City of Philadelphia managing $472M with outdated software from 1996, says City Controller

City Controller Alan Butkovitz reports on outdated technology. Photo by Rikard Larma/Metro

From the City Controller’s office:

City Controller Alan Butkovitz today released the FY08-09 Procurement Department audit [PDF] that found the Department is using a 15-year old database software application to account for the City’s $472 million equipment inventory.

Since 1996, the software has undergone four major revisions but the Department never obtained the upgraded versions.  The software is no longer supported by the Microsoft developer.

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The software is called the C-400 Inventory Control System, says Brian Dries, a Controller office spokesman.

Authorship recognition software from Drexel University lab to be released December [VIDEO]

Two competing software tools focused on ‘authorship recognition’ from a Drexel University computer science group are scheduled to be released publicly for the first time at a conference in Berlin at the year’s end.

The Drexel Privacy, Security and Automation Lab
work, led by Dr. Rachel Greenstadt and PhD student Michael Brennan, began in 2009 with research on the shortcomings of software used to uncover the identity of an individual based on writing style, like word choice and sentence structure.

“We have come a long way since then and are currently working on two tools that can be used both to recognize and to anonymize authors,” said Brennan, who organized June’s Random Hacks of Kindness and will organize another again in December. See the sidebar below for details. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly have sponsored both events.]

Yes, at the next Chaos Communication Conference in Berlin in late December, Greenstadt and Brennan will unveil two pieces of software, each meant to outdo the other.

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HardMetrics: with its analytics solution, a call for the Enterprise

A column by Geoff McQueen of HiiveSystems published on TechCrunch in late August posited a challenge to the status quo of today’s startup ecosystem: though consumer web is an exciting marketplace, with the necessities of big money and a big market, it sucks to build products for consumers.

“In the United States, if you want to reach a million users in a consumer play, you need to convince one in 260 people to use your product,” McQueen wrote.

It’s something that is easy to miss between the headlines of TechCruch, that same publication that makes the startup environment seem so exciting.

The enterprise — the business-to-business marketplace for software — is gaining more and more attention. TechCrunch has devoted a section to enterprise news, and Technically Philly has done its fair share, like coverage of Emerging Technology for the Enterprise, an international conference dedicated to the space, which takes place right in our Old City backyard.

It’s a growing market. In June, Gartner reported that the industry is on pace to surpass $267 billion in international revenue in 2011.

And though Wayne’s HardMetrics isn’t rewriting the rules of enterprise software deployment, it’s a great example of the prowess of enterprise business and its Philadelphia impact.

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NextDocs CEO Zikria Syed: ‘rapid growth’ in a niche life sciences market from King of Prussia

Beyond the bubble, a technology company of stability and promise is probably solving an old problem with new solutions.

Zikria Syed

And that’s how Zikria Syed describes his King of Prussia-based company NextDocs, a Microsoft SharePoint-based company specializing in the life sciences that was called last month Microsoft’s best partner in that industry.

Think of the company like this: a smattering of info products that walk pharmaceutical and biotech companies through their varied, highly-technical compliance processes, often involving the Food and Drug Administration or its equivalent abroad.

CEO and co-founder Syed says, with operations in six countries and projected $15 million in revenue for 2011, NextDocs is seeing all the growth he could have imagined and more.

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First Round invests in Mint.com, again

The region’s most active venture capital firm has thrown more of its weight behind financial planning site Mint.com.

The Web 2.0 banking site just closed a $14 million Series C round that includes Conshohocken-based First Round Capital amongst the six investors. First Round has contributed to each of Mint’s five funding rounds.

Mint, the winner of the first TechCrunch 40 event, allows users to import banking and credit card information and track spending with robust budgeting features. Mint makes its money by scanning your spending and suggesting ways you can save money.

Despite most people’s reluctance to offer up their financial information, Mint is earning $10 million a year from sales, and the company’s security record has been flawless. Mint has not yet followed up on their announcement that they will begin selling aggregated anonymous user data, which could be a large revenue stream for the company.

As usual, First Round was the only investor with East Coast offices. Other investors include DAG Ventures, The Founders Fund, Benchmark Capital, Shasta Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures.

The funding round was first reported by Silicon Valley Insider.