Philly Tech People News 6/23/2013

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Comcast's Bonnie Hammer is a force in television (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Universal Display Corporation President and CEO Steven V. Abramson Receives Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013 New Jersey Award (Business Wire)


Ernst & Young Names Sparta Systems' CEO Eileen Martinson as an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013 Award Winner in New Jersey (Marketwire)

TMG Health Appoints Michael Walsh Senior Vice President and General Counsel (PR Newswire)

Dawn Bonnell Appointed Vice Provost for Research at Penn (Penn News)

Penn chooses nanotech center's first director (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Board of Directors for Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania Welcomes Timothy C. Scheve, President & CEO of Janney Montgomery Scott
(Ben Franklin Technology Partners SEP)

Mustafa El-Rafey Joins QVC as Senior Vice President, Talent Management and Rewards (PR Newswire)

The Cline Group Names Jade Trombetta Vice President (Globe Newswire)

Communications Media, Inc. Appoints Adam Scott Roberts as SVP, Group Media Director (PR Web)

Saturday Highlights 6/22/2013: Danny Sullivan on why DuckDuckGo's post-PRISM bounce doesn't mean that much

Duck Duck Go’s Post-PRISM Growth Actually Proves No One Cares About “Private” Search (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land)

A Private Search Engine? (A VC)
A different point of view from Fred Wilson (whose firm is an investor in DuckDuckGo) and some interesting comments.


GSI COMMERCE BECOMES EBAY ENTERPRISE – WHY THIS IS MORE THAN JUST A RE-BRANDING EXERCISE (Peter Sheldon/Forrester Blogs)

Workday CEO Bhusri on why the company’s next big bet is finance (Gigaom)


Finding the next AWS, VMWare or EMC: Five areas where cloud startups can make it big (Gigaom)

Daily Links 6/21/2013: Ernst & Young names Philly Entrepreneurs of the Year

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The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year
2013 Greater Philadelphia award recipients (E & Y Website)

Oracle's Ellison Spills Beans on Upcoming SAP HANA Competitor and Database 12c Plans (CIO.com)

Oracle’s Ellison Leaks New Alliances, Including With Microsoft
(Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Oracle Sales Miss Estimates in Cloud Shift; Dividend Doubled (Bloomberg)

Oracle in transition, just like SAP – only different (Dennis Howlett/Diginomica)

SAP Falls to 8-Month Low on Oracle Sales Miss: Frankfurt Mover (Bloomberg)

Oracle and Salesforce: a Data-Sharing Deal (New York Times: Bits)

Artisan: Functional tools for mobile apps (Philadelphia Daily News)

Startup office space provider (Benjamin's Desk) raises $150k, will expand (Philadelphia Businss Journal)

Comcast’s Big Data Perspective in Prep for NBC Streaming (Multichannel News)



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GSI Commerce renamed eBay Enterprise

Tom Paine

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Today, eBay announced that it had rebranded its King of Prussia-based GSI Commerce unit as eBay Enterprise, two years after acquiring it.

Looking through eBay Enterprise President Chris Saridakis' statement on its website, I don't see any specific organizational changes announced. Rather, Saridakis emphasizes eBay Enterprise's role as an "omnichannal" ecommerce solution for enterprises, with increasing cross-utilization of other eBay assets, including eBay Marketplaces, PayPal and other eBay
technologies. (For example, the company recently said it would integrate eBay's Magneto ecommerce software with GSI Commerce (now eBay Enterprise) technology and make it available to GSI clients.

A recent Gartner Magic Quadrant report showed IBM, Oracle and Hybris (recently reached agreement to be acquired by SAP) as the leaders in ecommerce,with eBay-GSI Commerce as one of the challengers.


eBay completed its $2.4 billion (cash + debt) acquisition of GSI Commerce, founded by Michael Rubin, precisely two years ago today. Rubin went on to start Conshohocken-based Kynetic LLC, in which eBay has a 30% stake in two of its three operating businesses.




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Daily Links 6/20/2013: NY Times compares RJMetrics' funding strategy to GoodData's

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Self-Finance or Raise Money? A Quandary for Start-Ups (New York Times)
Comparing Philly startup RJMetrics' approach to GoodData's.

How John Malone Could Start a War Between Broadband and Web Content (Wall Street Journal: Corporate Intelligence)

Amazon’s Invasion of the CIA Is a Seismic Shift in Cloud Computing (Wired)

Microsoft sees itself as one of the public-cloud horsemen, but time will tell (Gigaom)

Oracle Shares Fall On Weaker Than Expected Q4 Sales (All Things D)

Integration between SAP Data Services, Business Warehouse on the rise (SearchSAP)


Philly Fed Notes Rebound in Manufacturing (Wall Street Journal:
Real Time Economics)

Reed Technology Announces Launch of USPTO Public Data Dissemination Site, Expansion of Reed Tech Patent Advisor Service (Business Wire)
Reed Technology is based in Horsham.





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(Update) Report: SunGard Availability Services up for sale?

Tom Paine

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A story from Reuters suggests that Wayne-based SunGard Data Systems is looking to sell all or part of its $1.4 billion (revenue) SunGard Availability unit. The story is, in fact, confusing and not precise regarding whether SunGard would sell all of SunGard Availability or only the "Managed Servics" portion of it.

Reuters cites sources as saying the sale could raise up to $2 billion, ten times the unit's (to be sold) earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around $200 million.

SunGard Data Systems was taken private in a $11.4 billion leveraged buyout (LBO) in 2005.

SunGard Data Systems sold its Malvern-based SunGard Higher Education unit to Datatel (now Ellucian) for $1.7 billion in early 2012. SunGard Data Systems' largest remaining unit is SunGard Financial Systems, which accounted for 62% of its $4.3 billion in revenue in 2012. SunGard Fnancial, which is run out of New York, is a powerful force in the banking & finance industries, but it also has not grown much recently due to the financial crisis and other factors.

There had been talk in recent years (fueled by the company itself at times) of spinning off SunGard Availability in an IPO, but the unit has probably not shown enough growth momentum to make such an offering attractive. SunGard Availability's overall revenue has been essentially flat over the past several years, although some areas of the business are
growing while others are declining. SunGard Availability is based in Wayne, and has major data center operations in (the city of) Philadelphia and many other locations in North America and Europe. It provides disaster recovery and business continuity services, as well as cloud hosting services.

SunGard has not commented on the Reuters story.

MentorTech Ventures joins MissionOG in CloudMine round

Tom Paine

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UPenn-connected MentorTech Ventures has joined MissionOG in a new investment round in Philly-based startup CloudMine, MentorTech Managing Director Brett Topoche said via a tweet yesterday and confirmed to Philly Tech News via email. The Form D filing related to the offering dated in March said it was for up to $750,000, and that $505,000 had been raised at that time. I can't confirm the total amount raised to date, or whether there were any other investors in this round. The financing was in the form of convertible debt. MissionOG's investment had already been made public. Topoche says he will join CloudMine's board as an advisor.

CloudMine was in DreamIt Venture's 2011 Philadelphia class and raised an additional $480,000 in 2012 from investors that included Ben Franklin Technology Partners SEP and RobinHood Ventures. MentorTech's investments always have some Penn connection, and CloudMine CEO Brendan McCorkle received his Master of Science in Engineering in Computer and Information Science (a program sponsored by the school of engineering and Wharton) from there.

CloudMine competes in a hot, emerging market: backend-as-a-service (BaaS). It provides a cloud-based platorm that helps enterprises build mobile & web-based backend solutions and connect data sources such as Salesforce.com and SharePoint.




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Daily Links 6/19/2013: Unisys to help Dept of Interior move SAP ERP to cloud

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Telecom Industry Could See Biggest Merger Spree Since ’06 (Bloomberg)

Dish Says It Won’t Submit a New Offer for Sprint Ahead of Deadline (New York Times: Dealbook)

Special Report: Bad Karma: How Fisker burned through $1.4 billion on a 'green' car (Reuters)

Unisys nabs $44M task order to move Interior financial system to the cloud
(Washington Technology)
Involves moving Interior's SAP-based ERP system to cloud, partnering with cloud-hosting firm Virtustream.

Pindrop Security raises $11M from A16Z and others to help prevent phone fraud (PandoDaily)
Based in Atlanta, but also has people in Philly and Boston.

Fab.com Raises $150 Million, Valuing Retailer at $1 Billion (Bloomberg)
First Round Capital was an early investor.

MemSQL makes it easier to import historical data and query it all under one roof (Gigaom)
This is an interesting company. Based in San Francisco; investors include First Round Capital and New Enterprise Associates.

Chinese businessman gets 12 years for software piracy
(Philadelphia Inquirer)
Targets included Exton-based Analytical Graphics.



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Daily Links 6/18/2013: Inky on Loren Brichter; Neat updates mobile app

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He's the 'high priest' of app design (Philadelphia Inquirer)
On Philly resident Loren Brichter.

Neat Announces Comprehensive Mobile App Update for its Cloud-Based Digital Filing System
Neat's mobile app creates expense reports and offers other time saving features (PR Newswire)

Liberty Global Offers $10B For Kabel Deutschland (Multichannel News)

Set-top box is not dead, says Arris (Digital TV Europe)

Oracle's Q4 results: What to expect (Computerworld)

SAP users slack, slow and backward on security
Some systems unpatched since 2005, says researcher (The Register)

How SAP hopes to win from the Internet of Things (CiteWorld)


Yahoo Offer to Buy Contact Startup Xobni Is at a Price of $30M to $40M (All Things D)
First Round Capital is an investor in Xobni; Yahoo's purchase price may be less than capital invested in it.

Gartner Predicts CRM Will Be A $36B Market By 2017 (Enterprise Irregulars)
Huge revision from prior estimate.

Salesforce, Others in Race to Create One-Stop Shop for Marketing Data (Ad Age)

Dish abandons Sprint bid for now to focus on Clearwire (Reuters via Yahoo Finance)




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Daily Links 6/17/2013: Comcast Ventures in Fullscreen investment

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To keep Comcast case alive, lawyers propose a smaller class (Reuters)

Is cable holding back superfast broadband adoption on purpose? (CNET News)

CORPORATE SPEAK: Comcast Ventures Strategy Apparent in Fullscreen Deal (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)

America's Leading Metros for Venture Capital (The Atlantic
Cities)


CAPTCHA Ad Startup Solve Media Says 2013 Revenue’s On-Track For $13M-$16M, Should Reach 4B Engagements (TechCrunch)

Cloud customer win chatter escalates: Wooing Workday (ZDNet)

SAP Survey Shows Insurance Executives Target Integrated Platform for Core Systems Modernization (PR Newswire)



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Philly Tech People News 6/16/2013

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Health Market Science's Lead Architect, Brian O'Neill named a winner in InfoWorld's 2013 Technology Leadership Awards (PR Newswire)
See profile of O'Neill's achievements here.

Trifecta Technologies Reaches a Significant Milestone in Company History with the Addition of Its 100th Employee
Lehigh Valley-based technology firm continues its exceptional growth to serve the needs of new and existing clients across North America. (PR Web)

Comcast Cable Announces Promotions to Senior Level Positions (Business Wire)


Comcast's top Twin Cities exec returning to Houston (Houston Business Journal)

Dudnyk hires digital powerhouse (Dudnyk website)

Mid-Atlantic Oracle Platinum Partner Acquires EDS Services (PR-Inside)

CKR Interactive Opens Philadelphia Office as New East Coast Hub (PR Web)

MeetMe Announces New Board Member (Business Wire)