Two Penn alumni to choose from for President? (Republished from PTN from 2011)
Tom Paine
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Subscribe in a readerMembers of the University of Pennsylvania community may have not just one, but possibly two alumni to choose from in the upcoming Presidential election cycle.
One is the famous (or infamous, depending on one's point of view) Donald Trump (Wharton '68), who may run as a Republican or Independent.
The other is Jon Huntsman Jr., who received a bachelor's degree in International Politics from Penn in 1987. Huntsman is considered likely by many to enter the GOP race. Among other things, Hunstman has served as Governor of Utah and President Obama's Ambassador to China (until the end of this month when his resignation takes effect). His candidacy would face challenges, since he is not really well known among the general public and he faces criticism from Republicans for his association with Obama and a recently leaked letter in which Huntsman glowingly praised Obama.
His father, Jon Huntsman Sr., founder of chemical giant Huntsman Corporation and a major benefactor of Penn, received his degree from Wharton. It is he for whom Huntsman Hall, a building in which many of you have attended events, is named.
Which leads to the question: has a Penn graduate ever been President? Well no, actually, although one did attend Penn as a medical student: native Virginian William Henry Harrison, who enrolled there around 1790. Unfortunately, his father died, leaving him short on funds, and he is said to have not cared for medical studies much anyway, so he opted for the military life.
Harrison, however, lacked a certain amount of common sense and thus didn't fare too well as President. He gave a ridiculously long inauguration address on a bitter cold Washington day and died a few weeks later from pneumonia. Maybe he should have gotten that medical degree.
Links 11/2: Justice Department sues AT&T-DirecTV, over 'collusion' in blocking Dodgers channel; Vanguard Group plans innovation center in Philadelphia
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Justice Department sues AT&T-DirecTV, alleges collusion in blocking Dodgers channel (LA Times)
Wonder if this suit, though aimed at DirecTV's conduct before AT&T acquired it, will have bearing on Time Warner deal review.
Here’s why you’re seeing the Amazon Web Services logo during the World Series (GeekWire)
Alibaba Sales Beats Estimates on Cloud, E-Commerce Growth (Bloomberg)
Level 3 celebrates $34bn CenturyLink gobble by blacking out Eastern US (The Register)
Vanguard Group opening innovation center in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Pet health service firm raises $2M in seed funding round led by Comcast Ventures (Philadelphia Business Journal)
SAP ramps up S/4HANA public cloud division – exclusive with new chief Darren Roos (Diginomica)
Evolve IP buys Xtium (Philly.com: Philly Deals)
Trump wants to make the Navy Yard a Navy Yard again?
Tom Paine
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Speaking in King of Prussia just now, Donald Trump just said he wants to make the Philadelphia Navy Yard, well, a Navy Yard again.
I have no idea if this makes any sense.
More as it develops.
MEMO: TRUMP ANNOUNCES NATIONWIDE SHIP-BUILDING PLAN TO CREATE 350 SHIP NAVY
Probably just another pre-election goodie without much substance.
"In the tradition of Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength” and a Reagan focus on naval power, Donald Trump has proposed a significant increase in the size of our Navy. The 350-ship goal conforms to that blueprint outlined by the bipartisan National Defense Panel.
Facilities like the Philadelphia Navy Yard can help lead the way – and the defense of America. This yard was shut down in the 1990s but still retains a variety of Navy Department facilities. It has substantial latent capacity to grow in support of the expanding Fleet, it is home to a Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility and retains several specialized engineering activities.
A Trump administration would fully utilize those parts of the Philadelphia Yard that remain in Navy hands and rapidly expand its activities to meet the Fleet's growing science and technology needs – creating thousands of new jobs in the process. Leveraging the under-utilized capacity of the Philadelphia yard will alleviate pressure on other over-stretched facilities and provide an ideal location for tasks the Navy desperately needs accomplished."
Links 11/1: Comcast shunning Apple TV single sign-on, expands Gigabit markets
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Salesforce.com: You Should Be Buying It Now, Says Morgan Stanley (Barron's Tech Trader Daily)
Donio Leaves Concur & Eberhard Becomes President (Business Travel News)
Tableau stock tumbles 13% on mixed earnings results in latest blow to data visualization company (GeekWire)
A Few Followup Thoughts on the CenturyLink/Level3 Deal (Rob Powell / Telecom Ramblings)
Alibaba’s Cloud Arm Set for Center Stage as E-Commerce Plateaus (Bloomberg)
Gannett Is Giving Up Its Bid for Newspaper Publisher Tronc (Fortune)
The Morning Call is safe, in one sense, for a while.
GE wants to sell its global water business, based in Trevose (Philly.com)
Bethlehem venture capital company receives $5M for tech jobs (Allentown Morning Call)
Comcast shunning Apple TV single sign-on, working with CTAM on open solution (FierceCable)
Hulu will have ABC, Disney, ESPN, and Fox on its live TV service (The Verge)
But no word on NBC (which owns about 30%) yet.
Comcast Gigabit Markets to Expand, West Coast Markets in Focus (Telecompetitor)
CenturyLink buys Level3; Implications for Comcast
Tom Paine
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| Level3 campus |
CenturyLiink's proposed $34 billion (including assumption of debt) acquisition of internet backbone provider Level3 Communications has implications for Comcast, from both sides.
In July, Comcast was widely rumored to be considering buying Level3, but those turned out to be just rumors. Not that it might not have been on Comcast's radar.
Broomfield, Colorado-based Level3 is a Tier 1 provider of core transport, IP, voice, video, and content delivery. Its a major carrier of traffic to and from Comcast's network.
Level3 also could have also strengthened Comcast's business communications services capabilities for large enterprises, and added to its fiber network for wireless backhaul.
Monroe, La-based CenturyLink, which also has an extensive fiber network, had its roots in the local telco business. CenturyLink also has a pay TV service called Prism, with only 311,000 subscribers, which competes with Comcast in some areas. CenturyLink has also been conducting a pilot for a skinny bundle over-the-top service called Prism Stream.
Comcast and Level3 had a long-running dispute over peerage costs, and Level3's complaints that Comcast was discriminating against traffic from Netflix, a major Level3 customer. But things have been relatively peaceful since the two firms reached a long-term agreement last year.
The combination would increase CenturyLink's fiber network in the United States to 450,000 miles from about 250,000.
Links 10/31: Study: AWS has 45% share of public cloud infrastructure market — more than Microsoft, Google, IBM combined; Marketo has enlisted former SAP exec as new CEO
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CenturyLink to Buy Level 3 for $34 Billion in Cash, Stock (Bloomberg)
Apple Encouraged To Bid For Time Warner As TV Strategy Falters (Investor's Business Daily)
Networking Gear Maker Brocade Is In Advanced Acquisition Talks (Fortune)
iPhone 8 with OLED display may have just been confirmed by an unlikely source (BGR)
ESPN Is Both Right and Wrong About its Terrible Subscriber Numbers (Fortune)
Verizon fell short on 22,422 homes with FIOS, city says (Philly.com)
Study: AWS has 45% share of public cloud infrastructure market — more than Microsoft, Google, IBM combined (GeekWire)
Baltimore is making a $5 billion bet that entrepreneurs can revive the city (CNBC)
Marketo Has Enlisted This Former SAP Exec as Its New CEO (Fortune)
Sunday Highlights: CRM views; Why AmerisourceBergen shares were hammered on Friday
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Why the Lehigh Valley is full of fulfillment centers (Philly.com)
SAP’s CEO on Being the American Head of a German Multinational (Harvard Business Review)
CRM Startups Staff Up As Larger Rivals Fight
(Mattermark)
Should Salesforce Buy NetSuite? (Denis Pombriant / CRMBuyer)
Customer Relationship Automation Is the New CRM (Harvard Business
Review)
Drug wholesalers are getting slammed after McKesson warned that cost scrutiny is hurting its business (Business Insider)
Why AmerisourceBergen shares were hammered on Friday.
Wolff: Business theory behind AT&T-Time Warner deal is twisted (USA Today)
Comcast Q3 Earnings: Give thanks to Rio, and other takeaways
Tom Paine
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Comcast's 3rd quarter results, announced Wednesday, look a bit more like those of a growth company: Revenue increased 14.2%, operating income 11.0%, operating cash flow 10.5%, and EPS 15%. This likely isn't sustainable at that level, as the Olympics and other non-recurring factors contributed to the spike. But the momentum in Cable, in terms of video (subs increased by 32,000, the best third quarter result in 10 years) and high speed internet (subs increased by 330,000, the best third quarter result in 7 years), is real.
On the cost side, Comcast Cable is still dealing with double digit programming cost increases, expected to decline gradually, and increased capex due to the X1 rollout and other new technologies, putting some slight pressure on margins. And the cost of a wireless entry hasn't been specified yet.
Rather than breakdown Goliath's numbers, which you can look at if you want to, I will try to highlight a few interesting points (earnings call transcript from Seeking Alpha).
Responding to a question about whether Comcast can make money from its MVNO (wireless) relationship with Verizon, CEO Brian Roberts said in part:
"We fundamentally believe we can make money for the shareholders through a wireless offering with the unique relationship that we have with the Verizon MVNO. We can't go into detail about that relationship for obvious reasons, but we have the ability to do things that we think put us in a position to make that statement come true and create real value for our shareholders along the way."
Which seems to imply that the Verizon MVNO is something more complex than a straightforward wholesale arrangement.
Neil Smit (CEO, Comcast Cable) adds: "We are going to have to include handset procurement as part of it, but we built that in the model."
Steve Burke (CEO,NBCU) on advanced, addressable advertising ( targeted to households or individuals across, ideally, different devices and media):
"Advanced advertising has been around – people have been talking about it for a long time. It's not easy. It's hard to develop these products, but it's clear what advertisers want. They want to combine the data intensity of Internet advertising with the clear value and ability to change people's perceptions that you get with a television ad. So, it's a pretty important part of Neil and my agenda, and I think we're at the head of the pack in terms of delivering on it. But there's still work to do."
Perhaps further complicated by recently instituted FCC privacy rules, (set to take effect in about a year), though there's debate about that.
Steve Burke on rising OTT competition, such as the soon-to-be DirecTV Now: "I think we all have a healthy degree of skepticism that these new over-the-top entrants are going to create millions and millions and millions of subscribers any time soon."
Neil Smit on how X1 (now rolled out to 45% of residential customers) is helping to reduce churn, a key factor in sub growth: "Retention has improved for 32 consecutive month."
Smit on the IP (Internet Protocol) transition: "Well, as you mentioned, we'll be going to an IP-based video solution over the next, let's just call it, couple years. We have the product in the lab. It's working well."
Smit on Business Services, which grew 15%:
"We are doing hyperbuilds now where we go in – we used to go into an industrial park and we had to sign up the customers before we pulled the fiber in. Whereas now we know in these industrial parks we're going to get the customers. It's just a question of time before we get them on that and so we're building in, assuming we're going to get the customer base. It's a little bit more aggressive stance."
Smit on XFINITY Home: "About a year and a half ago, we announced we passed 500,000 customers and it's grown significantly from there."
(So no new numbers.)
Saturday Highlights: Report: DraftKings, FanDuel close to merger; QVC looking for shop space on NY's 34th Street
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Sources: DraftKings, FanDuel merger 'imminent' (ESPN)
Local investor interests in FanDuel, particularly Paul Martino (Bullpen Capital, a FanDuel board member) and Comcast Ventures.
Lineup for AT&T's streaming DirecTV Now includes channels from HBO, Disney, Viacom (Dallas Morning News)
Report: Alphabet Taps Fiber Troubleshooter (Multichannel News)
QVC, HSN shop for ‘touching’ space (NY Post)
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