Philly Tech News

Daily Links 5/22/2013: Workday tops estimates with 61% growth; ValueVision to drop ShopNBC brand name

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:03:00 +0000

TruePosition Tackles Indoor Locating (Directions Magazine)

Alteva Announces Workforce Reduction (Marketwire)
Does not effect Philadelphia; reducing 20% of staff in legacy New York telecom business.

Interactions Secures $40 Million of New Financing (PR Newswire)
Radnor-based Cross Atlantic Capital Partners participates again in new round for Massachusetts-based Interactive Voice Response vendor.

Workday reports sales up almost 61% (Marketwatch)
Beats on revenue; posts slightly smaller loss than expected.

HP's Whitman reiterates 'multi-year journey' amid Q2 revenue miss
(ZDNet)
At least as long as her contract, I suspect.

Microsoft Unveils Xbox One Entertainment Console (Hollywood Reporter)

Pay TV is hurting, and even skeptics now admit cord cutting could be at fault (Gigaom)

Cable Companies Chafe as Low-Rated Channels Change Names (Advertising Age)

ValueVision Media to Rebrand Its ShopNBC Electronic Retail Operations as 'ShopHQ' -- 'Your Headquarters for All Things Shop' (Marketwire)
Comcast owns about 15% of ValueVision (inherited through its acquisition of NBCU) so it
remains to be seen what this means for Comcast's future interest in the home shopping channel.

Comcast, the Mets, and Other Winners in the New Man City-Yankees MLS Franchise (Business Week)

Tigerlabs Shows off First Class of Healthcare IT Accelerator Grads in Princeton

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:45:00 +0000

Esther Surden
Publisher & Editor, NJTechWeekly.com

Tigerlabs Health (Princeton) showcased its first Healthcare IT cohort at a Demo Day on May 15, 2013. It unveiled an impressive group of six companies. Four of the startups had spent three months at the seed accelerator.

“What we’ve been doing is laser focusing on partnerships we had been forming with all of the industry in the Princeton area,” Bert Navarrete, Tigerlabs founder, told the investors, consultants, mentors and press who had come to see the demos. He thanked the program’s mentors, whom he said had spent countless hours and days working with the accelerator’s individual companies.

Tiffany Bogich talks about PLOM.io which makes model-based science social. | Esther Surden

Many of the featured companies’ founders had Princeton University connections. Several startups came from Europe via Princeton. A number of the founders are returning to the places they came from, but some are staying in New Jersey as they develop their products further.

New York City Technology in Medicine: New York City Technology in Medicine is building out an iPhone app that can measure certain attributes of pupil dilation to diagnose a host of medical conditions. Speaking to the group, CEO Ryan Saleh said current methods of measuring pupil activity are very expensive or consist of shining a penlight in someone’s eyes and taking a subjective measurement. Mobile devices with high-resolution image sensors change that, he noted. The app takes a series of images over the span of two seconds. Cloud software compares the images to diagnostic algorithms, producing a result in a matter of seconds.

“We can do a robust neurological exam right from the device,” said Saleh. Cofounder Jeff Myers said individual apps to test for sobriety, sleep patterns and head trauma would be produced. The company wants to “white label” these apps so brands can offer them, he added. “Imagine a Heineken-branded sobriety app,” suggested Myers. An additional goal is to get this technology into every intensive care unit in the country, he stated. The company said it will close a round of seed funding in August 2013. The founders will be moving back to New York from Princeton and splitting their time between Princeton and a coworking space in SoHo, Saleh told NJTechWeekly.com.

CareTree.me: Traveling to the Tigerlabs accelerator from Chicago was CareTree.me. President Carl Hirschman — a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits — presented software that tackles a thorny problem shared by home health agencies, caregivers and the families they serve: communication. The company is selling a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-compliant online portal to the largely low tech home health agency market. Caregivers currently use paper checklists to convey information to the agency by either driving it there or faxing it in. When a family member needs information for a doctor or a hospital, it takes time for the agency to get back to the family.

The portal centralizes information and connects all the stakeholders: patients, caregivers, families and doctors. “We’ve designed it to be as easy as Facebook to use, so anyone can quickly get the hang of it,” said Hirschman.

The company took the idea through Chicago Lean Startup Challenge and built a beta site. Hirschman said some of the big names in the home health industry have invested in the company. Brian Bauer, Princeton grad Dan Zauber and Albert Pak compose the rest of the team. Hirschman says his company is heading back to Chicago at the end of the month but had a fabulous time in Princeton and “is working on ways to make operations in both places work.”

LifeVest Health: This company — which has moved from Denver to Princeton — offers a clever solution to the problem that plagues corporate wellness programs: they fail to deliver a return on investment to the companies that employ them. Said CEO Jon Cooper, “We help businesses save money and improve the health of their workforce through a stock tied to health … . Improve your health and your stock value rises and you get paid. Neglect your health and the value drops and you pay the price.”

The LifeVest Health founders say their solution differs from outcome-based programs, through which users have to hit biometric thresholds before they are rewarded. “Those people who drive the majority of the cost see the thresholds and say, ‘I’m not going to get there this year and I’d be lucky if I will get there in three years,’ ” said Cooper. They are not rewarded if they lose 15 pounds, and they may need to lose 30, for example, he said. LifeVest’s solution rewards employees as they work toward their goals. Further, it rewards companies with a business model that says companies shouldn’t have to pay if people don’t change, said cofounder Mike Logsdon.

Plom.io: This startup, which created a lot of buzz among investors at the demo event, aims to create a public library of scientific models on the Web so scientists don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Founder Tiffany Bogich said she had spent the past 10 years making mathematical models of how quickly certain viruses like SARS are spreading and how they can be controlled. She became frustrated with having to recreate previously published work just to begin her own research. When a pandemic threatens, “we have no tools in the scientific community to collaborate to solve this problem,” she said.

Plom.io helps resolve these issues and others. For example, if there are flaws in the models used, when new data comes in or if the results change, scientists can change their model on Plom.io in real time, said Bogich, using version control.

Scientists can also comment on and review models online. The software can be applied to many scientific fields and extended for use in finance and pharmaceuticals, said Bogich. The founders have completed back-end development work and expect to publicly launch in early fall, but they need funds to scale their work. “The Plom.io team will be staying in the Princeton/NYC area to take advantage of the network of health IT contacts in the Princeton area and the growing tech community in NYC,” said Bogich. Her team includes Sebastien Ballesteros and Joseph Dureau, who are based in Princeton and Paris.

Two recent additions to the Tigerlabs Health accelerator are The DentBoard and Clue.

The DentBoard: The DentBoard, which came to Tigerlabs via Nashville and Princeton according to Navarrete, is developing cloud-based business intelligence software for dentists. Cofounder Caleb Bastian is a dentist earning a Ph.D. in mathematical modeling from Princeton. Dentists are leaving a lot of money on the table due to enormous inefficiencies in their practices, he stated. There are several crucial issues; patient satisfaction is one and insurance is another. Insurance companies are responsible for 60 percent of dental office revenue, but they try to minimize payments by delaying or denying claims. Furthermore, 70 percent of dental office expenses are for labor, but dentists have no way to gauge their employees’ productivity. Likewise, dentists don’t have a way to understand prevailing fees in their communities in real time, as information is often outdated and not granular.

The easy-to-use software — which already interfaces with popular in- use dental software — will help dentists better manage their practices and increase the standard of care, said Bastian. The company has already had a $200,000 seed round. Bastian’s cofounders include Jose Garmilla and Tim Kunisky.

Clue: Clue came to Princeton all the way from Berlin. CEO Ida Tin pitched her company, which provides women information about their fertility all through their reproductive days. “We are building an app and a piece of hardware to enable women to take out their phone to see if they can get pregnant on any given day,” said Tin. The hardware is in development, and although Tin couldn’t release details, she said it would interface with the body to provide real-time information about where a woman is at any given time in her cycle. The company will sell disposable components for the hardware via a subscription model, she told the group. Tin’s cofounder is Hans Raffauf.

Esther Surden is Publisher and Editor of NJTechWeekly, and a contributor to Philly Tech News. This article originally appeared in NJTechWeekly, and is reposted here with her permission.

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Villanova law professor, tax expert, testifies in Apple tax hearing

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:41:00 +0000

Tom Paine

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J. Richard Harvey, a tax expert at Villanova University School of Law, testified Tuesday in front of a Senate panel exploring Apple's tax strategies, saying "I suspect that what Apple has done is within the bounds of what's acceptable in international tax law." But he also said he nearly 'fell out of my chair" when he read that Apple said it did not rely on tax gimmicks.

Of course, the definition of "gimmick" is open to interpretation. My experience is that large corporations spend as much as they need to in order to legally minimize tax bills, as long as the ROIs from those expdenditures are adequate. And most corporations consider it their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to do so, again as long as it is clearly within the law.

Harvey joined the Villanova School of Law as Distinguished Professor of Practice in 2010, according to Villanova's website. He has extensive high level experience at Treasury and the IRS under several administrations, as well as being a retired Managing Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He was one of two academic tax experts to testify in front of the panel, the other being Stephen E. Shay of Harvard Law School.

Daily Links 5/21/2013: Devon IT introduces $99 Zero Client Computing device, the Ceptor

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:34:00 +0000

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Viewers Start to Embrace Television on Demand (New York Times)

NBC hopes News President Deborah Turness will be agent of change (LA Times: Company Town)

FourthWall Nips at Nielsen (Light Reading Cable)

Why Google will crush Nielsen (The Guardian)

Devon IT Announces Newest Innovative Product in Zero Client Computing, the Ceptor (Business Wire)

Devon IT rolls out $89 plug-and-play zero client for the enterprise (Infoworld)

American Express Offers Promotion of Free Two-Day Shipping with ShopRunner to U.S. Consumer Cardmembers (Business Wire)

Swipely raises another $12m from tiny Rhode Island (PandoDaily)
First Round Capital participates again.

Performance management biz Adaptive Planning nets $45M from BVP & others (VentureBeat)

VMware launches network-savvy cloud service (PC World)
Will offer SAP HANA as an option.

Here Are More Details About SAP's Surprising New Partnership With VMware (SAI Enterprise)
This seems to clarify things a bit.

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Philly Tech News Events Calendar Updated 5/21/2013

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

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Frontier's Wilderotter: Our hick customers don't need more than 6 Mbps

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:14:00 +0000

Tom Paine

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At the J.P. Morgan 41st Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston last week, Stamford, Connecticut-based Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR) Chairman & CEO Maggie Wilderotter implied that most of its largely rural customer base did not really need (or want) much faster broadband speeds.

"In a lot of the big urban markets [like Boston] there a lot more power users, but a lot of our rural customers are not power users so 80 percent in our footprint use 6 Mbps or less, so the target sweet spot for these promotional offers we are putting in place is an aggressive price point that gets people on basic service - that that's all they need," Wilderotter said. She did say that in 42% of its footprint Frontier can offer 20 Mbps and it can offer 12 Mbps to 54%.

In May of 2009, Frontier acquired 4.8 million access lines - mostly rural and copper-based, from Verizon for $8.6 billion, tripling the size of the company (the deal closed in 2010).

Daily Links 5/20/2013: Yahoo makes Tumblr acquisition official; $1 billion Delaware data center will generate own power

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:07:00 +0000

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Yahoo officially acquires Tumblr for $1.1 billion, promises “not to screw it up” (Gigaom)

Going Off The Grid: Delaware Data Center Will Generate its Own Power (Data Center Knowledge)

Former IPG (& GSI Commerce) Exec Pahade Named Poptent CEO (MediaPost)

NBC names Deborah Turness president of news division
(LA Times: Company Town)

Quality Systems dissident board member resigns (MarketWatch)
Quality Systems' primary business is Horsham-based NextGen Healthcare.

GrubHub to Merge With Seamless as Food Orders Go Mobile (Bloomberg)
New York-based Seamless was owned by Philadelphia food service giant Aramark for several years before it was spun off. One of Seamless' early backers was the Conshohocken-based VC firm now known as Artists & Instigators.

Life after SAP
(Vinnie Mirchandani/Enterprise Irregulars)

CEO Marc Benioff Says Chatter Will Become Primary Interface For Salesforce, A Bold Yet Risky Move (TechCrunch)

Bala tech aid firm to hire 60 (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Higher Ed CRM Firm TargetX Adds Rutgers, Richmond, Bryant and Towson to List of Schools in the Cloud (Globe Newswire)

Novotorium Invests in Dunnamic, Interactive Design Studio with Medical Animation Expertise (PR Web)

Pharmas dial back reprints spend, floor it on digital to reach HCPs (Medical Marketing & Media)

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Philly Tech People News 5/19/2013

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:29:00 +0000

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PeopleLinx Names Chief Marketing Officer
Social Business Expert Michael Idinopulos to Lead Marketing Strategy for the Next Phase of Company Growth (PR Newswire)

HIT Application Solutions Welcomes Industry Veteran Jerry Baker as CEO (Business Wire)

GSI Commerce Appoints Michael Kliger as Managing Director for Europe (GSI Commerce website)

Monica Cawvey Joins Science Center as VP Development (Business Wire)

NBC News expected to name ITV's Deborah Turness as next president (LA Times: Company Town)

Nutrisystem Taps Robin Shallow As Vice President Of Communications (PR Newswire)

Rajant Names Cesar Benavides Regional Sales and Service Director – South America (Business Wire)

SuccessFactors Hires Gartner Analyst Thomas Otter to Lead Development of Next Generation HCM Software (PR Newswire)

Netplus adds six new team members (Philly Ad Club News)

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noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:30:00 +0000

Yahoo Tumblrs for Cool: Board Approves $1.1 Billion Deal as Expected (All Things D)

Tableau's market value soars past that of competitor QlikTech on first day of trading

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:18:00 +0000

Tom Paine

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Photo / Business Wire

Business Intelligence vendor Tableau (I think the preferred term now is data discovery and visualization) closed its opening day of trading (on the NYSE under the symbol "DATA") yesterday at $50.75, up almost 64% from its opening price to the public of $31.00, giving it a market capitalization of about $2.9 billion.

Its Radnor-based competitor, QlikTech, closed yesterday at $30.68, with a market cap of $2.65 billion. QlikTech held its IPO on July 16, 2010.

Seattle-based Tableau had been growing at more than 100% per year and had total revenue of $127.7 million in 2012. It posted a net loss of $3.7 million on revenue of $40 million during this year's first quarter, up 62% from the pior year. QlikTech reported total Q1 2013 revenue of $96.5 million, up 22% from the prior year's first quarter, and a GAAP loss of $16.8 million.

Tableau and QlikTech are by no means apples to apples competitors, though they frequently come up for direct comparison (but QlikTech CEO Lars Björk downplays in presentations how often they compete for the same accounts). Tableau's strength's are seen as data visualization and "rapid fire" ad hoc query capabilities, and being easier for end users who are not data analysts or developers to use. QlikTech is probably better suited to heavier (more structured) data analysis and for the sheer speed of its in-memory processing (although Tableau also uses in-memory technology).

Another distinction between the two is that while QlikTech originated in Sweeden and gradually expanded into other regions of the world and its revenue distribution still reflects its European roots, only 17% of Tableau's 2012 revenue came from outside the US and Canada, according to its S-1.

QlikTech announced earlier this month it had acquired Sweeden-based NComVA, a company it was already partnering with, to enhance its visualization technology.

QlikTech shares have also had a nice spike this month, up 20% and hitting a 52 week high, partially spurred on by the prospects of the Tableau IPO and perhaps a sense among some investors that QLIK was undervalued relative to the value given to Tableau.

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noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:10:00 +0000

NewSpring Capital Companies Honored at 2013 Enterprise Awards (NewSpring Capital News)

Daily Links 5/17/2013: Tableau, Marketo jump after offerings

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:58:00 +0000

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Tableau Software's IPO Pops Big: Shares Skyrocket Up ~60% (SAI Enterprise)

QLIK Rising: As DATA Soars, BMO Cheers New Analytics Approach (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

Marketo makes a mint in IPO, San Mateo company's stock shoots more than 50 percent higher in debut (San Jose Mercury News)

Tableau and Marketo Create Whopping Piles of Money With IPO Debuts (All Things D)

Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1 Billion, All-Cash Deal to Acquire Tumblr (All Things D)

Legislation to boost PA tech funding introduced (Philadelphia
Business Journal)

DirecTV Said to Be Considering Acquiring Part or All of Hulu (Bloomberg)

(Dow Jones Newswires via Fox News)

Highlights from SAP Sapphire 5/16/2013

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:25:00 +0000

At Sapphire, SAP's Plattner swipes at critics, Oracle (ZDNet)

SAP builds out HANA platform and ecosystem (PC World)

SAP announces general availability of Business Suite on HANA (Computerworld UK)

SAP Will More Than Double Investments in Venture-Capital Funds (Bloomberg)

HP preps Project Kraken for monster HANA in-memory jobs
Sixteen Ivy Bridge-EX sockets and 16TB in a single image (The Register)

SAP: Hana Viable Threat to ORCL, Says Pac Crest; Not Yet, Says BMO (Barron's: Tech Trader Daily)

SAP chief defends cloud strategy in wake of NetSuite and Qualcomm attacks (V3.co.uk)

Will SAP Scale the Customer Side of the Network Effect With Business One + Ariba Integration? (Spend Matters)

Daily Links 5/15/2013: RJMetrics closes $6.25 million Series A

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:29:00 +0000

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RJMetrics Closes $6.25M Series A Financing (PR Web)

Business Intelligence Startup RJMetrics Raises $6.25M From Trinity Ventures For Ecommerce Boom (TechCrunch)

Activist Shareholders Target MSNBC During Comcast's Annual Meeting (Audio) (Hollywood Reporter)

Comcast Checks into Hotel Services Opportunity (Multichannnel News)

DirecTV Looks to Test Off-Air Antenna in Set-Top (Multichannel News)

Netflix ISP Speed Index for April (Netflix Blog)

Drones and Airware: Why We Invested (Kent Goldman/First Round Capital)

InsPro Technologies Corporation Announces First Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Business Wire)

MeetMe® Enhances Mobile Subscription Product MeetMe+
Company extends mobile monetization leadership among mobile social apps (Business Wire)

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Highlights from SAP's Sapphire 5/15/2013: SAP unveils Fiori app suite

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:11:00 +0000

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SAP unveils 'consumer-friendly' Fiori app suite (PC World)

SAP updates line-of-business cloud apps (PC World)

SAP Gives ERP A Facelift (Information Week)

SAP co-CEO Snabe: In business, eat (or be eaten) (ZDNet)

Have We Been Properly Introduced? Dispelling Misconceptions About SAP HANA (Silicon Angle)

IBM PureSystems, SAP and business transformation (ZDNet)

Port of San Diego finds value in SAP cloud apps, but not HANA (Computerworld UK)

PACT, Ben Franklin Northeastern PA honor top entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:36:00 +0000

Tom Paine

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Two of the area's most prestigious tech associations held their awards banquets last week.

On Thursday evening, May 9, PACT (The Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies) held its 20th Annual Enterprise Awards. The event was held at a new venue this year, the Valley Forge Casino, intended to provide a bit more of a "red carpet" atmosphere (though hopefully it didn't lead to any startups wagering away their VC funds).

The IT winners of Enterprise Awards this year were:

· Technology Startup Company: ThingWorx
· Emerging Technology Company: InstaMed
· Investment Deal of the Year: Liquent
· IT Innovator Award of Excellence: Relay Network
· Technology CEO of the Year: Tim Wallace, iPipeline
· Technology Company of the Year: Quintiq

Comcast Executive VP David L. Cohen was named Legend Award Honoree.

You can see all the finalists here.

Also, on the evening of May 7, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania held its annual i xchange at Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University, with some 550 attendees present.

Award winners included Ed J. Coringrato Jr (Entrepreneurial Achievement), CEO of CyOptics, the Breinigsville optoelectronics maker for the telecom industry that was recently acquired by Avago Technologies Limited for $400 million. Also honored was Anthony J. Salvaggio (Incubator Graduate), President of ComputerAid Inc., Allentown. The IT consulting firm, which started with two employees in the early 1980s, now has more than 3,000 full-time associates.

Michael Whitman, President & CEO, Micro Interventional Devices, Langhorne, was honored for product innovation. Started out of Ben Franklin TechVentures in 2010, Micro Interventional Devices developed a minimally invasive product for use in heart valve repair and replacement procedures.

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News from SAP's Sapphire: 5/14/2013: SAP says HANA will power all cloud applications

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:10:00 +0000

SAP Unifies Comprehensive Cloud Portfolio With SAP HANA® Cloud Platform to Serve Companies of All Sizes (PR Newswire)

SAP says HANA will power all cloud applications (PC World)

Dell gooses HANA appliances, loads up SAP Business Suite
Looks ahead to those Ivy Bridge-EX machines later this year (The Register)

SAP Exec To Partners: Huge Incremental Revenue Opportunities Ahead (CRN)

SAP introduces Mobile Secure; mobile device management (ZDNet)

NetSuite's aims for SAP's manufacturing heart (ZDNet)

Qualcomm's CIO Says Oracle Is A 'Dinosaur' That's Losing Ground In The Enterprise (SAI Enterprise)

Two visions of the future of Healthcare IT; John Glaser and Agent Smith of "The Matrix"

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:24:00 +0000

First, John Glaser, PhD, CEO of Malvern-based Siemens Healthcare, Health Services, and an acknowledged industry visionary, gives a 3 minute presentation at this past winter's HIMSS Conference in New Orleans on the future of the Electronic Health Record. Glaser sees the EHR moving from being largely a transactional record to becoming an "intelligent" record.

GE Healthcare came up with this curious commercial using Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) of "The Matrix" fame. The result is rather odd but perhaps strangely effective.

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Daily Links 5/14/2013: ABC launching trial of free online streaming in Philly today

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:52:00 +0000

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ABC starts free online streaming in Philly today (Philly.com: Philly Deals)

Aereo Lands in Atlanta on June 17 (Multichannel News)

Verizon, Vodafone Stalement Seen Amid $7B Dividend (Investor's Business Daily)

Daily Report: Surging Data Center Industry Blurs Boundaries (New York Times)

Connectify Kickstarts Cloud Service For Faster Internet On Mac & PC (PR Newswire)

Connectify brings its broadband channel bonding service to the cloud (Gigaom)

Here's Why The Founders Of Fusion.io Left Last Week (SAI Enterprise)

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Daily Links 5/13/2013: Alteva, MeetMe earnings

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:20:00 +0000

Q&A: Plaintiffs' lawyer Barry Barnett on the Comcast class action (Thomson Reuters News & Insights)

Alteva Reports First Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Marketwire)

MeetMe® Reports First Quarter 2013 Financial Results (Marketwire)
Mobile revenue growing rapidly, but not enough yet to offset decline in non-mobile revenue. Mobile now accounts for 70% of daily users in US and Canada.

First area health-information exchange forming (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Health IT Accelerator Launching at University City Science Center (Business Wire)

Instem Enters Early Phase Clinical Market; Acquires Logos Technologies and ALPHADAS (Business Wire)

David’s Bridal launches a mobile planning tool for brides-to-be
(Internet Retailer)

Some pre-SAPPHIRE SAP news

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:44:00 +0000

Bluefin on SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (Diginomica)

SAP Sapphire 2013 preview: Five big questions (ZDNet)

Sapphire Now 2013 – the discerning preview (Diginomica)

HP wanted to offload Autonomy on SAP, says SAP co-chief (The Register)
But HP says it was SAP that was trying to buy from them.

Philly Tech People News 5/12/2013: SAP names former Comcast exec Clarke to head marketing communications function

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:23:00 +0000

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Victoria Clarke Becomes SAP's Fourth Comms Head In Three Years (The Holmes Report)
Previously with Comcast, the Pentagon.

Comcast’s Pick joins ValueVision board (CED Magazine)

InterDigital Adds Todd Simpson to Lead Innovation Partners (Globe Newswire)

Seasoned Specialty Retail Leader Named CEO of David’s Bridal
Pamela B. Wallack, Former Gap Executive Vice President, to lead largest specialty bridal market retailer (Business Wire)

GROM Hires Analytics Practice Lead
SAP Partner Engages Leading BI HANA Expert to Spearhead Analytics Practice (PR Web)

Checkpoint Systems, Inc. Appoints Jeff Richard Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (Business Wire)

Peter Illari Joins iCorps Technologies to Grow Philadelphia Market (PR Web)

DMi Partners Continues to Grow, Adding Three Associates to Creative Department (Marketwire)

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Today in Philly Tech History 5/12/2010: SAP acquires Sybase for $5.8 billion (Updated 5/16)

noreply@blogger.com (tom paine) — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:49:00 +0000

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On May 12, 2010, SAP announced it had agreed to acquire Dublin, CA-based Sybase for $5.8 billion. The first big strategic bet under co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe since they took over the top spot from Léo Apotheker on Super Bowl Sunday of that year, the Sybase buy offered benefits in at least three important areas: database technology (the core of Sybase's original business although it was now a distant runnerup to Oracle, IBM and Microsoft) , strength in vertical sectors like financial services and telecom, and advancing SAP's position in mobile technology.

Sybase CEO John Chen left the company last year to join PE giant Silver Lake Partners, and Sybase became a fully integrated part of SAP rather than a standalone unit.

I asked R "Ray" Wang, Principal Analyst & CEO of enterprise software research firm Constellation Research, Inc., to reflect on how the Sybase acquisition has turned out for SAP three years later. He responded by email that "while the acquisition was on the expensive side, SAP used it to leap frog from super legacy ERP vendor to a more forward path of innovation. In general the Sybase acquisition set into motion 3 areas for SAP:

1. Mobility - this helped them move into the mobile device management and mobile app dev market.
2. China presence and credibility - this gave them a good footing in China based on John Chen's market development and credibility with the Chinese government.
3. The underpinning of database and HANA - the movement to reduce dependency on Oracle and set a path for in-memory computing came from these efforts."

When I asked Wang to be more specific about how Sybase contributed to the development of HANA, he said "The key thing was having access to some of the smartest database minds in the world. They say HANA is home grown, but I think they learned from Sybase and built from scratch."

Also, this thread on the SAP Community Network from earlier this year provides some interesting perspectives on what was gained from the acquisition.

Update 5/16/2013: Hasso Plattner speaking at SAPPHIRE: "Guess why we bought Sybase? They have a whole package of columnar store. Probably will be useful."

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