Links 12/29/2014: Über files compliance plan with PA PUC; MSNBC says it will widen its scope

New Jersey Adopts New Software (Tax) Regulations. (PR Newswire)

MSNBC to widen its scope and make other changes, its president says (LA Times)

Tax software CEO Jeff Westphal talks inspiration (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Vertex is probably the largest global software company based in the Philadelphia area that few people pay attention to.

SAP in 2015: Seven Predictions
(ASUG News)

Job of the Week: SAP subsidiary National Security Services seeks chief information security officer (Washington Post)

Uber files compliance plan with PUC
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

After raising $1.1B, Xiaomi is now worth $45B (Gigaom)

Horsham-based chip equipment maker SSEC acquired by Veeco Instruments for $150 million

Tom Paine

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In one of the larger tech deals in the Phily area of 2014, New York State-based Veeco Instruments announced in early December it had acquired SSEC (Horsham) for $150 million in cash. Founded in 1965, SSEC (Solid State Equipment Holdings LLC) is part of the remaing legacy of the area's once considerable semiconducter-related industry.

SSEC says on its website that it "holds to the philosophy that the integrated circuit industry is still in its infancy." SSEC "designs and manufacturers single-wafer wet etch, clean and surface preparation equipment targeting high-growth segments in advanced packaging, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and compound semiconductors," writes the trade publication Semiconductor Today. Veeco’s chairman & CEO John R. Peeler said "SSEC extends our compound semiconductor and MEMS footprint, and represents a stepping stone to the high-growth advanced packaging market.” MEMS is a hot area; MEMS appplications are largely being driven by consumer devices, but industrial IoT applications are expected to be major drivers in the future.

SSEC's  WaferEtch(TM) TSV Revealer

Based in Plainview, NY, Veeco (NASDAQ:VECO) had revenue of $332 million and a net loss of $42 million in 2013. Veeco has actually shrunk in recent years, partly as a result of a 2010 divestiture. It is now focused on higher-growth markets of supplying process equipment to the LED, solar, data storage and wireless industries.

Veeco is forecasting SSEC’s revenues to be $65 million in 2015, and it expects it to provide earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, equity compensation, and other non-recurring items (adjusted EBITDA) of greater than 20% of sales in 2015.

SSEC was recognized on the 2013 Inc. 5000 with 2012 revenue of $80.4 million, up from $47.7 million in 2009. It would appear that its revenue has gone down since then, given Veeco's 2015 forecast, but such cycles are not unusual in the semiconductor industry.

Rich Richardson has been the longtime chairman of SSEC and Herman Itzkowitz the CEO. Summit Partners made the last reported investment in SSEC in 2011. SSEC has 44 employees listed on LinkedIn, most of them in the Philadelphia area.

Lights out for local Jersey Shore TV station (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bankruptcy judge: Aereo can sell its TV stream tech—with some caveats (Ars Technica)


Pa. program funds university-industry research (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

Philly Tech People News 12/28/2014: News on Comcast execs; Director of the Institute for Biomedical Informatics at Penn Medicine named

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Comcast signs Smit through 2019; WSJ: Angelakis ranks high among CFOs; Burke's NBC News issues (Philly Tech News)

Vertex Hires Executive to Lead Expansion in Latin America (Business Wire)

Echo Therapeutics Announces Scott W. Hollander as President & Chief Executive Officer (PR Newswire)

Rackspace Appoints Kevin Costello to Board of Directors (Marketwire via CNN)
Costello served as President of Ariba before and after its acquisition by SAP.

Jason Moore Named Director of the Institute for Biomedical Informatics at Penn Medicine (Penn News)


University of the Sciences president steps down (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Court allows Aereo to auction TV streaming technology assets (Reuters)

Nextdoor, with Comcast Ventures as one of its investors, partners with Philly, while EveryBlock expands to new cities

Tom Paine

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Nextdoor, the localized bulletin board service that announced partnering with Philadelphia last week, has huge ambitions.

In late 2013, it raised $60 million from John Doerr, Tiger Global and others to bring its total funding to over $100 million at a probable valuation of over $500 million. Another investor in that round was Comcast Ventures.

I don't see anything in the announcement that suggests that Nextdoor is offering Philadelphia something unique to that service that couldn't be found in other communities it is available in around the country. It is essentially a bulletin
board that can create separate communities for neighborhoods with cities or counties, and group messages by various topics within those communities. The feature it did add in September that may be particularly helpful to Philadelphia is Nextdoor for Public Agencies. This allows government agencies to communicate with residents on Nextdoor targeted to selected neighborhoods. Before this, residents could only communicate with other verified residents in a neighborhood.

No money is being exchanged in either direction, Technical.ly Philly reported, citing a City spokesperson.

Meanwhile, Comcast has expanded its back from the dead, wholely-owned EveryBlock to Houston, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia, all cities served by Comcast Cable. Though different in stylistics, both services are trying to serve the same function towards the same basic goal - generating local revenue, though there doesn't seem to be too much of that yet. From what I've seen so far, EveryBlock seems to be preseeded with more local information, while Nextdoor is basically just a bulletin board, though that may not be true everywhere.

That Comcast owns Everyblock while Comcast Ventures has a stake in Nextdoor is not surprising. Comcast Ventures has its own investment strategy, though there might be a chance that the two might fit together in some manner down the road.

@phillytechnews @PhiladelphiaGov We need to work with every channel that helps us connect people and neighborhoods to one another

— Adel Ebeid (@adelebeid) December 17, 2014

Interestingly, Nextdoor's CEO and co-founder is a Philly native, Nirav Tolia, though he grew up mostly in Odessa (Friday Night Lights) Texas. From there he headed to Stannford and a somewhat controversial but successful Silicon Valley career.

Links 12/26/2014: One view of Enterprise market in 2015; FCC proposal could bring Aereo back to life

The Enterprise In 2015 (TechCrunch)
Outlook of Emergence Capital, which invested in Salesforce, SuccessFactors, Veeva Systems, and Box.

Comcast’s secret hotline for special cardholders really exists. But it’s not much different from the regular one. (Washington Post: The Switch)

How David Gregory Lost His Job
(The Washingtonian)

FCC proposal may set stage for Aereo comeback (SNL Capitol Connection)


TechCelerator Companies Graduate From Business Bootcamp (State College.com)

The state of consumer fintech
(Tanay Jaipuria/Medium)

Indian E-Commerce Is on Fire. What Will Amazon and Alibaba Do About It? (Re/code)

Grants worth $115,000 to aid two Bethlehem tech firms (Penn Business Daily)

In case you haven't seen it, Santa is a Jerk in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Today in Philly Tech history 12/16/2014; Transistor invented at Bell Labs 67 years ago (Some say 12/23/47)

Tom Paine
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Souce: Wikipedia

Sixty-seven years ago (December 16, 1947), the transistor was invented at Bell Labs in New Jersey when researchers William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain were able to use germanium crystal to create an amplifier that boosted an input signal by 100 times. Some cite the date as December 23, when it was first demonstrated to Bell Labs officials. The three would share the Nobel Prize for physics in 1956.

Michael Kanellos, in a piece for ReadWriteWeb , writes that "the center of the computing industry, by rights, should be King of Prussia, Pennsylvania", given the proximity of Bell Labs, companies like Sperry Rand (which grew out of the ENIAC project at Penn and later merged with Burroughs to form Unisys) and TV and radio manufacturers such as RCA and Philco who were doing advanced electronics research. Also important were RCA's research lab in Princeton, and Western Electric (AT&T's manufacturing arm) facilities in Allentown and Reading. A couple of other pioneering companies I would mention are Kulicke & Soffa and Technitrol (now Pulse). In addition, the engineering and scientific resources of schools like Penn, Princeton and Drexel were valuable assets.

So with all these pieces in place, why did the Philadelphia/New Jersey region fail to become what Silicon Valley is today? Although I doubt its so simple, Kanellos cites the often-told story of William Shockley departing for Palo Alto (where he was raised, actually), and others who followed him west, as being a critical turning point. Shockley's erratic personality drove away many who worked for him, but several of those people went on to found Fairchild Semiconductor and then Intel.

Just a few links 12/24: "The Interview" is streaming; 45 Philly cab companies sue Uber

Sony Plans to Stream “The Interview” On Its Own Site — and On Google’s Play and YouTube. (Re/code)

As Comcast merger enters final phase, deal may be on thin ice (Gigaom)

Uber sued by 45 Philadelphia taxi companies (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Comcast signs Smit through 2019; WSJ: Angelakis ranks high among CFOs

Tom Paine

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In an SEC filing today, Comcast said that Neil Smit, President & CEO of Comcast's Cable business, has signed up until 2019, with a salary hike and additional financial inducements.

If the merger with Time Warner Cable goes through, he is going to be managing an expanded empire.

Meanwhile, the Inquirer's Bob Fernandez reports that Comcast"s vice chairman and CFO, Michael Angelakis, was rated as the third most effective CFO by the Wall Street Journal, based on Comcast's return on invested capital, operating margin, dividend growth, and share buybacks over the last three years.

Brian Roberts' other top lieutenant, Steve Burke, is receiving heat for his management of NBC News, but he is typically stereotyped as the guy from Comcast who doesn't understand the news biz, which overlooks his early experience with ABC.

Philadelphia Magazine reported last month that Burke's Rittenhouse Square home was finally sold or was under contract after being on the market for a long time, but I'm sure he can still get pretty good digs when he's in town.