Waterloo Tech Digest - August 7, 2007
Compiled and written by
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
RISK FREE LEAD GENERATION
From sales opportunity development to increasing attendance for events, Virtual Causeway accelerates your sales process! With a focus on selling and marketing complex services and technology, we guarantee a consistent and reliable flow of quality leads - assuring that your pipeline is constantly full. Contact us today to learn how we can help connect you with your best prospects. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
2007 TECHNOLOGY SPOTLIGHT PUBLICATION
Where your business needs to be! This is your opportunity to be part of a very special and unique success story. 80,000 copies of the 2007 Technology Spotlight (OUR 10TH ANNIVERSARY)will be delivered on Thursday, October 4th in both The Record and the Guelph Mercury. This is the most cost effective and high impact medium to press home your message with decision makers and legitimize your presence in Canada's Technology Triangle. Contact Waldy Willms at (519) 894-2250 ext.2307 or wwillms@therecord.com to learn more.
BERESKIN & PARR - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
Bereskin & Parr is a leading Canadian intellectual property law firm on your doorstep. Our Waterloo region office brings a wealth of experience to serve the growing high technology and manufacturing communities in Canada's Technology Triangle and surrounding areas. Bereskin & Parr's practice encompasses all areas of intellectual property from patents to trade marks and related litigation. Please contact us at 519-783-3210, Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com), Neil Henderson (nhenderson@bereskinparr.com), for more information.
PROCOM - IT SEARCH AND PLACEMENT SERVICES
Procom is currently ranked as the 7th largest IT professional services firm in Canada. (Branham 300, Financial Post, April 2005). Procom is a proud, Canadian-owned, privately-held company. Our local KW office provides IT, development and technology personnel on either a contract or permanent basis. We are the largest provider of IT staffing and recruiting services in Canada.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
Tech community mourns loss of Steve Spicer
July 5, 2007
Steve Spicer, the founder and CEO of Spicer Corp. and PrinterOn, has died at the age of 46. According to the death notice, he died suddenly at his home in Kitchener. No other details were provided.
Spicer was one of the pioneers of the Waterloo technology community, part of the first wave of local software firms that emerged in the early 1980s. In 1983, while still a mechanical engineering student at UW, Spicer founded what was initially called Spicer Computer Developments. He had just spent a work term developing software used to convert vector CAD data into raster images and, believing in its commercial potential, acquired the rights to the software. Spicer's early mentor and partner was UW professor Roy Pick, who would later become chair of mechanical engineering at the university.
Initial products focused on the digital storage and manipulation of engineering diagrams, and that would expand into a suite of products for editing, viewing, and printing a wide range of electronic documents. Spicer hired his first employee in 1985 and two years later renamed the company Spicer Corporation. By 1988, it had 21 employees and had grown sales to $1.5 million. At that time Spicer was talking about growing to 200 employees and going public in two years. That never happened, but the company had grown to more than 40 employees by the beginning of 1990 and more than 50 by 1995.
Spicer served as director of Descartes from 1996 to 2000, but kept a low public profile for much of the 1990s. He was back in the spotlight in 2000 when he founded PrinterOn, launched with the announcement of a $27.5 million round of funding. Spicer Corp. became a subsidiary of the new company. The companies grew to 140 employees by mid-2000. At the time of Spicer's death, they had about 70 employees.
Jim Estill, a long-time friend, wrote in his blog that Spicer had a very serious personality. "His fastidious nature caused him a lot of stress in life. He so much wanted his business to succeed and was stressed when things were not perfect."
No children were mentioned in the death notice. Spicer had been married earlier in his life, but was single at the time of his death. The board and management of PrinterOn and Spicer Corp. quickly arranged a meeting to make a transitional plan following Spicer's death. So far, no successor has been announced.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Sandvine quarterly sales hit $20M
July 5, 2007
Another strong quarter for Sandvine, which reported earnings of $10.3 million ($0.08/share) on sales of $20.0 million in the period ended May 31 (Q2 07). Sales were up 30% from the previous quarter and 171% from last year.
It was a pretty safe bet that this was going to be a good quarter, since the company reported a $16 million jump in deferred revenue in Q1. Deferred revenue fell by $7.9 million in Q2 to $8.7 million at the end of the quarter.
Sandvine recently picked up its second-biggest customer, and that customer -- never publicly identified -- accounted for $7.3 million in sales in the quarter. Sandvine's biggest customer, which it has had for some time, was responsible for $9.5 million in sales, about even with the previous quarter. With two big U.S.-based customers, sales to North America now comprise 97.3% of Sandvine's revenue. After a big spike two quarters ago, sales to Europe, Middle East and Africa now account for less than 2% of revenue.
Earnings for the quarter included $3.1 million for future tax assets, which now meet the "more likely than not" threshold. Operational income was $6.6 million, up from $5.3 million in Q1. R&D spending -- excluding government funding and repayment -- was up 33% from the previous quarter. Sandvine has started making repayments on its TPC funding, with a $200,000 payment recorded in the quarter.
Operations consumed $6.0 million in cash, but have provided $11.0 million over the first two quarters of the year. Sandvine ended the quarter with $65.4 million in cash and subsequently raised an additional $49.4 million (net) through a share offering that closed in July.
All of these results came before Sandvine's acquisition of two companies in June (see previous digest).
Over the first half of the year, Sandvine had $35.4 million in revenue, and it is sticking with its forecast of $62 to $67 million for the year. That would mean lower sales over the next two quarters than in the previous two, since the company is unlikely to add another customer this year as big as the one it just won.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Dalsa looks to cut costs after another disappointing quarter
July 26, 2007
A weak quarter for Dalsa, partly attributed to the rise of the Canadian dollar, left the company looking for ways to "streamline" its operations, with further details to be announced before the end of next month.
In the period ended June 30 (Q2 07), Dalsa just broke even, with earnings of $20,000 ($0.00/share) on sales of $47.7 million. Sales were up 5% from Q1, but down 3% from last year, when the company earned $4.0 million.
Over the quarter, the Canadian dollar gained 8.4% in value against the U.S. dollar, rising from 86.7 cents at the end of March to 94.0 cents at the end of June. The jump erased $2 million in revenue, according to Dalsa, which receives most of its sales in U.S. dollars but reports results in Canadian currency. Dalsa is raising the prices on some of its products to counter the rise of the dollar.
Digital imaging sales rebounded from a weak Q1, rising 12% sequentially to $26.8 million with net income of $2.3 million. It was Dalsa's only profitable segment. Sales from Dalsa's semiconductor business were flat from the previous quarter, although the company says its newer MEMS business continues to grow.
Progress remains very slow in digital cinema, which recorded a loss of $1.9 million on sales of $582,000, most of it not coming from rentals of Dalsa's digital movie cameras. Two short films shot with Dalsa cameras were completed in the quarter, including a 15-minute film co-starring David Carradine. This would seem to be the obvious place to make cuts, especially since the company badly misread the market right from the beginning (Dalsa originally told shareholders the digital cinema business would break even in its first year of operations and would generate over $30 million in sales by 2006), but Dalsa is holding on to its Hollywood dreams and says it remains committed to the digital cinema business. You have to think that eventually films will go digital, and there still aren't many competitors (although more than there were two years ago) but at this point no one seems to have a clue what the timeline to "eventually" is.
Operations provided $1.8 million in cash, and Dalsa ended the quarter with a cash balance of $2.7 million. The company expects to complete its land sale to RIM (see May digest) in the current quarter. It is selling 37 acres of land to RIM for $11.6 million.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
AideRSS unveils RSS filtering technology
July 24, 2007
Waterloo's AideRSS has launched its free RSS filtering service at http://www.aiderss.com/ The company has developed technology to filter RSS feeds and let users "find the good stuff and read what matters." It uses a ranking algorithm, similar to Google's PageRank, which it calls PostRank. It says it was the subject of 200 Internet articles in the first week after launch.
The company was founded by UW computer science grad Ilya Grigorik with ex-Quarry-man Kevin Thomason and "chief bean counter" Francis Lau.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
LiveHive wins two high-profile customers for online contests
July 3 & 30, 2007
LiveHive's NanoGaming product is being used by NASCAR.com -- the official site of NASCAR, produced by Turner Sports Interactive -- as well as by GlobalTV on its website for the Big Brother TV series at Canada.com.
In both cases, NanoGaming is being used to run trivia contests tied to TV programming. NASCAR.com will be running "Live Race Trivia" games during the remaining NASCAR races this season, while Global is holding Big Brother trivia contests on its website.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
RDM reaps cash windfall in off quarter
July 27, 2007
The sale of its shares in Xign (see April digest) gave RDM $8.6 million in cash in the quarter ended June 30 (Q3 07). The company reported earnings of $3.5 million on sales of $6.8 million in the period.
Net income included a $2.7 million accounting gain from the sale of Xign and a $0.7 million foreign exchange gain, and those two combined to provide nearly all of the reported earnings. Sales were up 10% from a year ago and down 14% from the previous quarter. A drop in margins led to a 18% sequential decline in gross profit. Sales and marketing expenses were up 31% from Q2 to $1.2 million.
The company called Q3 "a building period" and all three of its business segments reported quarter-over-quarter declines. The biggest drop came from its core digital imaging segment, with sales down 16% from the previous quarter (but up 32% from last year). Scanner sales fell below expectations with 10,480 scanners shipped in the quarter, down from 11,990 in the previous quarter.
RDM's ITMS system -- part of its digital imaging business -- processed 1.5 million items per week, up from 1.3 million in Q2. The company said last year that it needs to get to about 2 million weekly transactions to break even.
Operations consumed $1.8 million in cash, but with the Xign funds, RDM ended the quarter with $16.8 million in cash, up $6.7 million from the end of Q2.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Dalsa shares fall to five-year low
July 2007
Dalsa's poor results sent the company's shares into a tailspin, falling to their lowest point in five years. The company's market value dipped below $200 million and has declined by nearly $50 million this year.
For the month of July:
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +8%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] +7%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +7%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +4%
ARISE [TSXV: APV] +2%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +2%
Navtech [OTCBB: NAVH] +1%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX +1%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] 0%
===============================
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -0%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -1%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -4%
RDM [TSX: RC] -9%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -14%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -18%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -19%
RIM shares are now up 57% over the last three months, giving the company a market value of $43 billion. Sandvine is now valued at about as much as Com Dev, Descartes, and Dalsa combined. Com Dev shares have fully rebounded from their April plunge.
February was great for Open Text shares, but it's been downhill since then. The stock is down 22% over the last five months with the biggest drop coming last month. The company's market capitalization fell below the $1 billion mark during July. ATS shares have dropped to their lowest point ever in more than a decade of public trading. After coming out of the gate quickly in January, RDM shares are now down slightly in 2007
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Automated Benefits [TSXV: AUT] +10%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] +2%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] +0%
===================================
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -1%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -1%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -2%
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -2%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -2%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -3%
LSI Logic [NYSE: LSI] -4%
Senesco [Amex: SNT] -13%
AMIS [Nasdaq: AMIS] -18%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -19%
[8]--------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
- Tech community mourns loss of Steve Spicer
- Sandvine quarterly sales hit $20M
- Dalsa looks to cut costs after another disappointing quarter
- AideRSS unveils RSS filtering technology
- LiveHive wins two high-profile customers for online contests
- RDM reaps cash windfall in off quarter
- STOCK REPORT: Dalsa shares fall to five-year low
- Miscellaneous tidbits from Software Innovation, Suited Media, RIM, Sirific, Meikle
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
RISK FREE LEAD GENERATION
From sales opportunity development to increasing attendance for events, Virtual Causeway accelerates your sales process! With a focus on selling and marketing complex services and technology, we guarantee a consistent and reliable flow of quality leads - assuring that your pipeline is constantly full. Contact us today to learn how we can help connect you with your best prospects. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
2007 TECHNOLOGY SPOTLIGHT PUBLICATION
Where your business needs to be! This is your opportunity to be part of a very special and unique success story. 80,000 copies of the 2007 Technology Spotlight (OUR 10TH ANNIVERSARY)will be delivered on Thursday, October 4th in both The Record and the Guelph Mercury. This is the most cost effective and high impact medium to press home your message with decision makers and legitimize your presence in Canada's Technology Triangle. Contact Waldy Willms at (519) 894-2250 ext.2307 or wwillms@therecord.com to learn more.
BERESKIN & PARR - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
Bereskin & Parr is a leading Canadian intellectual property law firm on your doorstep. Our Waterloo region office brings a wealth of experience to serve the growing high technology and manufacturing communities in Canada's Technology Triangle and surrounding areas. Bereskin & Parr's practice encompasses all areas of intellectual property from patents to trade marks and related litigation. Please contact us at 519-783-3210, Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com), Neil Henderson (nhenderson@bereskinparr.com), for more information.
PROCOM - IT SEARCH AND PLACEMENT SERVICES
Procom is currently ranked as the 7th largest IT professional services firm in Canada. (Branham 300, Financial Post, April 2005). Procom is a proud, Canadian-owned, privately-held company. Our local KW office provides IT, development and technology personnel on either a contract or permanent basis. We are the largest provider of IT staffing and recruiting services in Canada.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
Tech community mourns loss of Steve Spicer
July 5, 2007
Steve Spicer, the founder and CEO of Spicer Corp. and PrinterOn, has died at the age of 46. According to the death notice, he died suddenly at his home in Kitchener. No other details were provided.
Spicer was one of the pioneers of the Waterloo technology community, part of the first wave of local software firms that emerged in the early 1980s. In 1983, while still a mechanical engineering student at UW, Spicer founded what was initially called Spicer Computer Developments. He had just spent a work term developing software used to convert vector CAD data into raster images and, believing in its commercial potential, acquired the rights to the software. Spicer's early mentor and partner was UW professor Roy Pick, who would later become chair of mechanical engineering at the university.
Initial products focused on the digital storage and manipulation of engineering diagrams, and that would expand into a suite of products for editing, viewing, and printing a wide range of electronic documents. Spicer hired his first employee in 1985 and two years later renamed the company Spicer Corporation. By 1988, it had 21 employees and had grown sales to $1.5 million. At that time Spicer was talking about growing to 200 employees and going public in two years. That never happened, but the company had grown to more than 40 employees by the beginning of 1990 and more than 50 by 1995.
Spicer served as director of Descartes from 1996 to 2000, but kept a low public profile for much of the 1990s. He was back in the spotlight in 2000 when he founded PrinterOn, launched with the announcement of a $27.5 million round of funding. Spicer Corp. became a subsidiary of the new company. The companies grew to 140 employees by mid-2000. At the time of Spicer's death, they had about 70 employees.
Jim Estill, a long-time friend, wrote in his blog that Spicer had a very serious personality. "His fastidious nature caused him a lot of stress in life. He so much wanted his business to succeed and was stressed when things were not perfect."
No children were mentioned in the death notice. Spicer had been married earlier in his life, but was single at the time of his death. The board and management of PrinterOn and Spicer Corp. quickly arranged a meeting to make a transitional plan following Spicer's death. So far, no successor has been announced.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Sandvine quarterly sales hit $20M
July 5, 2007
Another strong quarter for Sandvine, which reported earnings of $10.3 million ($0.08/share) on sales of $20.0 million in the period ended May 31 (Q2 07). Sales were up 30% from the previous quarter and 171% from last year.
It was a pretty safe bet that this was going to be a good quarter, since the company reported a $16 million jump in deferred revenue in Q1. Deferred revenue fell by $7.9 million in Q2 to $8.7 million at the end of the quarter.
Sandvine recently picked up its second-biggest customer, and that customer -- never publicly identified -- accounted for $7.3 million in sales in the quarter. Sandvine's biggest customer, which it has had for some time, was responsible for $9.5 million in sales, about even with the previous quarter. With two big U.S.-based customers, sales to North America now comprise 97.3% of Sandvine's revenue. After a big spike two quarters ago, sales to Europe, Middle East and Africa now account for less than 2% of revenue.
Earnings for the quarter included $3.1 million for future tax assets, which now meet the "more likely than not" threshold. Operational income was $6.6 million, up from $5.3 million in Q1. R&D spending -- excluding government funding and repayment -- was up 33% from the previous quarter. Sandvine has started making repayments on its TPC funding, with a $200,000 payment recorded in the quarter.
Operations consumed $6.0 million in cash, but have provided $11.0 million over the first two quarters of the year. Sandvine ended the quarter with $65.4 million in cash and subsequently raised an additional $49.4 million (net) through a share offering that closed in July.
All of these results came before Sandvine's acquisition of two companies in June (see previous digest).
Over the first half of the year, Sandvine had $35.4 million in revenue, and it is sticking with its forecast of $62 to $67 million for the year. That would mean lower sales over the next two quarters than in the previous two, since the company is unlikely to add another customer this year as big as the one it just won.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Dalsa looks to cut costs after another disappointing quarter
July 26, 2007
A weak quarter for Dalsa, partly attributed to the rise of the Canadian dollar, left the company looking for ways to "streamline" its operations, with further details to be announced before the end of next month.
In the period ended June 30 (Q2 07), Dalsa just broke even, with earnings of $20,000 ($0.00/share) on sales of $47.7 million. Sales were up 5% from Q1, but down 3% from last year, when the company earned $4.0 million.
Over the quarter, the Canadian dollar gained 8.4% in value against the U.S. dollar, rising from 86.7 cents at the end of March to 94.0 cents at the end of June. The jump erased $2 million in revenue, according to Dalsa, which receives most of its sales in U.S. dollars but reports results in Canadian currency. Dalsa is raising the prices on some of its products to counter the rise of the dollar.
Digital imaging sales rebounded from a weak Q1, rising 12% sequentially to $26.8 million with net income of $2.3 million. It was Dalsa's only profitable segment. Sales from Dalsa's semiconductor business were flat from the previous quarter, although the company says its newer MEMS business continues to grow.
Progress remains very slow in digital cinema, which recorded a loss of $1.9 million on sales of $582,000, most of it not coming from rentals of Dalsa's digital movie cameras. Two short films shot with Dalsa cameras were completed in the quarter, including a 15-minute film co-starring David Carradine. This would seem to be the obvious place to make cuts, especially since the company badly misread the market right from the beginning (Dalsa originally told shareholders the digital cinema business would break even in its first year of operations and would generate over $30 million in sales by 2006), but Dalsa is holding on to its Hollywood dreams and says it remains committed to the digital cinema business. You have to think that eventually films will go digital, and there still aren't many competitors (although more than there were two years ago) but at this point no one seems to have a clue what the timeline to "eventually" is.
Operations provided $1.8 million in cash, and Dalsa ended the quarter with a cash balance of $2.7 million. The company expects to complete its land sale to RIM (see May digest) in the current quarter. It is selling 37 acres of land to RIM for $11.6 million.
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
AideRSS unveils RSS filtering technology
July 24, 2007
Waterloo's AideRSS has launched its free RSS filtering service at http://www.aiderss.com/ The company has developed technology to filter RSS feeds and let users "find the good stuff and read what matters." It uses a ranking algorithm, similar to Google's PageRank, which it calls PostRank. It says it was the subject of 200 Internet articles in the first week after launch.
The company was founded by UW computer science grad Ilya Grigorik with ex-Quarry-man Kevin Thomason and "chief bean counter" Francis Lau.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
LiveHive wins two high-profile customers for online contests
July 3 & 30, 2007
LiveHive's NanoGaming product is being used by NASCAR.com -- the official site of NASCAR, produced by Turner Sports Interactive -- as well as by GlobalTV on its website for the Big Brother TV series at Canada.com.
In both cases, NanoGaming is being used to run trivia contests tied to TV programming. NASCAR.com will be running "Live Race Trivia" games during the remaining NASCAR races this season, while Global is holding Big Brother trivia contests on its website.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
RDM reaps cash windfall in off quarter
July 27, 2007
The sale of its shares in Xign (see April digest) gave RDM $8.6 million in cash in the quarter ended June 30 (Q3 07). The company reported earnings of $3.5 million on sales of $6.8 million in the period.
Net income included a $2.7 million accounting gain from the sale of Xign and a $0.7 million foreign exchange gain, and those two combined to provide nearly all of the reported earnings. Sales were up 10% from a year ago and down 14% from the previous quarter. A drop in margins led to a 18% sequential decline in gross profit. Sales and marketing expenses were up 31% from Q2 to $1.2 million.
The company called Q3 "a building period" and all three of its business segments reported quarter-over-quarter declines. The biggest drop came from its core digital imaging segment, with sales down 16% from the previous quarter (but up 32% from last year). Scanner sales fell below expectations with 10,480 scanners shipped in the quarter, down from 11,990 in the previous quarter.
RDM's ITMS system -- part of its digital imaging business -- processed 1.5 million items per week, up from 1.3 million in Q2. The company said last year that it needs to get to about 2 million weekly transactions to break even.
Operations consumed $1.8 million in cash, but with the Xign funds, RDM ended the quarter with $16.8 million in cash, up $6.7 million from the end of Q2.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Dalsa shares fall to five-year low
July 2007
Dalsa's poor results sent the company's shares into a tailspin, falling to their lowest point in five years. The company's market value dipped below $200 million and has declined by nearly $50 million this year.
For the month of July:
Virtek [TSX: VRK] +8%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] +7%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +7%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +4%
ARISE [TSXV: APV] +2%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +2%
Navtech [OTCBB: NAVH] +1%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX +1%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] 0%
===============================
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -0%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] -1%
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -4%
RDM [TSX: RC] -9%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -14%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] -18%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -19%
RIM shares are now up 57% over the last three months, giving the company a market value of $43 billion. Sandvine is now valued at about as much as Com Dev, Descartes, and Dalsa combined. Com Dev shares have fully rebounded from their April plunge.
February was great for Open Text shares, but it's been downhill since then. The stock is down 22% over the last five months with the biggest drop coming last month. The company's market capitalization fell below the $1 billion mark during July. ATS shares have dropped to their lowest point ever in more than a decade of public trading. After coming out of the gate quickly in January, RDM shares are now down slightly in 2007
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Automated Benefits [TSXV: AUT] +10%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] +2%
Adobe [Nasdaq: ADBE] +0%
===================================
NCR [NYSE: NCR] -1%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -1%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -2%
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -2%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -2%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -3%
LSI Logic [NYSE: LSI] -4%
Senesco [Amex: SNT] -13%
AMIS [Nasdaq: AMIS] -18%
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -19%
[8]--------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
- The OSC reports that Software Innovations [sic] raised $16.6 million in June through the sale of shares and debentures. I'm assuming that this is actually Software Innovation. It had received some additional investment a couple of months ago, so the timing fits. That would be the sixth Waterloo Region tech company to disclose a private round of funding of at least $1.5 million over the first half of the year (that excludes Guelph-based Geosign).
- Suited Media provided a sneak peak of its forthcoming Pokerspace.com site. A demo site was running for two weeks and a full launch is scheduled for next month. The site -- a social networking site for poker players -- has been receiving a lot of buzz around town with some high expectations that it could be a big hit. Suited Media CEO Steve Black is a former poker professional who funded his company through his winnings.
- RIM unveiled the BlackBerry 8820, billed as the first dual-mode BlackBerry handset with the addition of Wi-Fi connectivity.
- Russ Johnsen is the new CEO of Sirific, taking the reins from Mike Hogan who led the company for nearly five years. Johnsen has served on Sirific's board of directors for the last three years and has also been named chairman. Hogan is now the CEO of PulseCore Semiconductor, based in the San Jose area.
- Shawn Smith is the new sales & marketing VP at Meikle Automation. He's been with the company for 11 years, most recently as applications engineering manager.
posted by Gary Will at 12:00 AM
