Philly Tech People News 11/23/2014: Leading Enterprise Software analyst Kanaracus joins ASUG; Xtium names new CEO

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Taubman Hires Top Sports Banker
(New York Times: Dealbook)
Taubman is building PJT Partners, a boutique investment bank to be spun off from Blackstone next year. Among the deals its
currently involved in is Comcast/Time Warner Cable.

Jonathan Becher Named Chief Digital Officer and Leads SAP Digital; Maggie Chan Jones Will Join SAP as Chief Marketing Officer (PR Newswire)


Grady Steps Down as NJ Pension Chairman (Chief Investment Officer)

SevOne's SVP, Operations, Tanya Bakalov and Chief Legal Officer Diane Pyron Win Stevie® Award in 2014 Stevie Awards for Women in Business (Marketwire)
Here's the remainder of the Stevie Award winners, including Kimberly Gress of Dell Boomi in Berwyn and At Media co-founder Antoinette Marie Johnson.

Devesh Raj Joins Comcast Corporation as Senior Vice President of Strategic and Financial Planning (Business Wire)

Managed Cloud Hosting Company Xtium Appoints David Rode as CEO (Talkin' Cloud)

Why I Joined the ASUG Team
(Chris Kanaracus/senior editor and senior research analyst-ASUG)
Kanaracus has provided excellent coverage of enterprise software for IDG' PC World for several years. ASUG is the Americas' SAP Users' Group.



RightCare Co-founder Recognized by the American Academy of Nursing for Her Commitment To Reducing Readmissions and Improving Patient Outcomes
(Business Wire)

JetPay Corporation Appoints Pete J. DuPré as Chief Information Officer (Business Wire)

InterDigital Adds Former Nokia Executive Kai Oistamo to Board of Directors (Globe Newswire)

Facebook Co-Founder Named CEO Of Philo (Multichannel News)

Bret Piano, Named VP/Group Director Of Strategy & Analytics At Digitas Health LifeBrands Philadelphia
(AAAA)

Andy DelQuadro Joins MayoSeitz Media as Director, Digital Strategy (PR Web)

Cash Is for Losers! (Bloomberg Business Week)
Detailed article on Philly-born Venmo, including its early days, how its acquisition by Braintree (in turn acquired by PayPal) was almost out of desperation, the fact that despite the enormous volume of mobile payments it processes it generates minimal revenue, and how its co-founders' current roles at Venmo appear unclear.

The planned spinoff of PayPal by EBay will likely increase the attention Venmo receives.

Comcast Stretches Broadband Subscriber Lead In Q3 (Investor's Business
Daily)

FCC Barred From Disclosing TV Contracts in Comcast Review (Bloomberg)


A double-Logo SAP ? (Pixelbase)
SAP employees unhappy with new SAP logo so the old one is brought back; CEO Bill McDermott wants employees to focus on
running the actual business.

Links 11/21/2014: Fab may be sold off for $!5-25 million; Aereo files for bankruptcy: AirClic acquired

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Former Rising Star Fab May Sell to PCH at a Steep Discount (Wall Street Journal: Digits)
Fab was valued at about $1 billion after one of its financing rounds, but now may sell for as little as $15 to $25 million, according to reports. First Round Capital was an early investor, though I doubt its exposure is significant. (I mean cash exposure; I don't know when they recognize book gains.)

Aereo, a live-stream TV startup, files for bankruptcy (Fortune)
Another startup that FRC invested in, though again probably with limited exposure. Barry Diller's IAC Corp made the biggest bet. I still would imagine that the technology is going to be worth something to somebody.

The Next Chapter (Aereo Blog)


Aereo CEO: Court Made Incredibly Wrong Decision, Cord-Cutting Is Inevitable (TechCrunch)


Amazon reportedly launching free, ad-supported video streaming service (Engadget)

Comcast SportsNet launches marketing campaign over possible Dish Network blackout (Washington Post)

Descartes Buys Transportation Tech Provider Airclic (Trevose) for $29.7 Million (Transport Topics)
AirClic reportedly recieved investments of $300 million or more going back to 2000.
This is the original press release from 2000 announcing the joint venture investment plans for AirClic. Its not known how much was eventually invested.

CMU to split $750K with two partners (including Drexel) to form PA Interactive Media Consortium (Pittsburgh Business Times)


Is SAP any clearer on its SME strategy?
(Diginomica)

Salesforce brings Social Studio deeper into its Cloud family (VentureBeat)



AWS is playing chicken with pricing, and enterprise incumbents will lose (Tech Republic)

HP boss Meg Whitman shuffles exec pawns just before biz splits (The Register)

Links 11/20/2014: Salesforce off a bit on lower-than-expected guidance; Concur shareholders approve $8.3 billion SAP deal

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Netflix Still Dominates Streaming, but Amazon Is Picking Up Steam (Re/code)

Comcast says it’ll stop wasting your time, offers technician tracking tool (Ars Technica)


Wall Street cool on Salesforce.com numbers despite 29% YoY growth (Diginomica)

Salesforce’s Benioff: The Wave analytics cloud’s market potential is ‘far beyond’ $1B (VentureBeat)

NGO Connect and the New Nonprofit Technology Revolution (Salesforce Foundation)
Explains Salesforce Foundation's investment in Villanova-based RoundCorner and NGO Connect.

Concur Beats Its Financial Expectations For Its 2014 Fiscal Year (Business Travel News)
Meanwhile, Concur shareholders approve $8.3 billion acquisition by SAP.

SAP talks up Hana but small companies slow to sign on (PC World)



Uber’s Massive Fundraising Campaign Forges Ahead Amid Controversy (Wall Street Journal: Digits)

Amazon to Lease Entire Manhattan Building, Hinting at Retail Ambitions (WSJ: Digits)


Unisys Selected to Provide Cloud Infrastructure Solutions to Help Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Protect U.S. Citizens from Financial Crime
(PR Newswire)

Comcast Takes Ethernet Everywhere (Light Reading)

Web Video Channel Guide PlutoTV Raises $13 Million (Re/code)

QVC's Digital Transition (NBC News Video/Interview with CEO David George)

Links 11/19/2014: SAP CEO to lay out six-year plan; says will rely on mostly organic growth

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SAP CEO rules out big acquisitions in next few years (Reuters)

SAP CEO McDermott to Unveil Six-Year Plan in January (Bloomberg)

SAP preps new 5-year vision: The burning questions (ZDNet)

Salesforce Falls on Weak Guidance After Q3 Results Beat Expectations (Re/code)


MICROSOFT AZURE SUFFERS WIDESPREAD OUTAGE (Computer Business Review)

For Amazon, cloud wars heat up (Fortune)

GE Ventures Flies Into the Drone Business With Airware Investment (Wall Street Journal: Venture Capital Dispatch)
First Round Capital was already an investor.

Ted Leonsis again says Monumental Network could be an alternative to Comcast SportsNet (The Washington Post)

Who could buy Netflix? (Fortune)

T-Mobile Could Attract Suitors Again, Deutsche Telekom Says (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer mentioned Comcast among possible buyers in interview, though he said he wasn't having discussions with any of them.

Malone Would Pursue TWC Again If Comcast Deal Rejected (Multichannel News)



'No One With A Stake In This Company Will Stand Up To Uber's CEO' (Business Insider)

Wolff: Behind the scenes at Uber/BuzzFeed fracas (USA Today)

After board takeover and C-suite shakeup, ValueVision dumps its name (St. Paul Business Journal)

Isaac Capital Group Closes $5 Million Preferred Stock Deal with Dataram Corporation (PR Newswire)

Rajant Expands Market Reach with Launch of New Channel Partner Program (Business Wire)

MeetMe #21 on Deloitte Fast 500, but I'd add an asterisk to that

Tom Paine

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New Hope-based MeetMe was ranked #21 nationally and #3 among Internet companies on the 2014 Deloitte Fast 500 (last year it was #3 overall), but although MeetMe is an impressive, growing company, as I explained last year its ranking by Deloitte is a bit misleading, though not intentionally so.

Deloitte's 2009-2013 growth rate for MeetMe reflects the addition of myYearbook's revenue to Quepasa's relatively tiny base after Quepasa (essentially little more than a public shell) technically acquired myYeabook in 2010 though myYearbook was the much larger company. The merged company was subsequently renamed MeetMe. So MeetMe being so high on the list is something of an aberration. Again, this is not a knock on MeetMe, which has performed well. It reported revenue of $11.6 million, up 15% from last year, and break even net income for the 3rd quarter 2014 as it continues to transition from desktop to mobile.

A Deloitte spokesperson confirmed by email last year that its methodology in the case of public companies is to take revenue from the public company's 10-K and doesn't distinguish between organic and inorganic growth.

The Philadelphia Business Journal shows what area companies made the Deloitte 2014 Fast 500.

Links 11/18/2014: Uber soap opera escalates

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Urban Outfitters' profits and shares tumble (Fortune)

Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt On Journalists (BuzzFeed)

The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women (Sarah Lacy/PandoDaily)

Uber CEO Condemns “Terrible” Comments
(BuzzFeed)


Verizon FiOS Cord-Cutter Deal Adds Netflix, HBO (Investor's Business Daily)

Comcast: Xfinity billing change 'may not have been seamless for some' (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Figured that might be the case.





Why I Joined the ASUG Team
(Chris Kanaracus/ASUG News)

Amazon delivering groceries in Philadelphia (Philly.com)


Venmo gets Touch ID security, tagging, and direct linking to bank accounts (VentureBeat)

Colocation America announces new data centers in Miami, Philadelphia and Boston to better serve clients (PR Newswire)

Links 11/17/2014: SAP names Becher Chief Digital Officer; Maggie Chan Jones Will Join SAP as Chief Marketing Office

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QVC ahead of the curve on retailing trends (Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly Deals)

Jonathan Becher Named Chief Digital Officer and Leads SAP Digital; Maggie Chan Jones Will Join SAP as Chief Marketing Officer (PR Newswire)

Why NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson Is Throwing Haymakers at the Competition (Ad Age)


Enterprises Moving Big Data Workloads to Public Cloud (Computerworld)

Can Amazon Web Services be stopped? (Infoworld)

Behind Closed Doors, Ford, UPS, and Visa Push for Net Neutrality (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Comcast Business Diversifies Its Cloud (Multichannel News)

Rieder: Philanthropist determined to save Philly papers (USA Today)

Keystone NAP's new Bucks County modular data center planned for early 2015 opening

Tom Paine

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Keystone NAP's connectivity map / Keystone NAP

Typically, the announcement of a new data center facility will highlight its total square footage. But for Keystone NAP, with a planned data center in Fairless Hills, Bucks County announced today, that figure is somewhat irrelevant. Keystone NAP, founded by Philadelphia entrepreneur Peter Ritz (Xtium, AirClic), is largely modular in design and can be built out incrementally to meet customer demand. Using modular power units called KeyBlocks designed by Schneider Electric, Keystone NAP can be built to customer specifications, avoiding the challenges that often occur in filing a large, predetermined amount of capacity.

The KeyBlocks can also adapt to the power intensity of an individual customers's environment, greatly reducing power bills for some. The Fairless Hills facility, on the location of a long-closed steel factory (remember those?), is at the junction of several energy sources.

Keystone NAP says it will address "the underserved Mid-Atlantic market," a theme mentioned by other recent entrants into the area and generally confirmed by industry analysts. It also says Keystone NAP will be the first "advanced data center in the Northeast capable of meeting the needs of today's web-scale enterprises."

Keystone NAP, which received Series A1 funding from a group of Philadelphia investors led by Ira Lubert (of LLR Partners and other Philadelphia-area investment groups) and other investors arranged by DH Capital, plans an early 2015 opening.

Keystone NAP has also formed important network connectivity partnerships, Ritz told me in a phone interview. With networks built out directly to the Keystone NAP site, Sunesys and Comcast deliver dedicated bandwidth to Keystone NAP customers through independent dual feeds entering the facility from opposite sides of the campus. Through Sunesys, customers also gain access to diverse, carrier-neutral and redundant dark fiber routes to New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Northern Virginia and Chicago

Other new entrants into the Philly-area market include well-funded TierPoint, which acquired both the former Philadelphia Technology Park in June and Xand, an operator of data centers in the Northeast with three locations near Philadelphia, in October.

DH Capital, which is a huge player in financing data center deals, was also involved with the debt financing for TierPoint's acquisition of Xand.