond Rafferty Entrepreneurial Excellence Award to Be Presented at Annual Awards Luncheon (Business Wire)

ExpertPlan Hires John Farmakis as EVP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development (PR Web)

WorldGate Builds for Growth with Announcement of New Senior Management and New Board Member (Business Wire)

MTI Committed to Maximizing Program Efficiencies
Dora Hauptman Hired as Director, Project Management (Marketwire)

Michael J. Donahue Joins LiquidHub Board of Directors (Business Wire)

LiquidHub Adds to Board of Advisors (Business Wire)

Emtec Hires New Director of Pursuit Management for Systems Division (Business Wire)

Codima Inc. Expands North American Sales Operations – With Executive Appointments and Launch of Regional Offices (Business Wire)

Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center Approves Technical Advisory Chair, Hires Project Manager (PR Newswire)

Rosetta Gyimesi joined QVC as Vice President of Application Services. Previously, she was VP and senior information officer at financial-services firm AIG.



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Study: Philly Lags in Entrepreneurial Spirit?

The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch reports on a Kauffman Foundation study of entrepreneurial activity in the US, that shows Philadelphia lagging way behind among the top 15 metro areas in the country (see Table 11) in terms of the percentage of the adult population starting new businesses.
I'm not sure what this all means; of course, the data includes anything from a home repair business to a one person consulting shop so it is not really a measure of high tech activity. And Seattle and Boston, two areas I would think rank pretty highly, are 14th and tied for 12th respectively in the Kauffman study.