Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (1/23/2012 to 1/29/2012)

I interviewed Joseph Budner Elad, founder of Quantum Leap Innovations of Newark, Delaware, on the launch of its new software, twitter analytics tool Quantum Leap Buzz.

An Italian firm, Datalogic S.p.A., completed the acquisition of Telford, PA-based Accu-Sort from Danaher Corp. for $135 million. Datalogic says the acquisition will enable it to double its leading market share in the industrial stationary scanners segment.

New Jersey Tech Weekly's Esther Surden contributed an article on Susquehanna Growth Equity's $35 million minority investment in Hazlet, NJ-based human resources software as a service (SaaS) provider iCIMS.

The merger of Datatel and Malvern-based SunGard Higher Education closed. The combined company, temporarily named Datatel+SGHE, will be based in Northern Virginia. Datatel+SGHE subsequently said that "less than 40" existing employees would be eliminated at the present time.

Newtown-based EPAM Systems launched an IPO seeking to raise as much as $133 million. EPAM provides system development services using personnel mostly located in Eastern and Central Europe.

King of Prussia-based InterDigital announced it was ending its effort to auction off its entire patent portfolio, though it still may sell off pieces of it in the coming months. Bids that came in were not for the entire portfolio and didn't meet InterDigital's expectations.

Hot off the momentum SAP AG reported in its quarterly results for its HANA platform, the company continued to make bold predictions for it, restating a goal of challenging or even upending Oracle in the database software market, and also revealing that it intends to have ERP running on Hana by Q4 of this year.

A story in the New York Post suggested that Phildelphia Media Network, owner of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, is on the block again for $100 million, and that Randy Smith’s Alden Global, which has a reported 30% stake and has made large investments in other distressed newspaper properties, is on the sellers' side.

And the Phillie Phanatic made a cameo on 30 Rock, which included a speaking role (well, sort of) that presumably will result in higher compensation. Which is good, because I think the Phillies give him only peanuts and beer.



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Daily Links 1/31/2012: Facebook reported ready to file for IPO in morning

Alden Global maneuver sets off speculation about Philly newspapers (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Facebook to file for $5 billion IPO: IFR (Reuters)

Amazon’s Sales Miss Estimates, Profit Drops 57% (Bloomberg)


Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011 (ReadWriteWeb)

Dell plans to expand Silicon Valley staff as it looks to innovate (Dow Jones via Total Telecom)

Unisys Announces Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2011 Financial Results; Third Consecutive Year of Profitability and Positive Free Cash Flow (PR Newswire)

Infor Revamps Support Services, Heightens Competition Against SAP, Oracle (CIO.com)

SAP 2011 Earnings Call with Bill McDermott (You Tube)

Internet Essentials Progress Report (Comcast Voices|Official Comcast Blog)
Enhancements in response to criticisms of program's shortcomings?

Music Choice Rebrands As 'MC'
New Logo, Brand Strategy to Span Linear, VOD and Online Properties (Multichannel News)

Comcast snags another customer for its Metro Ethernet service (Communications, Engineering & Design Magazine)
Widener University.

Panasonic Exits US Cable Set-Top Biz (Light Reading Cable)

PSC, Drexel Light Up Cross-State Optical Link (HPC Wire)

Mobile SharePoint: Infragistics Acquires SouthLabs for End-to-End iPad, Android & Blackberry SharePoint Experience (Infragistics Blog)

Multiband calls off WPCS acquisition (Philadelphia Inquirer)



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Daily Links 1/30/2012: No word on report that Philly papers are for sale

BOSSES AT PHILLY PAPERS SILENT ON NY POST REPORT (JimRomenesko.com)

SAP may license HANA to Oracle in future: co-CEO (Reuters)

SAP: avoid wearing The Wrong Trousers (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

The Entrepreneur Give-and-Take (Wharton Magazine)

Pep Boys Enters Into Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by The Gores Group (Press Release)

Pennsylvania PSERS’ Cautious Approach To Venture Is Bringing Mixed IRRs: Slideshow (PE Hub)

Monetate Nearly Triples Revenue in 2011 (PR Web)

Filling in the gaps as Big Pharma downsizes
Bucks software firm manages drug-trial data. And it's hiring. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Deals website Choozon with Yahoo! veterans raises over $1M (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Comcast reveals social TV strategy that rewards subscribers in patent application (FierceCable)

#visitUS: Help Curate a Philly Foursquare List, Get Philly a City Badge (Geekadelphia)




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Philly Tech People News 1/29/2012

Comcast Names Amy Lynch as Area Vice President of Comcast California's Southwest Bay Area (PR Newswire)

Charytan to Head New Comcast Legal/Regulatory Group
Will serve as a legal and regulatory advocacy umbrella over Comcast/NBCU (Broadcasting & Cable)

NBC Taps Chuck LaBella as VP of Talent Development, Alternative Programming (Broadcasting & Cable)

HighPoint Solutions Announces New ERP Solution Director
Dinesh Shah Joins HighPoint to Lead ERP Practice (PR Web)

We have new GARFIELD GROUPies. Announcing our newest hires. (Garfield Group Blog)

Acsis, Inc. Appoints Paul Allen to Board of Directors (Business Wire)
No, not that Paul Allen.

Wilson Legal Solutions Appoints Shishir Shetty as Senior Director of 3E Client Services (PR Newswire)

Comcast CEO looking to expand global reach (Bob Fernandez/Philadelphia Inquirer)

Hedger pausing on print (New York Post)
Sounds like Philadelphia Media Network may be on the block, again.

Phillies Phanatic appearance on 30 Rock

Wall Street Reflects on Comcast-NBCUniversal Ahead of Deal’s First Anniversary (Hollywood Reporter)

If You're Waiting on FiOS, You Could Be Waiting a While
30% of Verizon Customers May Wait Years for Upgrades (Broadband Reports)

$35 Million Investment in iCIMS Means More Monmouth County Jobs: Minority investment made by Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna Growth Equity

Esther Surden


Hazlet-based iCIMS received a $35 million minority investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) last month. The company, which provides human resources software as a service (SaaS), says it sees tremendous growth in the small and medium business market and will use the investment to address that market.


According to Susan Vitale, chief strategic officer, iCIMS plans to use some of the investment to hire in New Jersey. The company now has about 200 employees across its operations, with approximately 140 in N.J. By the end of 2012 it expects to add 85 more positions, 75 percent of them in N.J., Vitale said. The firm is looking to add software engineers and marketing and product management personnel.

Vitale said company headquarters will remain in Monmouth County, although "I can't commit 100 percent to staying in Hazlet, because we are bursting at the seams", she noted. Much of the company's talent pool consists of New York commuters tired of traveling to the city. "iCIMS does a lot of college recruiting as well. We do a really good job of bringing in young, hungry talent from Monmouth County who may have gone to school elsewhere … We have a great corporate culture,” which makes iCIMS competitive for software engineers, she added.

iCIMS experienced explosive growth in 2011, adding an average of one new customer every business day, Vitale said. The firm was included in the Inc. 500|5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies for the sixth consecutive year. Profitable and privately held since 2003, iCIMS had been pouring money back into its operations. “There is a huge opportunity right now. Ours is an $11.1 billion dollar industry, and among small- and medium-sized businesses there is a lot of greenfield [opportunity] out there in terms of folks who do not yet have a system. We felt this was the right time to approach the market aggressively,” Vitale said.

Colin Day, iCIMS president and CEO, said while the company could have achieved growth on its own, the investment “will help us dramatically accelerate our aggressive expansion plans. We look forward to offering deeper and broader services and support to our users.”

SGE's Scott Feldman, Amir Goldman and Jonathan Klahr will join the iCIMS board of directors. All three currently serve on the boards of multiple software companies. iCIMS was represented in the transaction by Raymond James & Associates.

(Editor's note: iCIMS reported 2010 revenue of $25.6 million, according to its listing in Inc. Magazine's 2011 Inc.500/5000 issue.)


Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of   New Jersey Tech Weekly , and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in New Jersey Tech Weekly.



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Daily Links 1/27/2012: Datatel says 'fewer than 40' cuts after SunGard HE deal closes

Datatel cuts 'fewer than 40' after deal with SunGard Higher Ed closes (Washington Business Journal)

Motorola Mobility's Cable Sales Fall 11% In Q4
Set-Top Shipments Down 3% in Fourth Quarter But Up 6% for Full-Year 2011 (Multichannel News)

Like Sports On Cable? Pay Up. Don’t Like Sports On Cable? Pay Up, Anyway (Peter Kafka/All Things D)

Comcast's Split-Personality Problem (Jonathan Takiff/Philadelphia Daily News)

SAP Takes On Oracle Database, Salesforce Cloud
(Information Week)

SAP Extends Offer For SuccessFactors While Government Entity Investigates (CRN)

Ametek Q4 beats Street, sees strong 2012 (Reuters)
Also acquires O'Brien for about $175 million from Industrial Growth Partners.


Investors bet $16 million on growth in application delivery market (Computerworld)
On Kemp Technologies, New York-based firm in which Edison Ventures just led $16 million round.

The Neat Company Is Putting Paperless in the Cloud [Macworld / iWorld 2012] (Cult of Mac)
Neat's soon to be launched Cloud services may open new opportunities for it.

More Venture Capital Dollars Flow To Health IT (Information Week)

FiOS Being Installed in East Mt. Airy (Mt. Airy Patch)


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Italian firm completes purchase of Telford-based Accu-Sort from Danaher for $135 million

Tom Paine


Telford (Montgomery County) based Accu-Sort has been acquired by Datalogic S.p.A. of Italy from DC-based Danaher Corp. for $135 million. The deal, which was originally announced in November, closed on January 20.

Accu-Sort provides Auto ID Systems for the Material Handling Industry, including barcode systems, dimensioning systems, label print and apply systems, and sortation systems. It employs approximately 250 people. Founded in 1971, Accu-Sort holds about 80 patents. 57 of which are registered in the US. Some 79% of its revenue comes from the US, so further international expansion is a key opportunity. To that end, Accu-Sort opened new offices in China and India late last year.

In 2010, Accu-Sort generated revenue of $92.3 million, while in the first half of 2011 revenue was $51.4 million. The company has EBITDA margins of about 20%.

Datalogic says the acquisition will enable it to improve its global leadership in the industrial stationary scanners segment, with a market share of 31% compared to 16% previously.

Danaher, a $12.8 billion (revenue) industrial manufacturer, acquired Accu-Sort in 2003 for $63 million plus a potential earnout. At the time, Danaher cited Accu-Sort revenue as being about $90 million, so the company does not appear to have grown much over the past decade.



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Daily Links 1/26/2012: SAP says its HANA in-memory database will be able to run ERP by 4th quarter of 2012

SAP's HANA In-memory Database Will Gain Ability to Run ERP This Year (PC World)

The Guy That Created SAP's Hottest Product Ever Thinks It Will Squash Oracle Like A Bug (Silicon Alley Insider: Enterprise)

Steve Case: Washington is No Also-Ran (PE Hub)

Motorola Mobility's Larry Robinson on the move to video gateways over DVRs (FierceCable)

Motorola Mobility Announces Fourth Quarter and Full-Year Financial Results (Press Realease)
Home business revenue for 4th Quarter down 11% from prior year.


Guidewire lights up Wall Street (San Mateo Daily Journal)

When Metadata Comes to Twitter (PC World)
On filtering out Chris Lehmann's (head of Philly's Science Leadership Academy) sports tweets.

Quality Systems, Inc. Reports Record Fiscal 2012 Third Quarter Results (Business Wire)
Revenue up 23%, net income up 20%. Quality Systems' primary business is NextGen Healthcare of Horsham.


TW Cable Sheds Video Subs, Gains in Broadband (Light Reading Cable)

AT&T Punches Up TV, Recedes On Wireline Broadband In Q4
Telco Completes U-verse Buildout At 30 Million Households (Multichannel News)

Cable Supplier Pulls a Gold Brick From the Wall (Philadelphia Inquirer)

FCC Enforcement Bureau Says Comcast's Tennis Channel Order Is In Effect
Cable Operator Should Be Required to Comply Immediately with ALJ's Decision on Carriage (Multichannel News)

Fab.com gears up for huge expansions: open doors, new shops, international ops (VentureBeat)
Sounds great, but is Fab.com immune from some of the problems hitting other flash sales sites? First Round Capital was an early backer.



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