MobileMD Raises $4.75 million

PE Hub reports that MobileMD of Warminster has raised $4.75 million in a VC funding round led by Health Enterprise Partners of New York.

MobileMD provides Health Information Exchange solutions for medical organizations such as South Jersey Healthcare and Main Line Health.



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Daily Links 11/12/09: iPipeline raises another $15 million

Comcast testing WiMAX femtocells (FierceWireless)

FCC conditions on Comcast-NBC could hurt synergy (Reuters)

Comcast to Bring TV Everywhere in December (Media Experiences 2 Go: Motorola Blog)

Vivendi: No comment on NBC Universal stake (MarketWatch)

The Philadelphia Inquirer writes that Exton's iPipeline will announce tommorrow that it has raised $15 million from NewSpring Capital and Fidelity Ventures, primarily to fund further acquisitions. iPipeline is also hiring, Joe Distefano reports.
Press Release

The Insanely Rich Young Mobile Ad Broker You've Never Heard Of (Gawker)
Omar Hamoui founded Google acquisition AdMob while at Wharton.

Urban Outfitters Reports Record Earnings in Q3 (Globe Newswire via CNN Money)
Same store sales up 2%.

SAP Tells Oracle To Free Java But Keeps Own Software Closed (Information Week: Global CIO)

SAP shows off enterprise ‘augmented reality’ (IT Pro)

QVC expects 50 percent of sales coming from online by 2014 (Philly.com: Philly Inc)

Synygy Announces Positive Q3 Results with Profit Increasing 54 Percent over Prior Year (Business Wire)

EMS Formation Boosts Capacity and Performance of ToughDisk® 3500 SATA Rugged Hard Disk to Meet Growing Mass Storage Demands (Business Wire)

Unilever Awards Unisys an Outsourcing Contract to Provide End-User Services to a Multi-Regional Workforce (Business Wire)

SunGard Prospects To Try Apps on Dell Gear in New Test Center (Campus Technology)




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Vivendi may have something to say about NBC-U stake tommorrow

Vivendi may announce NBCU intentions (Philadelphia Inquirer)


WSJ: Motorola seeking buyer for Horsham set-top box business

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Motorola is seriously seeking buyers for its set-top box business, based in Horsham. This
is not a surprise, since such a move was generally thought to be part of Motorola's strategic plan; it just indicates that they
may be getting close to evaluating actual bids. Private Equity buyers including TPG, which last week announced an agreement
to purchase IMS Health, and equipment manufacturers such as Samsung are considered possible acquirers. The business has
an estimated value of $4.5 billion. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc are advising Motorola.


Goodbye Moto? (Multichannel News)

Motorola: Here’s an Idea: Let’s Sell Off Our Most Profitable Division (All Things Digital: Digital Daily)



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Daily Links 11/11/09: SAP fires back at WSJ, Oracle

Zucker to head new NBCU-Comcast venture -- sources (Reuters)
Jeff Zucker Inexplicably To Lead Comcast/NBC Venture (Silicon Alley Insider)

SAP Statement on The Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece About Oracle-Sun Deal (PR
Newswire)

Spotlight turns to SAP in Oracle, Sun debacle
German software maker 'disappointed' letter to Oracle CEO leaked to press
(Marketwatch

Ma Bell's wake-up call: Deals among Net calling firms may sap big telcos' revenue (Daily Finance)

Supremes wrestle with business method, software patents (ars technica)


InfoLogix Announces Receipt of NASDAQ Waiver for Stockholder Approval of Restructuring and Extension to Stockholder's Equity Requirement (PR Newswire)


Judge denies Heartland restraining order request
(Associated Press via Google News)

Dearth of dollars adds to challenges for technology startup companies (Technology Times)

Reed Elsevier’s Surprise CEO Departure (Wall Strret Journal: MarketBeat)

Astea Reports Third Quarter 2009 Results (PR Newswire)

C64 emulator back on the App Store (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

What is BarCamp Philly? (Philly2Philly.com)

Tech Collaborative plans to award $1.5M in commercialization funding (Pittsburgh Business Times)

Fighting the five-finger discount
No time to wade through security-camera footage? Help is at hand.
(Fortune Small Business)
On Agilence of Camden.

TimeSight Systems(TM) Receives $1M in New Jersey Economic Development Funding to Continue Innovation in Security and Surveillance
(PR Newswire)






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Report: Google Buys VoIP Startup

Google Buys VOIP Startup Gizmo5 -- Report (Silicon Alley Insider)

Google is now full VoIP provider with purchase of Gizmo5 (Computerworld Blogs)


Philly Area Companies battle for Business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Market

You can credit companies such as Vonage and Comcast for popularizing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for residential services. On the business services side, a number of companies are positioning themselves for growth in this market. Although VoIP has been present in many larger enterprises for some time, its adoption in SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) has been occurring more recently. Smaller local firms such as Alteva, Evolve IP, and CoreDial are making major inroads, but they will be facing growing competition from larger players such as Comcast, Verizon and Paetec.

Infonetics Research says the worldwide VoIP market reached about $21 billion in the first half of 2009. While the majority of that comes from residential services, Infonetics says that the hottest spot in the market is for hosted VoIP services for smaller businesses. VoIP can provide better voice quality at lower costs, with greater customization and a gateway towards "unified communications". Hosted VoIP services are analogous to Software as a Service (SaaS) or perhaps Cloud Computing, as it eliminates much of the upfront capital outlay and on-premise maintenance on the customer's part and results in greater use of shared resources

Hosted VoIP services provider Alteva, based in Philadelphia, was founded in 2003 by Bill Bumbernick (who also had time to get elected to the East Greenwich NJ town committee last week) and has been profitable since 2006 with minimal outside investment. Alteva's primary service area is the Mid-Atlantic region (they have plans for offices in Baltimore and Wilmington), but it also provides nationwide service to some customers. Alteva targets the SME market (primarily 50 to 500 employees, but some up to 5,000) and currently has more than 40 employees, Bumbernick says. Although Alteva won't release revenue figures, VP of Sales Louis Hayner told Network World in July that sales were 45% higher than 2008 over the first half of the year, after averaging 66% growth over the past three years. Alteva considers its proprietary software and API (application programming interface) to be one of its key competitive assets.

Other significant hosted VoIP providers in the Philadelphia area include Evolve IP of Wayne, which raised $15.6 million in VC funding in early 2008, and CoreDial of Plymouth Meeting, which has received funding from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania and was just ranked as the tenth fastest growing company on the Philly 100.

Generally speaking, the larger competitors own and provide more of the actual networks, while the smaller companies own less of their own networks but specialize in providing installation, services, and software that helps customers configure and manage their telecom services. Some larger telecoms may continue to focus primarily on wholesaling their network services, while others may move closer to providing full solutions to smaller customers.

Comcast, already the largest provider of residential VoIP services, has established a Business Services division with an $850 million annual run rate. In its most significant recent move in the business services market, it acquired Chicago-area CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) Cimco, which will considerably strengthen Comcast's ability to provide solutions to larger mid-sized businesses with up to 250 employee, according to Cable Digital News. Originally, Comcast served businesses mostly in the 1-20 employee range. M & A activity in the CLEC space is high now, and it wouldn't be surprising to see Comcast make moves in other metro markets it currently serves.

Another factor impacting the industry's future is "Unified Communications", which was once a rather vague concept but is becoming more defined as offerings from Microsoft, Cisco and Google (Google Voice and Google Wave) come to market. Unified Communications attempts to provide users with a common platform and user interface for integrating multiple modes of communications. Alteva is working with Microsoft's new offerings; while these companies may be viewed as collaborators now, at some point they may become powerful competitors.

The state of the VoIP business services industry today is similar to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business in the mid 1990's. The current emphasis on firms that are locally or regionally focused will shift towards providing a more national footprint to achieve both network economies of scale and standardization of software systems. That shift is going to start happening quickly through M & A, expansion and alliances. However, as this business evolves, the quality of the services and software may be more important than the size of one's network.




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Philly Tech Events Calendar



Clearwire to get $1.5 billion investment

The Wall Street Journal reports that Clearwire, the WiMax network venture that just launched in Philly, will receive another $1.5
billion in capital, two thirds coming from Sprint, the other third coming from its other partners including Comcast. Google will
not participate in this round, the Journal says. Clearwire has not had an easy time finding new investors to help it raise the capital it needs to complete its natonwide buildout, reports have suggested.




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