Snabe: "Further acquisitions are possible" for SAP

Tom Paine

When SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe says the company is considering making other acquisitions, as he told a German newspaper in an article appearing in its Monday edition, I listen, because his statements have proven to be accurate predictors. He made similar comments shortly preceeding two of its past three big deals - Sybase and SuccessFactors - though I don't recall if he made such a comment before the Ariba acquisition was announced.

In this case, though, he did specify that that there were no concrete plans at present for any purchases, according to Reuters' report on the original article. So I wouldn't expect anything within the next few months at least. And I would guess that SAP would like to get the Ariba deal done (DOJ came back for more information) before swallowing any other large foreign objects.

Nonetheless, Snabe's comments will probably start a whole new round of the popular guessing game "Who will SAP buy next", with enterprise social media (Jive, Lithium?) near the top of many lists as it has been for a while.


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Philly Tech People News 8/19/2012: Tonight Show’ Cuts Latest In Wave Of NBC Layoffs & Cost Trims Imposed By Comcast

‘Tonight Show’ Cuts Latest In Wave Of NBC Layoffs & Cost Trims Imposed By Comcast (Deadline)

After Olympics success, Bell poised for promotion at NBC (Reuters via Chicago Tribune)

Cristobal Conde Appointed Executive Chairman of True Office
Former President and CEO of SunGard Lends Talent to Innovative Gamification Company for Risk and Regulatory Compliance Training (PR Newswire)

Genomind Welcomes New Executive Team Member
Mr. Hill Meade will manage the company’s information services and technology. (PR Web)

Wilson Legal Appoints Rob Beisswenger as Senior Director of Professional Services (PR Newswire)

GlobalSubmit Opens New Office in San Diego, Announces Key Hire (PR Newswire)

Growth Innovation Advisors Announces Its Official Launch
Executive Recruiting Firm Specializes in Go-To-Market Leaders (Globe Newswire)




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Jay Leno takes pay cut at NBC

Verizon learned from AT&T’s mistakes to push spectrum deal with cable operators (The Hill)

'Tonight Show' and Jay Leno get hit with budget cuts (LA Times: Company Town)

phillytechnews twitter feed 8/17/2012

phillytechnews: @anniemal meant on 2 levels: not good for aspiring MLB player to get stuck there; but know you're from there and didn't mean to put it down Posted: 17 Aug 2012 07:22 PM PDT phillytechnews: @anniemal meant on 2 levels: not good for aspiring MLB player to get stuck there; but know you're from there and didn't mean to put it down

phillytechnews: RT @brelow: Whoow! @Curalate is taking home hardware for @Geekadelphia's startup of the year. Drinks on @ApuGupta all night #phillygeeka ... Posted: 17 Aug 2012 07:13 PM PDT phillytechnews: RT @brelow: Whoow! @Curalate is taking home hardware for @Geekadelphia's startup of the year. Drinks on @ApuGupta all night #phillygeeka ...

phillytechnews: @anniemal @jtramsay Nobody should be stuck in Allentown forever Posted: 17 Aug 2012 07:12 PM PDT phillytechnews: @anniemal @jtramsay Nobody should be stuck in Allentown forever

phillytechnews: New PTN Post: My view: Verizon Wireless-Cable deal gets off light http://t.co/WRPVThnG Posted: 17 Aug 2012 03:55 PM PDT phillytechnews: New PTN Post: My view: Verizon Wireless-Cable deal gets off light http://t.co/WRPVThnG

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My view: Verizon Wireless-Cable deal gets off light

Tom Paine

I see terms such as "stringent" or "tough" restrictions or "strict remedies" appearing in some of the headlines popping up about Department of Justice's blessing of the spectrum swap and joint marketing and technology development agreements between Verizon Wireless and a group of cable operators led by Comcast. In my view, the companies got everything they were after for now.

I'm a laissez-fare, anti-regulatory person generally who tends to oppose most antitrust enforcement in the technology area by the Federal government. For instance, IBM's virtual dominance of the computing market was ultimately dismantled by technological changes that would have happened anyway, and the same is largely true for Microsoft. I have no basic gripe about the spectrum sale. The cable consortium took a realistic look at the wireless market and determined they could not create another independent, viable competitor in that space, a view I agree with, so they decided to sell the spectrum rather than build it out. As a result, a vast quantity of prime spectrum will be available to meet soaring demand rather than being warehoused. Nor do I have a particular problem with the cable companies being able to resell Verizon Wireless service as part of a quad play.

But residential landline service still has an important utility element to it. And what does bother me is anything that threatens to further limit competition in broadband access. Many areas of the country only have one true choice for residential broadband service, some areas two, and very few have three. And many have relatively slow DSL as the only option, or in some rural areas not even that. (I don't consider satellite to be a realistic or competitive option for most.) And while some see wireless eventually replacing wired broadband for many applications, there will continue to be serious limits to wireless capacity. Wireless may ultimately surpass DSL, but it is unlikely in the forseeable future to match the types of gains in speed that Fiber To The Node (with Docsis) or Fiber To The Home (FiOS) networks will achieve.

The requirement that Verizon Wireless not sell the cable systems' services in areas where FiOS is already present is virtually meaningless; that's just asking a company not to compete against itself. Although Verizon management has often expressed a negative view of the economics of FiOS (something I don't necessarily accept, when looked at from the perspective of its impact on the entire enterprise value of Verizon's wireline business), certainly in areas where the capital costs are already sunk FiOS as a whole and even Video Service by itself must be cashflow positive. While I could envision a longer term scenario where Verizon might wish to get out of the video business (or perhaps even residential broadband all together) and sell the FiOS infrastructure to cable operators, that's not what was on the table right now.

Verizon has stated that it had already decided in 2009 not to expand FiOS further except for completing existing franchise agreements (and we will see how that works out in Philly), but we don't know for a fact that Verizon might not have considered further FiOS buildouts in the future. This deal essentially forecloses that possibility, making it more likely that much of Verizon's footprint will not have that other broadband choice. Unless you believe that Google Fiber or some other new competitor will emerge on a national level, which most analysts doubt.

The DOJ's language states that the joint marketing and technology ventures must be terminated after 4 years, but that really just means DOJ has the power to review them after four years. While that's nice, and makes long term planning for the joint ventures a bit cloudier, I'm not sure how meaningful it is. Its very difficult to unravel a fait accompli. I know I'm going against the grain of many in the financial community who believe that two complete, national high-speed residential broadband buildouts are economically impractical at this time, but I don't believe Verizon should be allowed such a incentive for not continuing to evolve as a competitor to Cable. This is not the outcome the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was expected to lead to. The precedent this agreement sets also opens the door for AT&T and other incumbent local carriers to reach their own agreements with cable operators in their areas.

Comcast has a tremendous lobbying organization and a great deal of political influence in Washington and with the White House right now. Just to be clear, I'm not implying anything undue, and in fact more Republicans will probably support this agreement than Democrats. Its just that I'm frankly surprised that DOJ (and apparently the FCC also) went so easy on it. The entire agreement between Verizon Wireless and the cable operators was carefully crafted to avoid many of possible legal challenges. Is there any room for state regulatory bodies to challenge the arrangement? I don't know, though I imagine what DOJ says takes precedence.

A couple of other outcomes from this might have a positive impact on the Philly area. One is that the technology joint venture between Verizon Wireless and and the cable operators will continue to develop. I've seen few details about it. The original announcement said it would be located in Philadelphia, but subsequent reports indicated it might be located in the New Brunswick area.

The other is that T-Mobile comes out of this a stronger competitor due to its acquiring AWS spectrum from Verizon Wireless, and this includes a big block in the Philly area. See my article from a few months on the spectrum dilemma T-Mobile faced as it moves to LTE.. This is a big part of the solution for them.

Daily Links 8/17/2012: Apple reported in talks with Comcast to carry live broadcasts on streaming device

Apple in talks with Comcast to carry live broadcasts on streaming device (Bloomberg via NJ.com)
I've always been skeptical of Apple's ability to partner with the cable business (or vice versa). Wouldn't necessarily draw conclusions from this report.

Apple's Pay-TV Path May Run Through Cable (Light Reading Cable)

Apple to Make Cable Set-Top Boxes? Not. Going. To. Happen (Video Nuze)

Apple: iPad Mini, iTV Now In Production, Analyst Reports (Forbes)

SAP Courts Startups From Health to Retail in Data Push (Bloomberg)

Tigerlabs Accelerator Showcases Its First Batch Of Startups At Princeton Demo Day (TechCrunch)

IRIS International Selects ThingWorx for Next-Generation Remote Service and Support of Medical Devices (Business Wire)

Change in direction at Novotorium; Mike Krupit leaving

Tom Paine

Langhorne, Bucks County-based incubator Novotorium is changing its direction, and losing the person who was the driving force behind its creation - General Manager Mike Krupit - it was announced yesterday.

Gary Baron, Chairman of Baron Innovation Group, which owns and funds Novotorium, will become the interim Managing Director, while the incubator shifts its focus to supporting wellness and healthy lifestyle businesses. This includes Baron's own startup, Healthy Food Now. Baron will be searching for "a seasoned senior executive from the health, wellness and nutrition community" to run the incubator on a permanent basis, the company said in a statement. Novotorium will continue to support the existing startups at the facility, Zuppler and TravelCare; and Baron’s core business, Voice Systems Engineering. The other members of the Novotorium team, Maria Collins, Alberto Janza and Chuck Hall will continue to be involved.

In an email sent to Novotorium supporters in which he announced his decision to leave, Krupit said, "After spending a lot of time and passion over the past year to get Novotorium off the ground, a series of events (dare I say “perfect storm”) has led me to consider my path and and redirect my focus".

Mike Krupit

Krupit described the Philadelphia region as "a pretty challenging startup environment". "Our model looked for bootstrapping companies at the launch and post-launch stage - and we struggled to find enough of them here. We ran into a lot of fences - geographic, institutional, financial. The startup communities in Philly, Princeton, and Lehigh have great spirit and camaraderie, but there is still a fair amount of insulation between entrepreneurs and the region’s big companies, universities, government, and capital".

Krupit also says he plans to continue working with startup businesses and "am now beginning such explorations". His LinkedIn profile shows him to be an advisor to Real Food Works, former Infonautics colleague Lucinda Duncalfe's new startup focused on plant based diets, an interest he personally shares.

Krupit, a New York City native with a computer science background, was an early member of the executive team at Josh Kopelman's first startup, Infonautics, and ended up running another renown area startup, CDNow, after it had been acquired by Bertelsmann.



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Daily Links 8/16/2012: Verizon-Cable Agreement Wins DOJ Approval Today (With Some Restrictions)

Verizon, Comcast Airwaves Accord Wins Antitrust Approval (Bloomberg)

Comcast Statement Regarding U.S. Department of Justice Verizon Wireless-SpectrumCo Commercial Agreements Consent Decree (Comcast Voices/Official Comcast Blog)

Critics Slam SpectrumCo Approval
Say Conditions Not Enough to Protect Consumers (Multichannel News)


NBCUniversal can count its sprawling, multi-platform Olympics coverage as a win (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Is Apple's iTV television plan in trouble? (Computerworld Blogs)

Philly Fed factory activity shrinks for fourth month in August (Reuters)
But slightly improved from last month.
Philly Fed Press Release

Braintree expands mobile payment ambitions; acquires Venmo (Gigaom)
Venmo started in Philly, received backing from Accel Ventures, and moved to New York last year. Braintree is paying $26.2 million for it. Accel is also an investor in Braintree.

IMS Health Acquires Philly-based TTC, Strengthening Pharma R&D Services Capabilities
Delivers Industry-Leading Clinical Trial Cost Benchmarking Solutions (Business Wire)
This is the second deal IMS Health has announced this week, the first being UK-based PharmaVentures Ltd, which maintains a database of Pharma industry transactions. While IMS Health's global headquarters are in Parsippany NJ, its US unit is based in Collegeville.

A New Day at Quewey (Quewey Blog)
Philly-based Q&A site pivots.

Peco suspends smart-meter installations after Bucks fire (Philadelphia Inquirer)



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phillytechnews twitterfeed 8/15/2012

phillytechnews: RT @seattletimes: Felix Hernandez has taken his place in the halls of baseball immortality after pitching a perfect game against the Tam ... Posted: 15 Aug 2012 03:39 PM PDT phillytechnews: RT @seattletimes: Felix Hernandez has taken his place in the halls of baseball immortality after pitching a perfect game against the Tam ...

phillytechnews: New PTN Post: MoneyTree VC report: Which startups really are based in Philly area? http://t.co/GfLOKR2A Posted: 15 Aug 2012 03:33 PM PDT phillytechnews: New PTN Post: MoneyTree VC report: Which startups really are based in Philly area? http://t.co/GfLOKR2A

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MoneyTree VC report: Which startups really are based in Philly area?

Tom Paine

In sorting through the Q2 2012 PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree Venture Capital report (free registration) based on ThomsonReuters data, you can often come across some confusing information.

For instance, be wary of startups shown as being based in Delaware. Often they have nothing more to do with the state other than being registered there. For instance, Speaktoit, a Siri-like app for Android, is shown in the report as being based in Newark, DE, but CEO Ilya Gelfenbeyn told me by email when the funding was first announced in May that "we are in DC and now opening an office in Sunnyvale, CA", and only has a registration office in Delaware. Speaktoit recieved funding from Intel Capital. Another example is Roqbot, a social music service for businesses, which is shown as being based in Dover, DE, but is actually based in California. Google Ventures is among its backers.

Also, there are a number of startups listed as being located in Conshohocken. which happens to be the current location of First Round Capital's office until it moves to Philadelphia (as Josh Kopelman announced today). So it is no surprise that First Round is an early stage investor in each of them, although they won't be located there or in the Philly area at all in some cases. One, crowdfunding VC site FundersClub, lists three UPenn alumni as its top principals, although I haven't been able to determine yet where it is they call home. Another crowdfunding startup, Upstart, which lets investors back individuals rather than companies, is located in Palo Alto according to FormDs.com. Grokker looks like it is a reincanation of a visual search engine of the same name that shut down in 2009. which was also located in the Bay area. Another, Perceptual Networks, may have bi-coastal roots in terms of its founders, but Kopelman confirmed in his post today that it will have a Philly presence in that it will have space in FRC's new offices. I have no information on what Perceptual Networks is out to do yet.

Another interesting investment is that of Norwest Venture Partners in Media-based Alarm Capital Alliance, which provides home security systems through a network of third party dealers. The size of the investment wasn't disclosed. I know little about ACA, but I do know that Norwest usually invests in fairly sizable amounts of a few million or more. If I understand correctly, part of what ACA does is to provide dealer financing, so the Norwest investment could be related to that.

In all, it was a weak quarter for IT and digital-related investments in the Philly area. The total of all investment was less than $58 million, according to MoneyTree, but a quick glance indicates at least $44 million of that was in Pharma ventures and even some of remainder included the report was for companies not actually located in the area.

Philly Tech News' own database tracking Philly area (IT-related) VC investments doesn't exactly match the MoneyTree data, often because of timing differences. Some partial rounds often appear in different quarters. For example, MoneyTree shows a $3 million investment in InstaMed for the quarter, while my report includes the entire $14 million round the company announced in May.

Philly Tech News Philly VC Investments Database (Updated 8/15/2012)



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Daily Links 8/15/2012: First Round Capital moving from Conshy to Philly

Hello Philly! (Redeye VC)
First Round Capital moving from Conshohocken to Philadelphia.

SevOne P2P Sharing and Big Data Clusters For Monitoring On A Massive Scale (TechCrunch)
SevOne is based in Newark, DE.

Verizon, Comcast Agree to U.S. Demands on Airwaves (Bloomberg)

Here's Comcast's Coming Speed, Pricing Lineup
Competitive (FiOS) Areas to See Changes First (Broadband Reports)

Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and others team up to create new mobile wallet solution (The Verge)

OLED displays to hit sales of $44B by 2019, with growth in TVs and mobile devices (VentureBeat)
If accurate, would be promising news for Ewing-based Universal Display.

Astea Reports Profitable Second Quarter 2012 Results (PR Newswire)
Horsham-based provider of field service management solutions grows revenue 32% and swings to net income of $885,000 from a loss of $839,000 a year ago.

USA Technologies Enters Mobile Acceptance Market
ePort Mobile Brings Turn-key ePort Connect Service Platform to Smart Phones and Tablets for Business Customers (Business Wire)



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