Daily Links 8/30/2010: The World of Comcast

Online video key to Disney, Time Warner Cable row (Reuters)

Google in talks with major studios to rent movies via YouTube (Ars Technica)

The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway (TechCrunch)

DOJ Investigating Internet Video Antitrust Issues
Above and beyond Comcast/NBC impact on Hulu (Broadband Reports)

Cable Bills Rise as Economy Forces People to Stay on the Couch
(Bloomberg)


Comcast pushes for business services (Denver Business Journal)

Clearwire Launches Rover Prepaid Brand (PC World)
Clearwire Press Release

UnitedHealth Races McKesson in $11 Billion Tech Hunt (Bloomberg Business Week)
Mentions Portico Systems of Blue Bell as a potential acquisition target.

Interview with Gabriel Weinberg (This Week in Startups)

Interview with Philly-area resident Gabriel Weinberg, founder of search engine Duck Duck Go.

First Look: eLocity’s Android Tablet Makes Great Media Player (Wired: Gadget Lab)


EM Photonics and University of Delaware Team Up To Develop Advanced Algorithms on Multi-GPU Cluster for Air Force (PR Web)

Two Iconic Philly Images

My brother Rob recently was visiting Philadelphia and took this cool photo of the new Apple Store with Two Liberty Place (I believe that's Two Liberty; I sometimes get them mixed up) in the background:

(Photo by Rob Paine)

Philly Tech People News: 8/29/2010

QVC appoints a vice president for e-commerce and e-marketing
Alex Miller joined the retailer in 2001. (Internet Retailer)

iMANY Names Vice President of Global Sales
Jerry Schorn Hired to Lead Sales Organization (Marketwire)

Innovative Solutions & Support appoints Ronald Albrecht as CFO (Business Wire)

Growing Energy Efficiency Firm Expands Market With Philadelphia Office
Performance Systems Development welcomes a new member to its executive team – Pauline Warren, Vice President of Enterprise Sales. (I-Newswire)

Kembrel Scores Industry First with Launch of Facebook Private Sales Store for College Students (PR Web)
Company started at Wharton.

StreamTV Elocity A7 tablet packs Tegra 2 and Android 2.2, coming to Amazon for $399 in September (Engadget)
Engadget gets a look at Philly startup's new tablet.

Jeff Shell Wants a Job -- But at Tribune, or Comcast? (The Wrap)

Clearwire to Launch Pre-Paid WiMAX Service (GigaOM)

Daily Links 8/27/2010: Mid-Atlantic Angel Group raises $4.8M fund

Mid-Atlantic Angel Group raises $4.8M in 2nd fund (Philadelphia
Business Journal)

Economists to Meet at FCC About Comcast/NBCU
ACA, Bloomberg, Comcast among those to be represented at Friday meeting (Broadcasting & Cable)

Report: Pharma Digital Spending Growing — But Slowly
(Wall Street Journal: Health Blog)

5 Myths About Philadelphia’s ‘Blogging Tax’ (Wired Blogs: Epicenter)

Investor group proposes WPCS merger (Philadelphia Inquirer)

GSI Commerce: Citi Starts Coverage With Buy Rating, $29 Tgt (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

InfoLogix Positioned for Strategic Initiatives in Second Half of 2010 (PR Newswire)

The Current Competitive M&A Climate (Safeguard Scientifics Blog)

SCVNGR Brings Location Game to Facebook Places (Mashable)
SCVNGR, based in Massachusetts, is a graduate of the DreamIt Ventures program.

LifeShield Security announces technology expansions (SecurityInfoWatch.com)




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Comcast Targets Philly With SDV (Light Reading Cable)

Tribune Co. creditors court Michael Eisner and Jeff Shell for top jobs (LA Times: Company Town)
Shell, a high-level Comcast programming exec, would reportedly become Tribune's CEO if such a deal occurred.

Cisco Makes 'TV Everywhere' Play With Plans To Buy ExtendMedia
Customers of 52-Employee Startup Include AT&T, Bell Canada, Cablevision (Multichannel
News)
ExtendMedia competes with Comcast's thePlatform in many ways.

Clearwire Considering New Prepaid Options?
Announces cryptic plans to serve new consumer segment (Broadband Reports)

Gartner criticizes SAP for frequent product name changes (SearchSAP.com)

Rumored SAP-Red Hat Merger Seen as a Long Shot (PC World)

Freshly-founded startup GroupMe raises $850k to bring group chat to mobile (VentureBeat)
First Round Capital invests in New York startup.

Daily Links 8/25/2010: Marin County to ditch SAP system

Safeguard CEO Sees IPO Candidates Emerge (TheStreet.com)

County will rip and replace ailing SAP system (IDG via Reuters)

Bringing SAP’s customer network down to earth (SAP Watch)

FCC chief says he's still firmly for net neutrality
The battle for Internet service equality faces opposition, but FCC chairman is pushing ahead. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Verizon Trimmed Investment By $2 Billion In 2010 (Broadband Reports)

Micro Strategies Opens Pennsylvania Office and Technology Solution Center
IT solutions provider expands reach into Delaware Valley and doubles demo facilities (PR Newswire)

State grant helps Bethlehem tech group expand
Ben Franklin Technology Partners has $17 million project underway (Allentown Morning Call)

Health care 'gold rush' (phillyBurbs.com)

Docsis 3.0 Enters the Gateway Era (Light Reading Cable)

Analyst: Heart monitoring now, DM tools later (Mobile Health News)

Qualcomm, AT&T Move in on 'M-Health' (Business Week)

SEPTA smart-card proposal panned by passenger advocates (Philadelphia Inquirer)





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Philly companies in 2010 Inc. 5000

Here are the top Philly-area firms on the newly released 2010 Inc. 5000. The fastest growing area company, according to Inc., is King of Prussia's NextDocs, which builds applications for the Life Sciences industry using Microsoft's SharePoint software.

Batter up: "pitching" at Maryland TechCrawl East (Baltimore Sun: BaltTech)

SCVNGR, Battling Foursquare and Others, Looks to Stay “On Top of the World” After Facebook Fallout (Xconomy Boston)
Based in Massachusetts, SCVNGR is a graduate of Philly's DreamIt Ventures program.

Comcast Outlines Program Access Philosophy To Regulators
Assures FCC, DOJ that carriage of owned networks is not a condition (Broadcasting & Cable)

Apple Said to Prepare New 99-Cent TV Show Rental Service (Bloomberg)

Comcast pushes play on AnyRoom DVR in Boston (CED Magazine)

Cable companies make comparison shopping ridiculously tough (LA Times)

Pennsylvania Broadband Summit to Feature National Experts in Broadband Deployment (PR Newswire)

Reed Smith asks Pa. Supreme Court to reconsider "Dechert LLP v. Commonwealth" software tax ruling

Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith announced last week that it had filed an Application for Reargument with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking it to reconsider its July decision in the case of Dechert LLP v. Commonwealth, in which it held that "purchases of licenses to use canned computer software, however delivered (my bold), are subject to sales tax", according to Reed Smith. It upholds the application of the sales tax in this case to "electronically delivered" canned software. Whether this would include software as a service delivered via "the Cloud" is not clear. The best summary of the case that I have seen is this one by Pepper Hamilton.

Reed Smith says that the Department of Revenue's interpretation of the tax code implemented in 1971 has been that canned computer programs delivered on physical media (such as disk) are subject to sales tax and software delivered electronically is not. The firm says the Court is ignoring "long-standing, published interpretations of the tax statute".
Obviously, as the delivery of more and more software shifts towards the Cloud this will become an increasingly contentious issue in many other states as well as Pennsylvania.

Reed Smith was representing Phiily-based law firm Dechert.




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