Southboro’s Globoforce cancels IPO

A Southboro tech company canceled its initial public offering hours before markets opened yesterday, a move experts said was a sign of low demand for shares of Globoforce, not a trend that will drag down other tech companies looking to go public soon.

Globoforce, which makes employee recognition software for businesses, said late Thursday night it had canceled the deal after initially scaling down the IPO earlier Thursday.

"Despite receiving overwhelming interest in our initial public offering, we have decided to postpone our offering until market conditions are more favorable for our company and our customers," said Eric Mosley, CEO of Globoforce, in a statement.

Scott Johnson, managing partner of New Atlantic Ventures in Cambridge and an investor in Enernoc when it went public, said those "market conditions" were likely related to Globoforce, not the market in general.

"It's hard to conclude that this is the canary in the coal mine," Johnson said. "I would say the odds are this is a company-specific situation, where the investors' appetite for this particular offer was below the expectations of the company."

Matt Wong, an analyst with CB Insights, said one possible red flag was the company's distribution of revenue.

"Their 10 largest clients make up 70 percent of their revenue," Wong said.

A Globoforce spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the company's statement.

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'20s charm abounds in Belmont home

This classic colonial in Belmont has been updated but retains much of its woodwork and charming details, such as arched doorways.

Built in 1928, the five-bedroom home at 22 Adams St. lies in the town's high-end Presidential Estates subdivision. The gabled, hip-roofed house, with an attached two-car rear garage, has seen major kitchen and bathroom updates and new heating and central air systems. It's on the market for $1,395,000.

There's a custom stone wall-enclosed patio in the front yard, and a granite walkway leads up to the house, which has a brick exterior first floor and newly repainted light-blue clapboard above. There's a stone-floored entry with a coat closet to one side that opens into a large hardwood-floored foyer with a turning staircase.

To the left is a formal living room with hardwood floors, a beamed ceiling and sconce lighting. The sunny room has six windows and a wood-burning fireplace with a restored mantel.

A french door from the living room leads into a home office with built-in shelving. To the right of the foyer is a sitting room with hardwood floors and crown molding that leads through french doors into a formal dining room. This sunny room has five windows and restored maple floors.

It segues into an L-shaped recessed-lit kitchen that underwent a major renovation in 1997, including restored maple floors. There are over 40 custom hand-painted white cabinets in three distinct areas above and below black granite countertops. There's a dining area with two windows and six glass-fronted cabinets. The main preparation area has lots of drawers and shelves, and an adjacent pantry area has large cabinets. There's a stainless-steel Thermador gas stove and two black Thermador wall ovens, a stainless-steel LG dishwasher and Kitchen Aid compactor and a Maytag side-by-side refrigerator that was added last year.

There's a door from the pantry area out to a rear deck with cedar floors and mahogany railings that has stairs down to a small grass backyard. Back inside, at the back of the first floor, is a guest bedroom with two windows as well a full bathroom added in 1998 that has a blue tile floor, white-tiled walk-in shower and a white pedestal sink.

There are three bedrooms on the home's second floor reached via a turning staircase in the foyer.

The master bedroom suite underwent a major renovation in 1998 with restored hardwood floors and a custom walk-in closet with built-in drawers and cabinets. The en-suite bathroom has a beige marble floor and marble-topped double-sink vanity. There's a white-tiled double steam shower with a marble bench and a skylight above.

The second and third bedrooms are good-sized, and both have hardwood floors and alcoves with built-in desks on one side and dresser drawers on the other,

A second full bath was redone in 1998 with a white marble floor and marble-topped double sink vanity and a white-tiled walled whirlpool tub and shower.

The carpeted fifth bedroom is one floor above in a converted attic with a window.

The home's basement was remodeled in 2001. Stairs lead down to a ceramic-tiled laundry and storage room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and a full-size Maytag washer and dryer.

Off this room is a large, carpeted recessed-lit family room with a wood-burning fireplace.

A closet holds a heating and central air-conditioning system added in 2001, at which time new electrical,. plumbing and coaxial cable wiring were also upgraded.

There's also an attached two-car garage in the basement, with automated doors and parking for an additional vehicle under the deck and in a long driveway. But there's no direct access to the house from the garage.

There's not a lot of yard space, but the area around the home is nicely landscaped with birch trees and flowering bushes.

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Health Connector tab grows

The state could lose up to $90 million in federal funds because lingering problems with its disastrous Obama­care website have kept tens of thousands of people on health plans that were supposed to expire in January — forcing it to burn up cigarette tax funds to fill the gap — and that's only part of a fast-approaching hit on taxpayers, experts told the Herald.

"Ninety million extra is a floor for what the coming taxpayer bill will be," said Joshua Archambault, a health care expert at the Pioneer Institute. "Taxpayers will pay for all the pieces of this puzzle that they wouldn't be paying for if the site had worked."

The Health Connector is asking for an extension through Sept. 30 for more than 100,000 people on subsidized plans known as Commonwealth Care — who haven't been able to move to Obamacare-compliant plans because of the bad site, leaving the Bay State with an approximately $10 million a month penalty in federal funding.

"This is the impact of lost federal revenue, lost federal support, due to IT system challenges," Administration and Finance Secretary Glen Shor told the Herald yesterday. So the state will now tap a Connector trust fund used to subsidize health care costs — including cigarette tax revenue — to help fix the mess.

But the $90 million is just one of the costs piling up in the signature Democratic program that has become a headache for Gov. Deval Patrick. Optum, the company hired earlier this year to address technology issues, is charging $16.4 million just through March. Consulting group MITRE also reviewed the system and filed two different reports, though it's unclear how much they'll be paid.

Developer CGI has only been paid $15 million of its $69 million milestone-based contract, but it is unclear whether the state will have to shell out more. Then there is the cost of placing 84,000 Bay Staters on temporary Medicaid coverage — after the state was overwhelmed by the backlog of applications and couldn't process them before applicants' plans expired.

"The cost of temporary coverage will still need to unfold," Shor said. "There are a number of variables."

Stakeholders find the uncertainty unacceptable.

"It's concerning that the state remains unable to quantify the total cost of ownership for their utter failure to comply with the federal health care overhaul," said David A. Shore of the Massachusetts Association of Health Underwriters. "Perhaps more concerning is their complete lack of transparency and accountability on these complex financial issues to residents of the commonwealth."

The experts say with temporary insurance, some new customers who are eligible for some subsidies are essentially getting a free ride now — avoiding hundreds of dollars in premiums and out-of-pocket costs — while the state figures out their eligibility. An unknown number of applicants may not be eligible at all.

"Literally anybody in the commonwealth could sign up right now and be put onto the program," Archambault said.

Exactly who pays for the expenses they rack up in the meantime is still unclear, but Shore predicted all of this will simply drive up health care costs in the end.

"History suggests that the administration will attempt to recoup these monies through assessments on health insurance premiums paid for by small businesses and individual consumers," Shore said. "This is something that all consumers should watch carefully."

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Howard Johnson Inn to get ‘edgy’ redo

An "edgy" and "irreverent" 94-room boutique hotel paying homage to the Fenway's musical and artistic history will replace the shuttered and past-its-prime Howard Johnson Inn.

Samuels & Associates plans to open The Verb this summer after an 
$18.8 million-plus redevelopment that will include an interior gut-renovation of the Boylston Street property while preserving the 1959 building's mid-century facade and architecture.

It will be the first hotel for Samuels, which is credited with breathing new life into the Fenway with numerous residential, retail and office projects, including Fenway Triangle Trilogy, 1330 Boylston St. and the Van Ness Building. For this development, it is partnering with Weiner Ventures and Spot-On Ventures, developers of the Mandarin Oriental Boston.

"We're completely refurbishing the entire building," said Spot-On principal Robin Brown, a former 13-year general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Boston. "It was a very high-quality building that lacked in love. We're more than tipping our hat to the original architects' design intent, making it authentic, but modern."

The team hired a London branding firm to brainstorm about the hotel's positioning, its style of service and attitude, and its name.

"Everything about the hotel will be a little bit irreverent," Brown said. "This is like me having a midlife crisis of hotels that's grounded with superb service and superb details, nailed with a huge sense of humor. This is not going to be a serious hotel."

The hotel's lobby will include a DJ spinning vinyl albums that will be on display. Boston music and pop-culture memorabilia ranging from historic Boston Phoenix covers to photos of musicians who performed in Boston or appeared on WFNX-FM radio also will decorate the public spaces.

"Once we really got to know the building, we saw that (it) really had great bones," said Leslie Cohen, Samuels' executive vice president of development. "We thought this was a great opportunity to create a spectacular new product in short order. Hotel rooms are in high demand."

Room rates are expected to start in the $200 range.

The hotel will include a heated outdoor pool and deck, along with a 4,000-square-foot, three-meal restaurant and bar.

"We're looking for (a chef) that fits in with the vibe of the Fenway — someone who is up-and-coming and consistent with our restaurateurs," Cohen said.

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Jury finds against Herald in libel suit

A Suffolk Superior Court jury yesterday found the Boston Herald responsible for defamation in a case arising from a May 28, 2009 article regarding a prison visit involving Joanna Marinova at Old Colony Prison in Bridgewater earlier that month. The newspaper states that it expects to "ultimately prevail in this matter."

"The Herald has stated since its May 28, 2009 article on a major security breach at Old Colony Prison was published that its article was entirely correct, from its headline to its last line," the Herald said in a statement. "The article was meticulously researched, carefully written and extremely well-documented. We are proud of it, and of the journalist who wrote it."

The verdict, which came in after a 13-day trial and more than two days of deliberations, awarded Marinova $13,052 in compensatory damages and $550,000 on her claim that the Herald negligently caused her emotional distress.

The Herald said it will continue to defend its article and reporter Jessica Van Sack going forward.

"Lawsuits like the one filed here are serious threats not only to the rights of a free and robust press, but to the rights of the citizenry that expects, and depends upon, that free and robust press," the newspaper said. "The Herald fully expects to ultimately prevail in this matter."

The trial was overseen by Superior Court Judge James F. Lang.

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Fed may end stimulus this fall

The Federal Reserve could end its bond-buying stimulus this fall, and interest rates could start to rise six months later, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said yesterday after leading the Federal Open Market Committee meeting for the first time.

U.S. stocks fell slightly on the news that the Fed's first rate hike could come as soon as April 2015, rather than the second half of 2015, if the Fed continues tapering its "quantitative easing" program. Yesterday, it reduced the monthly bond-buying pace by $10 billion, to $55 billion, as expected.

"The FOMC continues to see sufficient underlying strength in the economy to support ongoing improvements in the labor market," Yellen said.

The Fed now will look at a broader range of data to determine the economy's strength and when to raise rates instead of tying plans to keep them steady to "well past the time" when the unemployment rate drops below 6.5 percent. But, Yellen stressed, that "does not indicate any change in the committee's policy intentions." Its assessment will consider labor market, inflation and financial market indicators, the Fed said.

"They had attempted to offer forward guidance a little over a year ago in terms of the unemployment rate — that's become obsolete," said Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard's Kennedy School. "There's nothing to suggest in (yesterday's) news that they have yet to come up with a replacement."

The Fed is moving in the right direction with its stimulus reductions, but doing so too slowly, said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor. "Countries that have printed this much money to pay their bills get into trouble eventually with inflation," he said.

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Sony unveils virtual reality headset for PS4

SAN FRANCISCO — Sony is getting into the virtual reality business.

The Japanese electronics and gaming giant unveiled a prototype virtual reality headset to be used in conjunction with its PlayStation 4 video game console during a Tuesday talk at the Game Developers Conference.

Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, showed off the slick black-and-white headset at the annual gathering of game designers. He said Sony has been working on the technology for more than three years.

The adjustable doodad is codenamed Project Morpheus and features a head-mounted display with 1080p resolution and a 90-degree field of view. Sensors built into the headset can track a wearer's head movement in concert with a PS4 camera.

"This prototype is by no means final," said Yoshida. "We will continue to work on this to improve it, but we believe it's a good representation of how PlayStation will deliver VR."

Anton Mikhailov, a senior software engineer working on Project Morpheus, said the current version of the technology must be attached to a PS4 console with a cord that's about 15 feet long, and users' virtual perspectives can be simultaneously broadcast on a television screen.

"The experience can be shared, and that's only going to allow it to spread," said Mikhailov. "I think that's going to be the key. Once people see someone else interacting in VR, they're going to want to put it on and try it next."

Mikhailov said users will be able to interact with the virtual world displayed on the headset with the gesture-detecting PlayStation Move controller, as well as the standard DualShock 4. He declined to specify when the headset would be released or how much it would cost.

Project Morpheus will be available for demonstration beginning Wednesday for conference attendees on the conference's expo floor with four games: diving cage simulator "The Deep," medieval combat game "The Castle," sci-fi dogfighter "EVE: Valkyrie" and a VR rendition of the stealthy action-adventure title "Thief."

While Sony Corp. has released other head-mounted display units, Project Morpheus marks the company's first foray into VR with PlayStation. Sony's headset is similar to the Oculus Rift, a VR device currently in development by the Irvine, Calif.-based startup Oculus VR.

Both devices use head tracking to reduce queasiness when users peek around a virtual landscape, and they look more like ski googles than the bulky gaming helmets of the 1990s that usually left users with headaches.

___

Online:

http://www.playstation.com

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

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Asian stocks mostly down ahead of Fed news

SEOUL, South Korea — Asian stock markets mostly drifted lower Wednesday ahead of the outcome of the Federal Reserve's first policy meeting under its new chief.

The Asian heavyweight index, Tokyo's Nikkei 225, was down 0.5 percent at 14,335.81 and China's Shanghai Composite Index sank 0.9 percent to 2,007.97.

Other Asian markets were also muted. South Korea's Kospi was down 0.2 percent to 1,937.30 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.2 percent to 21,549.49. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1 percent to 5,350.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is scheduled to issue a statement and hold a press conference Wednesday after the end of its two-day policy meeting. It is the central bank's first policy meeting since Janet Yellen replaced Ben Bernanke as governor.

Most analysts expect the Fed to continue to reduce its monetary stimulus at the speed it has already set, trimming its monthly bond purchases by $10 billion. It is also expected to revise its economic forecasts.

In Europe and on Wall Street, stock markets were boosted Tuesday by relief over narrower-than-expected Western sanctions on Russia after its military intervention in Crimea and annexation of the Ukrainian region. Housing reports from the U.S. Commerce Department also underpinned investor sentiment.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 13.42 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,872.25 on Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 88.97 points, or 0.6 percent, to 16,336.19. The Nasdaq composite climbed 53.36 points, or 1.3 percent, to 4,333.31.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude for April delivery declined 18 cents to $99.52 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained $1.62 to $99.70 on Tuesday on expectations that the solid U.S. economic outlook would increase oil demand.

In currency markets, the euro fell to $1.3920 from $1.3933 late Tuesday. The dollar rose to 101.48 yen from 101.43 yen.

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Officials admit Connector fixes won’t be done till fall

The state's broken Health Connector website won't be completely fixed until this fall — a full year after it was supposed to help people sign up for health insurance — state officials acknowledged yesterday, as their latest efforts to recover from the Obamacare debacle drew fire from GOP gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Baker.

Gov. Deval Patrick's Obamacare czar, Sarah Iselin, said yesterday the Health Connector is finally moving to fire CGI, the contractor responsible for the glitch-plagued system, and looking for a new vendor to repair the website. Critics called the move long overdue.

"The right decision would have been to end the relationship with CGI last June when they figured out the website wasn't going to be ready," Baker told the Herald. "They should have pursued a waiver to just continue to do what was working instead of where we are now. If they had asked for a waiver then, hundreds of thousands of families would not have ended up in this weird health insurance purgatory."

Massachusetts, with near universal enrollment under Romneycare, had a functioning online health exchange until it revamped the system last year to comply with Obamacare. The website's disastrous rollout left thousands of families without insurance, and forced state officials to process applications on paper.

Hundreds of employees at Optum, hired to help manage the disaster, have been poring through a backlog of applications, now at 21,000. The backlog was at 72,000 about a month ago.

Iselin did not set a date for the split with CGI — also behind the botched rollout of the federal Obamacare website — or discuss the process for choosing a new website contractor.

"We have made the decision that we are going to be parting ways with CGI," Iselin told the Health Connector board. "We have just begun the process of negotiating what we hope will be a very careful and thoughtful transition."

She acknowledged the website still has "a whole series of glitches and errors." The goal is to have a fully functioning site by Nov. 15, in time for the 2015 enrollment period.

A CGI statement yesterday said the firm "has worked tirelessly to deliver a health insurance exchange for the residents of Massachusetts. We will work with the commonwealth to ensure a smooth transition to the next phase of exchange deployment, allowing for the best use of system capabilities already in place."

The state has paid $15 million of a $69 million contract with CGI. Optum, meanwhile, is on track to receive an estimated $6 million for February and $11 million for March.

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Wal-Mart to accept video game trade-ins in stores

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart plans to expand its video game trade-in program to its stores, offering store credit for thousands of video games.

The world's largest retailer plans to let video game owners trade in used video games online and in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores for store credit but not cash. Previously the company offered trade-ins on a more limited basis online.

It will also offer refurbished used games in its stores for the first time.

Wal-Mart has been seeking new ways to boost revenue as its low-income customers remain under pressure due to a weak jobs picture and shaky economy. In its most recent fourth quarter, net income dropped 21 percent, and the Bentonville, Ark.-based company gave a subdued forecast for the current year.

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Study to test 'chocolate' pills for heart health

UNDATED — Chocolate lovers might perk up at word that researchers will study the potential health benefits of the yummy treat, but it's not about eating candy bars.

A study of 18,000 men and women is being launched to see if pills containing the nutrients in dark chocolate can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The pills are so packed with nutrients that a person couldn't eat enough candy bars to get the same dose -- and the pills won't have the sugar or the fat.

In smaller studies, cocoa flavanols improved blood pressure, cholesterol, the body's use of insulin, artery health and other heart-related factors.

The study will be sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Mars Inc., maker of M&M's and Snickers candy bars. The candy company has patented a way to extract flavanols from cocoa in high concentration and put them in capsules.

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‘It’s Woodstock for payment geeks’

High-profile payment industry executives visit Boston this week to talk about the future of how we pay for things at an exclusive, 
invitation-only conference.

"It's really about bringing together the elite innovators in the payments and commerce space to have two days of discussion about where the payments and commerce system is going," said Karen Webster, president of pymnts.com.

The Innovation Project, a two-day conference at Harvard starting tomorrow, will be 48 hours of high-level executives from companies such as MasterCard to Boston-based LevelUp discussing bitcoin, payment security and everything in between.

Security will be a key topic this year, Webster said, in large part thanks to the high-profile Target breach. Also high on the agenda will be bitcoin and changing retail environments, including mobile wallets.

"Everyone has an interest in resolving the issues that we put forward," Webster said. "It's the opportunity to really put the collaboration hat on."

Webster said the combination of industry pillars, including PayPal and JP Morgan, and newer companies, including bitcoin startup Circle and mobile payments company Leaf, is beneficial.

"It's a way of stimulating new thinking, surfacing new ideas, and getting the dialogue to a different level," she said.

Because the payment industry requires companies — from banks to merchants to credit card firms — to work together, a chance to engage with everyone on the payment food chain is valuable. These giants and startups will also get together for a "thinkathon," teaming up to try to solve four of the industry's most pressing problems, including international payments and cybersecurity.

"We're getting together and hashing it out and making changes that hopefully will have far-reaching implications," said Will Graylin, CEO of Loop Payments in Burlington.

The conference is also a launching pad for small companies to show off their technology to industry giants.

"This is a preview of what's to come in the next one to two years," said Shaunt Sarkissian, CEO of Cortex MCP. Last year, Cortex unveiled its platform for mobile payments, and has grown significantly since then.

"This event was a great accelerator for us," he said.

Sarkissian said the payments industry is in the middle of a significant transition, but Innovation Project is how to address the issues.

"It's the most fragmented industry out there, and probably one in the most aggressive state of change," he said. "It's the Woodstock for payment geeks."

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Coders launch careers

A local training company is churning out a new crop of developers to help staff rapidly growing tech companies starving for talent.

"We take them from absolute novice to hireable junior developer," said Dan Pickett, co-founder of Launch Academy, a full-time, 10-week crash course in Web development.

"There's just such a strong demand for engineering talent in Boston."

Launch Academy, tucked in a nondescript Chinatown building, is in the middle of its fourth class of "launchers," people who have decided they want to go all-in and become software engineers.

"Our goal is to teach them every aspect of Web development," Pickett said.

Students, who pay $12,000 in tuition, tackle daily assignments and challenges to acquire the skills to become fully functioning Web developers.

Pickett said 94 percent of the summer and fall graduates have found jobs in software development, with an average salary of $65,000.

"They look at our program, that is expensive, but in relative comparison is a real savings, and has a real clear return on investment," Pickett said.

The average salary for a software engineer in Boston, according to job-tracking site Glassdoor.com, is $75,000.

"At the end of the day it's an investment," said Julissa Jansen, who gave up her job at a nonprofit to enroll in Launch Academy. "You're hoping once you graduate you get a job that will make up for all that I paid for."

Even with high starting wages, finding good talent is hard, employers said.

"It's been really, really tough to find talented individuals," said Jeremy Barron, a vice president for Cambridge-based 3PlayMedia.

"These are jobs that are available now and we companies can't find people to fill them."

Keith Webber, a former tech recruiter who is a current Launch Academy student, has already seen the demand for engineers.

"The demand for developers is so high that every single tech company is hiring, no matter what," Webber said.

At Launch Academy, students are gambling that they will land one of these prime jobs after graduating.

At the end of each 10-week session, Launch Academy holds a career day, inviting local companies to interview graduates.

Ryan Grimard, vice

president of engineering at AdHarmonics, said the company is about to offer a job to a Launch Academy grad for the sixth time.

"They basically just spent 12 hours a day, six-plus days a week, trying to learn as fast as they can and grasp as much engineering knowledge as possible," Grimard said.

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Boston’s winning war vs. bedbugs

Boston seems to be slowly winning its battle against bedbugs more than a decade after the scourge broke out.

The number of complaints about the tiny, blood-sucking pests has dropped 16 percent, from 410 in 2012 to 344 last year, the Department of Inspectional Services said.

"A lot of the decrease in cases is due to education," said John Meaney, director of ISD's Environmental Services Unit. "A lot of companies now have bedbug specialties. A general pest-control company won't be able to do it."

Although now-banned pesticide DDT all but eliminated bedbugs by the end of World War II, they re-emerged more than 10 years ago with a vengeance.

"Bedbugs are equal-
opportunity pests," said Jack Tracy, principal health inspector at the Boston Public Health Commission. "They don't care if you're rich or poor. They don't transmit disease, but they're a public health nuisance."

One of the worst cases Tracy said he has ever seen was reported by a disabled veteran whose Mattapan home became infested last June after a relative with a severe case of bedbugs came to stay with her.

"I had lived in my house for 20 years and never had this problem before," said the 47-year-old woman, who asked that her name be withheld. "It got so bad, I didn't even want to lie in my bed. I was going to go to a shelter just so that I could get some sleep."

An exterminator told her it would cost at least $3,500 to get rid of the insects, which she couldn't afford.

So she found Tracy and Meaney, who contacted the New England Pest Control Association to see if any of its members would be willing to do the work for free.

Last week, HouseWorks in Newton took apart the woman's bed and emptied her drawers and closets. A Malden laundry service put her clothes and bed linens in industrial dryers. And Environmental Health Services in Norwood heated the home to as much as 148 degrees for up to six hours to kill the insects and eggs.

My Brother's Keeper, a Christian ministry in Easton and Dartmouth, donated new mattresses as well as new bed linens.

"We wanted to give back to someone who had given to our country," said George Williams, staff entomologist at Environmental Health Services.

The Inspectional Services Department estimates the work totaled more than $5,000, but cost the veteran nothing.

"It was just a blessing that God put all of these people in my life at a time when I was really in need," she said.

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