CEO Brian Roberts bulks up Comcast for the future (LA Times)

Google, Microsoft clouds now cover MongoDB (PC World)


Aereo suspended service yesterday at 11:30am






Tom Paine



 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


This morning, in a blog post on its website, Aereo announced it was shutting down "temporarily."


"As a result of that [Supreme Court] decision, our case has been returned to the lower Court. We have decided to pause our operations temporarily as we consult with the court and map out our next steps. You will be able to access your cloud-based antenna and DVR only until 11:30 a.m. ET today. All of our users will be refunded their last paid month. If you have questions about your account, please email support@aereo.com or tweet us @AereoSupport".


Links 6/26/2014: First Round Capital closes $175mm First Round V








 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email




First Round Capital Gathers $175M for Fifth Fund (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
A good bit larger than its prior funds.

First Round V (Redeye VC)

Salesforce and Philips partner in ambitious health data venture (VentureBeat)

Salesforce.com, Philips join forces for health care IT
(PC World)

IMS Health paying $523M for 2 Cegedim businesses (AP via Business Week)

Aereo Defeat Sets Up Bigger, Broader Fight for TV (Ad Age)

The Limits of the Supreme Court’s Technological Analogies (Slate)

The Tech-Savvy Supreme Court (New York Times: Bits)

Big Ten Network, Comcast agree (ESPN)

Revisiting Comcast’s Xfinity public hotspot strategy
(Network World)

SAP Labs rejects former MD's claims (Economic Times of India)



High-tech company says goodbye suburbs, moves to new workspace in University City (Philadelphia Business Journal)

40 Years on, the Barcode Has Turned Everything Into Information (Wired)
Invented at Drexel in the late 1940s, it took a while to actually get the barcode into
supermarkets.





Links 6/25/2014: eBay names IBM vet to head Enterprise unit; ShopRunner to work with Alibaba on China deliveries









 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


eBay Names Outsider to Head Its Enterprise Unit (EcommerceBytes)

Alibaba/ShopRunner Let Chinese Tap U.S. Brand Sites
(Investor's Business Daily)

Radnor-based Laboratory supplies provider VWR Corp files for IPO (Reuters)


Cloud BI – genuine trend or marketing exercise? (Diginomica)

Google Introduces Android TV, Its New Platform For Smart TV Apps And Navigation (TechCrunch)

The Father of Net Neutrality Returns to Do Battle With Comcast (Wired)


Is Warby Parker Too Good to Last?
(Wired)

Philadelphia CIOs Reveal Hiring Plans For Second Half Of 2014 (PR Newswire)






Links 6/24/2014: NBCU's integrated ad sales approach paying off?








 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email



How a zombie VC firm broke pay-to-play rules (Fortune)

Le Cirque Software Need Helps Prompt Oracle’s Micros Deal (Bloomberg)

Sens. Raise Comcast/TWC Hearing Concerns With FCC, Justice (Multichannel News)

AT&T/DirecTV and Comcast/TWC mergers could put small ISPs “out of business” (Ars Technica)

Report: Verizon, Comcast CDN strategies target OTT players
(FierceOnlineVideo)

NBC Books $2.52 Billion in Upfront Commitments, 12 Percent Gain (Hollywood Reporter)

NBCU Unorthodox Ad Plan Spans Broadcast, Cable, Web (Investor's Business Daily)


eBay Inc. Names Craig Hayman as Head of eBay Enterprise (Business Wire)

CIA Information Chief Talks Cloud Computing, Culture Clash at Amazon Event (Re/code)

Bell and Howell spins off software division (Raleigh News & Observer)
Philadelphia private equity firm Versa Capital Management, which acquired Bell and Howell in 2011, now also owns a controlling interest in both BCC and Bell and Howell.
Versa Capital has paid off Bell and Howell’s outstanding debt.






Robin Hood strikes again - this time its Oracle



Tom Paine



 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email


Oracle announced on Friday that it had acquired LiveLOOK, a co-browsing tool. Oracle says LiveLOOK will become an integral part of the Oracle Service Cloud.

LiveLOOK,  based in Matawan, NJ, had investors including Rose Tech Ventures, New Vantage Group, Robin Hood Ventures and New York Angels. Terms were not disclosed.

LiveLOOK appears somewhat similar in function to Firefly, the co-browser started by Dan Shipper at Penn and the first startup to receive funding from First Round Capital's Dorm Room Fund. Firefly was acquired by Pegasystems two weeks ago.

Unlike screen sharing apps, co-browsers are intended to give remote access to only what appears in the browser, not a view of the entire desktop.

Igor Khalatian Ph.D / LiveLOOK

LiveLOOK's CEO and founder was Igor Khalatian Ph.D, a Bell Labs veteran. Prior to LiveLOOK, he was Co-Founder of HelpMeeting, a web conferencing and desktop sharing company.


PeopleLinx, repositioning after losing access to LinkedIn API, integrates with Salesforce CRM




Tom Paine



 Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Philadelphia Tech News by Email





Source: PeopleLinx


Philadelphia-based PeopleLinx has integrated its social business platform into the Salesforce Sales Cloud, the company announced on Friday.

About two-thirds of current PeopleLinx customers also are Salesforce CRM users, said PeopleLinx CMO Michael Idinopulos in a phone interview with Philly Tech News, so
this integration was a feature much sought after by both current customers and prospects.
It enables users to access PeopleLinx as a tab within the CRM interface using single sign-on authentication.

PeopleLinx can help Salesforce users to optimize their social presence, configure for best
practices on Salesforce, distribute and promote content, and employ social analytics and
gamification, through techniques such as leaderboards.

One PeopleLinx customer endorsing the move was Terry Connell, Senior Vice President of Sales at Comcast Business. "Social selling is a priority for our sales team and integrating it with Salesforce.com is table stakes for us," Connell was quoted as saying in the PeopleLinx release. "It helps make social selling part of their daily sales activities."

PeopleLinx' Salesforce integration comes as the young company is still implementing an alternative strategy after being notified in March by LinkedIn that it would no longer have access to the LinkedIn API ( see Lauren Hertzler's article in the Business Journal.) This step was not aimed singurlarly at PeopleLinx, since it apparently impacted almost all CRM-type partners other than Salesforce and Microsoft, according to a ZDNet piece. For example, another partner left out was the popular Zoho.

Anyone familiar with Twitter's history would not find this type of move surprising, as Twitter often redifined the boundaries of partnerships and API access to protect its own turf, and applcations such as PeopleLinx were getting closer to markets attractive to LinkedIn in the way they made use of LinkedIn data and integration capabilities.

While PeopleLinx has taken the change in its LinkedIn relationship in stride and is making necessary adjustments, and says it has even found some advantages to it, I do think it was a bit of a surprise to PeopleLinx execs (particularly those founders who were early LinkedIn employees) who felt they had a close working relationship with LinkedIn. While discussions between PeopleLinx and LinkedIn did not reach any compromise on the API issue, Idinopulos tells me that PeopleLinx believes it can get much of the value it needs from LinkedIn by accessing its data in the way that most any other business would do so.

PeopleLinx is also broadening its sources and channels through its Salesforce integration and an integration with Twitter's platform, announced a few months ago, and is also looking to establish similar interfaces with Facebook and Google+.

Founded in 2009 by two early LinkedIn employees, Patrick Baynes and Nathan Egan, PeopleLinx has received $3.2 million in funding to date from VCs including Greycroft Partners, Osage Venture Partners, and MissionOG. PeopleLinx has some 50 clients and 25 to
30 employees, Idinopulos says.


Links 6/23/2014: Oracle to buy Micros for $5.3 billion; ValueVision changes CEO after proxy fight



SAP Labs India head quit after sordid drama involving mails, cops (Bangalore Mirror)

Will a Change in Leadership Turn Around Infosys? (Knowledge@Wharton)


Oracle to Buy Micros for $5.3 Billion to Add Hotel Software
(Bloomberg)

Hedge Fund and ValueVision Shopping Network Settle Differences (New York Times: DealBook)
New CEO named.

Comcast Adds Chrome Support To Xfinity TV Go Site (Multichannel
News)

Oracle says Oregon governor spiked Obamacare site for political reasons (PC World)



Philly Tech People News 6/22/2014: TruePosition names new CEO; Lenfest picks interim Philly.com leader








Subscribe to Philly Tech People News by Email



SAP Labs India MD quits, sparks rumours of joining Infosys (Times of India)

In with the new as Unit4 refreshes its executive team (Dignomica)


Siegel Named SpinCo CFO (Multichannel News)

TruePosition Names New Chief Executive Officer
(PR Newswire)

Lenfest picks interim leader for Philly.com
(Philadelphia Business Journal)

Mark Chinn Named Partner, CMG Partners (PR Web)


AWeber Appoints Sarah Thomas as Director of Customer Solutions (AWeber Press Release)

Diann Hamilton named SVP, Executive Planning Director, Digitas Health Lifebrands (Philly Ad Club News)


D4 hires Rich Wakefield as Executive Creative Director (Philly Ad Club News)

Backe Digital adds Zeke Kisling, Dan Calavito, Greg D'Antonio (Philly Ad Club News)