Philly Tech News People News 5/27/2012

Scott Fraser, former CTO & co-founder of healthcare IT firm Portico Systems of Blue Bell, now Vice President, Software Development at McKesson Health Solutions, which acquired Portico last year for $90 million, tweeted last week that it was co-founder & CEO Ned Moore's last day at McKesson. Moore, who recently joined the board of Core Solutions, another healthcare IT firm based in Wayne, has something else local lined up which should be announced soon, Fraser also tweeted.

Rise of the Tech Bandits: John Gruber & Josh Topolsky, the Cool Kids (ReadWriteWeb)

Safeguard Scientifics Appoints Dr. Keith B. Jarrett to Board of Directors (Business Wire via MarketWatch)

Janney Strengthens Equity Capital Markets Business & Expands Leadership Team (Business Wire)

Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld LLC Launches (PR Newswire)

Michael Days back as editor of Daily News; Larry Platt steps aside (Dave Davies/NewsWorks)


Storeroom Solutions Names Walter DeSouza CIO(PR Web)

Ted Bockius: “I bet on RJMetrics and Philadelphia and my ability to help grow the company and the Philadelphia tech scene” [Entrance Exam] (Technically Philly)

GPTMC Announces New Vice President Of Communications, Paula Butler (PR Newswire)

Cheryl Klear promoted to senior vice president at Harmelin Media (Philly Ad Club News)





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Pennsylvania closes in on health IT network (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Doing battle with Comcast and Verizon (Philadelphia Inquirer: Opinion)

Curt Schilling’s dream died quite quickly at 38 Studios (Boston Globe)

Wizard World's Comic Con comes to Philadelphia Convention Center May 31 (Gloucester County Times)

SAP Restocks Its Cloud-Zoo With Ariba (Holger Kisker/Forrester Blogs)

Daily Links 5/25/2012: Curt Schilling's videogame startup lays off all (several hundred) employees

Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios lays off entire staff (400+ people) (Boston Globe)

Skeleton crew cleans up at Big Huge Games in Timonium (Baltimore Sun: BaltTech)

Verizon likely to divest wireless spectrum to get cable deal OK ( Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)

Christie: N.J. will start sports bets on its own (AP via CourierPost Online)

The Lingering Impact of SuccessFactors (Infographic) (All Things D)

Wookey's worldview: why SAP and Oracle still don't have it right in the Cloud (BusinessCloud9)

Dell Said to Mull Buying Quest for Computer-Management Tools (Bloomberg)

Dell-Quest deal possible over weekend: sources (Reuters)

Dell Buying Microsoft Office 365 Cloud Migration Specialist? (TalkinCloud)
Article speculates about possible synergies between Quest and Boomi, should Dell acquire the former.

Oracle Exec Slams Sun Hardware, Saying 'We Bought A Dog' (SAI: Enterprise)

Has Google changed its mind about sharing its fiber network? (Gigaom)



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Daily Links 5/24/2012: Huawei Files Antitrust Complaint With EU Over InterDigital

Why Cloud Matters (Video: Knowledge@Wharton)

Is SAP leaving ERP behind? (IT Knowledge Exchange)

Ellison, Phillips, McDermott to Take Stand in Oracle-SAP Retrial (PC World)

Huawei Files Antitrust Complaint With EU Over InterDigital (Bloomberg)
Here is InterDigital's response

Kohl urges careful critique of Verizon spectrum deal, cites concerns on competition (The Hill)

NBCU Exploring Buyback of MSNBC.com (Ad Week)
We are talking about the website here; NBC had already bought out Microsoft's interest in the cable channel of that name.

Jon Miller: Hulu still essential to broadcasters (paidContent)

CyOptics withdraws $100 million IPO (Renaissance Capital via NASDAQ.com)
CyOptics, which makes optical eqiupment for the telecom industry, is based in Breinigsville, PA.

Deutsche Telekom CEO Says T-Mobile USA Merger Is Option (Bloomberg)


Days is back, Platt out at Daily News (Philadelphia Daily News)

After Broadband: Imagining a Future When Connected Networks Are All-pervasive (Knowledge@Wharton)



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InstaMed raises another $14 million

Tom Paine

InstaMed, the heavily UPenn connected (I mean its management & investors, not the school) healthcare payments processing platform based in Philadelphia, has just announced it has raised another $14 million. The press release did not name any investors, but only said that "the new capital included funding from five funds, including one new fund, and angels" and that more than 90% of previous investors participated.

This will bring the total investment in InstaMed to at least $36 million, according to my figures. It last reported a $5.5 million raise late last year. Investors have included Osage Partners, NJTC Venture Fund, US Bancorp, and Ashby Point Capital. Josh Kopelman was an early investor through his personal Midas Capital fund. See my brief writeup on InstaMed from last year.

InstaMed recently said it had surpassed $30 billion in Healthcare Payments Processed, and projects that it will process $20 billion in 2012 alone.



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News from The Cable Show 5/23/2012: Ramping up Docsis, Conan O'Brien speaks

Does Docsis Have a 10-Gig Future? (Light Reading Cable)

Cable Show 2012: Motorola Envisions 'Whole-World DVR'
Vendor Says an MSO Customer Will Launch Basic Network DVR Trial by End of 2012 (Multichannel News)

Cable Show 2012: Conan O'Brien Evangelizes Social Media, Admires Walt Disney (Hollywood Reporter)

Cable Execs Root for TV Everywhere, But No Timeline on Mass Adoption
From ESPN to Discovery, a Quest to Get Viewers to 'Authenticate' (Ad Age)

Cable Show 2012: NCTA President Praises FCC's Broadband Campaign (Hollywood Reporter)


Comcast Asks FCC to Revoke Boston's New License to Reregulate Rates
FCC's Media Bureau had recertified the city in April (Broadcasting & Cable)

Comcast CEO Roberts not attending The Cable Show (FierceCable)


CableLabs Nears End of CEO Search (Light Reading Cable)

Carlyle's Cable Muscle (Light Reading Mobile)



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Daily Links 5/23/2012: Philadelphia startup RightCare Solutions wins Janssen Prize, receives $100,000 award

EPAM Systems (Newtown) to Acquire Thoughtcorp, Expand North American Footprint, Gain Entrance into Telecommunication Industry and Expand Agile, Business Intelligence, and Mobile Competencies (EPAM Press Release)
Says total price is $17.4 million in cash, stock, and assumption of liabilities.

Google mum on plans for Motorola operation in Horsham (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Oracle buys Vitrue to hone social marketing chops (Gigaom)

An Ohio startup + $200M = Gigabit broadband for 6 towns (Gigaom)

Dell Drops as Profit, Forecast Miss Estimates on PC Slump (Bloomberg via San Francisco Chronicle)

Analytic Software Wins Janssen Prize to Reduce Hospital Readmissions (Xconomy San Diego)
Philadelphia startup RightCare Solutions receives $100,000 award.

USA Technologies faces second proxy fight in three years (Philly.com: Philly Inc)

Connexin Software Introduces OP Cloud (Business Wire)

Voxware Announces New SAP Certification (Business Wire)

News & Views on SAP's $4.3 billion acquisition of Ariba

SAP buying e-commerce vendor Ariba for $4.3 billion (CIO.com)

SAP Continues Acquisition Binge: Next Bite Is Ariba (ASUG News)

Ariba: Probing on SAP’s New Procurement and Supplier Network “Angel” (Jason Busch/Spend Matters)

SAP bulking up with Ariba. A done deal? (Dennis Howlett/ZDNet Blogs)

Cloud Wars 2012 Continues, SAP buys Ariba ( Michael Fauscette/Enterprise Irregulars)

SAP Buys Ariba – Huh? (Andrew Bartels/Forrester Blogs)



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SAP to acquire cloud-based procurement offering Ariba for about $4.3 billion

Tom Paine

SAP just announced it will acquire Ariba for approximately $4.3 billion, a 20% premium on yesterday's close.
Although not a complete surprise, Ariba was probably not too high on the various lists of possible SAP targets that float around.

Ariba provides a cloud-based service for B2B business commerce and procurement.

It is based in Sunnyvale, California. Ariba has approximately 2,600 employees, and recorded $444 million in total revenue and 38.5 percent annual growth in 2011. Net income was $33 million, although Ariba posted a slight operating loss.

Ironically, heavy put action was reported on Ariba on Monday.

SAP acquired cloud HRM vendor SuccessFactors in December 2011 for $3.4 billion to strengthen its position in the Cloud. However, although SAP gave SuccessFactors founder Lars Dalgaard responsibility over all of its Cloud offerings, it said in today's statement that "it is planned to consolidate all cloud-related supplier assets of SAP under Ariba" and maintain Ariba as an independent company within SAP.

SAP is already a significant player in the procurement space, as is Oracle. SAP boosted its presence with the acquisition of Crossgate late last year. Perhaps the fastest rising up and comer, Coupa, just raised another $22 million in venture capital.

SAP said in its statement that "the Ariba network will benefit from the performance delivered by using SAP's in-memory platform SAP HANA".


Spend Matters' Jason Busch commented at the end of last month, "We will also be sharing our analysis of SAP's new SRM interface, which bears a surprising resemblance to Ariba's new UI as well".

SAP to Expand Cloud Presence with Acquisition of Ariba (PR Newswire)



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Highlights: Last week on Philly Tech News (5/14/2012 to 5/20/2012)

I reported on how T-Mobile is using the breakup fee and spectrum received from AT&T to reboot its strategy on several fronts, and the role the Philadelphia region plays in it.

Newtown-based Freedom OSS, from which I'd heard little for a while, resurfaced as a subcontractor to Lockheed on a new $250 million contract for building a private Cloud environment for the Army. Which makes me wonder, does the Army actually have someone named Private Cloud?

I covered SAP's mega trade show, Sapphire, remotely (it was held in Orlando). The two biggest topics there were probably SAP's effort to provide a clearer roadmap for its Cloud strategy, and rolling out new capabilities and applications for its in-memory HANA platform.

China signed off on Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility on Sunday, and the deal closed this morning. According to one report citing Motorola's new CEO, Google has not decided yet what to do with its Horsham-based set-top box business.

Exton-based Bentley Systems held its annual "BE Together" user conference at the PA Convention Center last week. Among other things, Bentley announced an acquisition and also said it was opening a new office in Center City Philadelphia that could house up to 50 employees.

A Center City startup which began life as Storably, a site for renting out things like spare parking spaces and storage space, saw that wasn't gaining much traction and so it did a major pivot and launched last week as Curalate, a web service that helps marketers develop programs on Pinterest. First Round Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and UPenn-related MentorTech Ventures are investors.

Philadelphia Media Network CEO Greg Osberg stepped down, although he will continue as an advisor for a while. Although Osberg described it as a move he had planned to make once the ownership change was completed, this New York Times report suggested he may have been pressured out ahead of schedule.

The Philly Fed manufacturing index took a rather dramatic downward plunge into negative territory in May.

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