Waterloo Tech Digest - April 7, 2009
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
AERO CORPORATE BENEFITS - Your Employee Benefits Solutions Provider
Located in Waterloo, we've served the KW technology community for over 20 years, providing employee benefits solutions to companies large and small. Our mission is simple. Help our clients succeed by doing what we do best:
* Design and monitor programs that attract & retain the most qualified employees
* Contain costs of employee benefits, retirement plans, and HR support
* Provide employee-level support & advice to help you manage risk & compliance
Please contact Herb Goedecke at 519.489.2376 x11 or herbg@aero-corp.com for details.
GO BEYOND STAFFING
For over 30 years, Procom has been matching people with companies, for jobs that are a perfect fit - contract, full-time, or part-time. We partner with large and small companies across North America, including some of the world's best-known enterprises, to provide a range of services, training tools, and the ideal candidates to help them flourish. We've been named one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies and go beyond staffing to look strategically at the processes and people that will truly help a company succeed. Phone: 519.885.4331.
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 next customer. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
BERESKIN & PARR LLP - 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 Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com) or Jason Hynes (jhynes@bereskinparr.com), at (519) 783-3210 for more information.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM sales jump 84% in fiscal 2009
April 2, 2009
RIM ended its fiscal year with a strong quarter, reporting earnings of US$518.3 million on sales of US$3.5 billion in the quarter ended February 28 (Q4 09). Sales were up 84% from last year and 24% from a tepid Q3 -- and on the high end of RIM's forecasts.
There were 3.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers on the quarter, well above RIM's forecast of 2.9 million. The company shipped 7.8 million units in the quarter, up from 6.7 million in Q3.
For the year, RIM earned US$1.9 billion on sales of US$11.1 billion -- up 84% from fiscal 2008. RIM ended the year with US$2.2 billion in cash.
The company is forecasting that Q1 will look a lot like Q4, with 3.7-3.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers and sales of US$3.3-3.5 billion.
RIM also announced that it completed its acquisition of Certicom (see previous three digests).
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM launches BlackBerry App World
April 1, 2009
RIM has launched the much awaited online store BlackBerry App World. App World is itself a BlackBerry, and is open to users in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. RIM expects that there will be about 1,000 applications in the store by the end of its first week.
Software on App World can be free, or at prices starting at $2.99. Developers receive 80% of the revenue. RIM established a partnership with PayPal to process payments.
Mike Lazaridis helped kick off the launch with his keynote speech on Wednesday morning at the CTIA 2009 conference in Las Vegas.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Estill leaves Synnex ... likely U.S.-bound
March 25, 2009
Jim Estill has stepped down as CEO of Synnex Canada, a position he has held since selling EMJ -- the company he founded -- to California's Synnex in 2004. It hasn't been announced where he's headed, but it's expected that he'll be going to the U.S. to lead a public company there.
Estill's departure will be a loss for the local startup community. Estill has been one of the most active angel investors in the area, having made dozens of investments. Most have not been publicly disclosed, but those that have include his investments in Primal Fusion and Well.ca. He was also an investor in SlipStream Data, which was acquired by RIM.
Estill invested in RIM when it was a private company and has been on RIM's board of directors since 1997. At the time of RIM's IPO that year, he was one of three outside directors, along with Doug Wright and Val O'Donovan. He's been on the board ever since -- only Mike Lazaridis has served longer, among RIM's current directors.
Between EMJ and Synnex, Estill had remained with the same company for 30 years. He founded EMJ Data Systems in 1979 while finishing his systems design engineering degree at UW and grew it to include a U.S. subsidiary about 10 years later and then an IPO and TSX listing in 1994. By that year, EMJ had $68 million in annual sales and 100 employees. By the time the company was sold to Synnex for $56 million in 2004, it had grown to over $350 million in sales and 300 employees.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev continues to win business; backlog climbs to new high
March 9, 2009
Com Dev came out of the gate quickly to start its 2009 fiscal year, reporting sales of $56.5 million in the period ended January 31 (Q1 09) -- a 26% jump from last year and down 6% from a record-setting Q4. Net income was $4.4 million, which is in line with the previous two quarters.
The company booked $88 million in new orders in Q1 -- including $33 million in military orders -- taking its order backlog at quarter-end to a new record high of $189 million.
Com Dev ended the quarter with $9.2 million in cash, down $6.9 million from the end of Q3 with operations consuming $3.8 million in cash. Since then, the company has raised gross proceeds of $23 million through a share offering (see February digest).
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
Arise looks to cut costs in the face of lower demand, prices
March 9, 2009
Sales for Arise in the quarter ended December 31 (Q4 08) were up 19% sequentially to $18.9 million, but still fell below the company's forecasts. Arise had been looking for sales of $21-24 million in the period -- a forecast lowered from its original projection of $30 million. The company had warned investors that Q4 sales would fall about $3 million below expectations.
Arise lost $22.2 million in the quarter, including a $3.9 million writedown of its inventory and a $5.1 million writedown of silicon wafer prepayments. Excluding the writedowns, gross margins were -15.2%, a small improvement from -16.7% in Q3.
For the year, Arise lost $42.3 million on sales of $35.7 million. Most of the revenue came from PV cell shipments over the last half of the year. The company shipped 6.1MW of PV cells in Q4 and 5MW in Q3. Accumulated deficit at year-end stood at $65.5 million.
Completion of a second, more advanced, production line at its facility in Germany is back on schedule after Arise had warned that there could be a four-to-eight week delay. Arise announced that some initial PV cells came off the new line during test runs in March. Those cells had an efficiency of 15.1-15.9%, and Arise is hoping to achieve 18% efficiency in the future.
Arise ended the year with $22.6 million in cash -- an amount equal to its current bank loans. By March 6, Arise was down to $7.6 million in cash. It's now reviewing its planned capital expenditures, growth plans, and staffing requirements and believes that by cutting costs and slowing its growth plans that it has sufficient money to fund operations for several more months. Arise is looking for additional capital, either through a financing or partnerships.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes annual sales up 12%
March 11, 2009
Descartes ended its fiscal year with sales of US$15.7 million in the quarter ended January 31 (Q4 09). Sales were down 8% from Q3 and 2% from last year. Income from operations was US$2.4 million -- unchanged from Q3 -- but a non-cash deferred income tax recovery of US$13.1 million pushed Descartes reported quarterly earnings to US$15.7 million.
For fiscal year 2009, Descartes had revenue of US$66.0 million, up 12% from last year. Operating income was US$8.0 million and net income, including the tax recovery, was US$20.5 million. The company ended the year with US$57.6 million in cash, up US$4.1 million from the end of Q3.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes acquires Toronto's Scancode
March 11, 2009
Descartes also announced that it has made another acquisition, this time picking up Toronto-based logistics software developer Scancode Systems for approximately $8.5 million.
Scancode has about 50 employees and announced that it had signed its 1,000th customer last fall.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: A March bounce ... and a 43% jump for RIM in April
March 2009
March saw local tech firms having their best month on the stock market in a long time, which admittedly 1) isn't saying much and 2) is much easier to achieve after the prices have been hammered down.
For the month of March:
Arise [TSX: APV] +40%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] +26%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] +22%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] +16%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +14%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +14%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX +11%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +8%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX +7%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +7%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +3%
RDM [TSX: RC] 0%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] 0%
===============================
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -28%
Arise shares -- at the bottom of the list last month -- made back all of their February losses and finished the month back where they were at the end of January.
Com Dev shares are back to their pre-market collapse levels. Descartes shares are back to where they were at the end of August, while MKS shares are where they were at the end of July. Open Text stock continues to soar. Sandvine stock didn't do much in March, but is up 15% over the first four days of trading in April. Still, the only companies whose shares are trading above the levels they were at three years ago are RIM and Open Text.
And it's RIM shares that are looking like they might top the charts in our next issue -- they're currently up 43% in April and are trading at their highest point since the September collapse. According to globeinvestor.com data, RIM is once again the second most valuable company in Canada, trailing only RBC.
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] +24%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] +20%
Acorn Energy [Nasdaq: ACFN] +19%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] +16%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] +11%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] +9%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] +7%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] +3%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] +0%
===================================
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -30%
With the first quarter of the year now complete, here's an updated list of the area's public companies, ranked by market capitalization.
Market capitalization at April 3
in millions, using outstanding shares
(change since Dec. 31 in parentheses):
1. RIM ----- $41,220 (+$13,203)
2. Open Text ----- 2,150 (+232)
3. ATS ----- 359 (-27)
4. Com Dev ----- 265 (+50)
5. Descartes ----- 204 (+15)
6. Sandvine ----- 122 (+12)
7. Dalsa ----- 105 (-24)
8. MKS ----- 68 (+12)
9. Arise ----- 57 (-10)
10. RDM ----- 15 (-3)
11. TurboSonic ----- 6.5 (-1)
12. Biorem ----- 4.2 (-1)
Since the beginning of the year, Sandvine has moved ahead of Dalsa while MKS has gone ahead of Arise.
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Gary Will
gary@garywill.com
In this issue:
- RIM sales jump 84% in fiscal 2009
- RIM launches BlackBerry App World
- Jim Estill leaves Synnex ... likely U.S.-bound
- Arise looks to cut costs in the face of lower demand, prices
- Descartes annual sales up 12%
- Descartes acquires Toronto's Scancode
- STOCK REPORT: A March bounce ... and a 43% jump for RIM in April
- Miscellaneous tidbits from Primal Fusion, ParkVu, Unsynced, Giftah, Dejero Labs, Metranome, LiveHive, Navtech, MedShare, IMS, RIM, Desire2Learn, Miovision, Tilted Pixel, ATS, Biorem, Igloo, Dalsa, Covarity, LoyaltyMatch, Mespere
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
AERO CORPORATE BENEFITS - Your Employee Benefits Solutions Provider
Located in Waterloo, we've served the KW technology community for over 20 years, providing employee benefits solutions to companies large and small. Our mission is simple. Help our clients succeed by doing what we do best:
* Design and monitor programs that attract & retain the most qualified employees
* Contain costs of employee benefits, retirement plans, and HR support
* Provide employee-level support & advice to help you manage risk & compliance
Please contact Herb Goedecke at 519.489.2376 x11 or herbg@aero-corp.com for details.
GO BEYOND STAFFING
For over 30 years, Procom has been matching people with companies, for jobs that are a perfect fit - contract, full-time, or part-time. We partner with large and small companies across North America, including some of the world's best-known enterprises, to provide a range of services, training tools, and the ideal candidates to help them flourish. We've been named one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies and go beyond staffing to look strategically at the processes and people that will truly help a company succeed. Phone: 519.885.4331.
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 next customer. Call 519-886-1600 ext. 405 or email marketing@v-causeway.com for details.
BERESKIN & PARR LLP - 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 Tim Sinnott (tsinnott@bereskinparr.com) or Jason Hynes (jhynes@bereskinparr.com), at (519) 783-3210 for more information.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
[1]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM sales jump 84% in fiscal 2009
April 2, 2009
RIM ended its fiscal year with a strong quarter, reporting earnings of US$518.3 million on sales of US$3.5 billion in the quarter ended February 28 (Q4 09). Sales were up 84% from last year and 24% from a tepid Q3 -- and on the high end of RIM's forecasts.
There were 3.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers on the quarter, well above RIM's forecast of 2.9 million. The company shipped 7.8 million units in the quarter, up from 6.7 million in Q3.
For the year, RIM earned US$1.9 billion on sales of US$11.1 billion -- up 84% from fiscal 2008. RIM ended the year with US$2.2 billion in cash.
The company is forecasting that Q1 will look a lot like Q4, with 3.7-3.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers and sales of US$3.3-3.5 billion.
RIM also announced that it completed its acquisition of Certicom (see previous three digests).
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
RIM launches BlackBerry App World
April 1, 2009
RIM has launched the much awaited online store BlackBerry App World. App World is itself a BlackBerry, and is open to users in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. RIM expects that there will be about 1,000 applications in the store by the end of its first week.
Software on App World can be free, or at prices starting at $2.99. Developers receive 80% of the revenue. RIM established a partnership with PayPal to process payments.
Mike Lazaridis helped kick off the launch with his keynote speech on Wednesday morning at the CTIA 2009 conference in Las Vegas.
[2]---------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Estill leaves Synnex ... likely U.S.-bound
March 25, 2009
Jim Estill has stepped down as CEO of Synnex Canada, a position he has held since selling EMJ -- the company he founded -- to California's Synnex in 2004. It hasn't been announced where he's headed, but it's expected that he'll be going to the U.S. to lead a public company there.
Estill's departure will be a loss for the local startup community. Estill has been one of the most active angel investors in the area, having made dozens of investments. Most have not been publicly disclosed, but those that have include his investments in Primal Fusion and Well.ca. He was also an investor in SlipStream Data, which was acquired by RIM.
Estill invested in RIM when it was a private company and has been on RIM's board of directors since 1997. At the time of RIM's IPO that year, he was one of three outside directors, along with Doug Wright and Val O'Donovan. He's been on the board ever since -- only Mike Lazaridis has served longer, among RIM's current directors.
Between EMJ and Synnex, Estill had remained with the same company for 30 years. He founded EMJ Data Systems in 1979 while finishing his systems design engineering degree at UW and grew it to include a U.S. subsidiary about 10 years later and then an IPO and TSX listing in 1994. By that year, EMJ had $68 million in annual sales and 100 employees. By the time the company was sold to Synnex for $56 million in 2004, it had grown to over $350 million in sales and 300 employees.
[3]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev continues to win business; backlog climbs to new high
March 9, 2009
Com Dev came out of the gate quickly to start its 2009 fiscal year, reporting sales of $56.5 million in the period ended January 31 (Q1 09) -- a 26% jump from last year and down 6% from a record-setting Q4. Net income was $4.4 million, which is in line with the previous two quarters.
The company booked $88 million in new orders in Q1 -- including $33 million in military orders -- taking its order backlog at quarter-end to a new record high of $189 million.
Com Dev ended the quarter with $9.2 million in cash, down $6.9 million from the end of Q3 with operations consuming $3.8 million in cash. Since then, the company has raised gross proceeds of $23 million through a share offering (see February digest).
[4]---------------------------------------------------------------
Arise looks to cut costs in the face of lower demand, prices
March 9, 2009
Sales for Arise in the quarter ended December 31 (Q4 08) were up 19% sequentially to $18.9 million, but still fell below the company's forecasts. Arise had been looking for sales of $21-24 million in the period -- a forecast lowered from its original projection of $30 million. The company had warned investors that Q4 sales would fall about $3 million below expectations.
Arise lost $22.2 million in the quarter, including a $3.9 million writedown of its inventory and a $5.1 million writedown of silicon wafer prepayments. Excluding the writedowns, gross margins were -15.2%, a small improvement from -16.7% in Q3.
For the year, Arise lost $42.3 million on sales of $35.7 million. Most of the revenue came from PV cell shipments over the last half of the year. The company shipped 6.1MW of PV cells in Q4 and 5MW in Q3. Accumulated deficit at year-end stood at $65.5 million.
Completion of a second, more advanced, production line at its facility in Germany is back on schedule after Arise had warned that there could be a four-to-eight week delay. Arise announced that some initial PV cells came off the new line during test runs in March. Those cells had an efficiency of 15.1-15.9%, and Arise is hoping to achieve 18% efficiency in the future.
Arise ended the year with $22.6 million in cash -- an amount equal to its current bank loans. By March 6, Arise was down to $7.6 million in cash. It's now reviewing its planned capital expenditures, growth plans, and staffing requirements and believes that by cutting costs and slowing its growth plans that it has sufficient money to fund operations for several more months. Arise is looking for additional capital, either through a financing or partnerships.
[5]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes annual sales up 12%
March 11, 2009
Descartes ended its fiscal year with sales of US$15.7 million in the quarter ended January 31 (Q4 09). Sales were down 8% from Q3 and 2% from last year. Income from operations was US$2.4 million -- unchanged from Q3 -- but a non-cash deferred income tax recovery of US$13.1 million pushed Descartes reported quarterly earnings to US$15.7 million.
For fiscal year 2009, Descartes had revenue of US$66.0 million, up 12% from last year. Operating income was US$8.0 million and net income, including the tax recovery, was US$20.5 million. The company ended the year with US$57.6 million in cash, up US$4.1 million from the end of Q3.
[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
Descartes acquires Toronto's Scancode
March 11, 2009
Descartes also announced that it has made another acquisition, this time picking up Toronto-based logistics software developer Scancode Systems for approximately $8.5 million.
Scancode has about 50 employees and announced that it had signed its 1,000th customer last fall.
[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: A March bounce ... and a 43% jump for RIM in April
March 2009
March saw local tech firms having their best month on the stock market in a long time, which admittedly 1) isn't saying much and 2) is much easier to achieve after the prices have been hammered down.
For the month of March:
Arise [TSX: APV] +40%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] +26%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] +22%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] +16%
ATS [TSX: ATA] +14%
MKS [TSX: MKX] +14%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX +11%
Open Text [TSX: OTC] +8%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX +7%
RIM [TSX: RIM] +7%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +3%
RDM [TSX: RC] 0%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] 0%
===============================
Biorem [TSXV: BRM] -28%
Arise shares -- at the bottom of the list last month -- made back all of their February losses and finished the month back where they were at the end of January.
Com Dev shares are back to their pre-market collapse levels. Descartes shares are back to where they were at the end of August, while MKS shares are where they were at the end of July. Open Text stock continues to soar. Sandvine stock didn't do much in March, but is up 15% over the first four days of trading in April. Still, the only companies whose shares are trading above the levels they were at three years ago are RIM and Open Text.
And it's RIM shares that are looking like they might top the charts in our next issue -- they're currently up 43% in April and are trading at their highest point since the September collapse. According to globeinvestor.com data, RIM is once again the second most valuable company in Canada, trailing only RBC.
Companies with core operations outside the area:
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] +24%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] +20%
Acorn Energy [Nasdaq: ACFN] +19%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] +16%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] +11%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] +9%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] +7%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] +3%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] +0%
===================================
Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] -30%
With the first quarter of the year now complete, here's an updated list of the area's public companies, ranked by market capitalization.
Market capitalization at April 3
in millions, using outstanding shares
(change since Dec. 31 in parentheses):
1. RIM ----- $41,220 (+$13,203)
2. Open Text ----- 2,150 (+232)
3. ATS ----- 359 (-27)
4. Com Dev ----- 265 (+50)
5. Descartes ----- 204 (+15)
6. Sandvine ----- 122 (+12)
7. Dalsa ----- 105 (-24)
8. MKS ----- 68 (+12)
9. Arise ----- 57 (-10)
10. RDM ----- 15 (-3)
11. TurboSonic ----- 6.5 (-1)
12. Biorem ----- 4.2 (-1)
Since the beginning of the year, Sandvine has moved ahead of Dalsa while MKS has gone ahead of Arise.
[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits
- Primal Fusion unveiled its "thought networking" platform at the DEMO conference in California at the beginning of March. It's currently in a private alpha stage, but -- for this week only -- the company is making its alpha open to anyone who goes to its site and requests an account. Video of Primal Fusion's DEMO presentation (which is useful in understanding the alpha) is here.
- ParkVu, founded a year ago by Jeff Fedor and Terry Goertz, has launched its first product: i2b, a BlackBerry app that gives users mobile access to the iTunes libraries on their home computers (running Windows Vista or XP). It's available from the ParkVu website.
- Also in the mobile music space was one of the winners in the latest VeloCity project exhibition. Unsynced says it will let BlackBerry users access to their music from anywhere. It is currently in a prototype stage. Team members are Ted Livingston, Vassili Skarine, Karan Bhangui, Chris Best, and Tina Randall. Giftah, an online marketplace for gift cards, was another winner in the VeloCity competition. It was founded by Rezart Bajraktari, Nick Belyaev, and Henry Finn.
- Former SlipStream president Ron Neumann is now chairman of Dejero Labs, a company founded last year by Bodgan Frusina that has developed compression software to make broadcast-quality video available over cellular networks in real time.
- Metranome announced the launch of its Poptiq Powered mobile video application platform, which lets companies create self-branded mobile applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Initial customers are DadLabs of Austin, Texas and 60Frames of Los Angeles.
- According to a story in Media in Canada, Rogers Sportsnet says that between 3,000 and 6,000 people played LiveHive's NanoGaming trivia and prediction games each week during the NHL season. NanoGaming has now moved to baseball, where it will be played during 100 Blue Jay games this season -- starting with last night's game.
- Forgot to mention last month that Mike Hulley is the new CEO of Navtech. He spent over four years with EDS as president of its global transportation group and five years with IBM as travel and transportation VP. Most recently, Hulley was with Tata Consultancy Services and, before that, was briefly CEO of Florida-based startup LeisureLogix.
- MedShare has received $284,500 in funding and other assistance from IRAP. Gary Goodyear, federal minister of state for science and technology, made the announcement from MedShare's Cambridge office.
- IMS's iLane and RIM's BlackBerry Bold were two of the three nominees for "Most Innovative Mobile Device" at the 2009 Andrew Seybold Choice Awards. But it was the third nominee, a GPS device from California-based TeleNav, that took home the prize at the CTIA conference last Wednesday. RIM had received the 2008 award for the BlackBerry Pearl.
- Washington, DC-based Blackboard has filed another patent infringement suit against Desire2Learn, this time claiming that the Kitchener company is infringing on a new U.S. patent Blackboard received in February (a continuation of the patent that it successfully sued Desire2Learn for infringing). The claims of the original patent were given a preliminary rejection in a re-examination by the U.S. patent office, and the new patent gives Blackboard the opportunity to rewrite its claims. Desire2Learn says it has implemented a workaround that avoids infringing on the Blackboard patent.
- Michelin Development says it has provided nearly $3 million in loans to local businesses in the last two years, and announced that it had provided funding to Miovision and website developer Tilted Pixel. The $3 million figure is up $750,000 from the announcement Michelin Development made six months ago.
- In addition to its Michelin funding, Tilted Pixel and its founder, Matt Inglot, was Laurier's representative at the finals of the national Nicol Entrepreneurial Award competition in Ottawa in March.
- ATS announced that it cutting 80 full-time jobs in Cambridge and another 160 at its Photowatt business in France.
- Biorem earned $191,000 on sales of $4.6 million in the quarter ended December 31 (Q4 08). For the year, the company had sales of $14.4 million, up 52% from 2007. It booked $17.4 million in new orders, raising its order backlog at year-end to $14.8 million. Net loss in 2008 was $432,000, an improvement from a loss of $3.0 million the previous year. Biorem ended the year with $2.2 million in cash. The company also announced that it had opened an office in China in December. Biorem is currently working on five projects in China.
- There have been a lot of new BlackBerry apps this month -- including one from Waterloo's Igloo Software that will allow members of Igloo online communities to access their sites and contribute content through a BlackBerry.
- Dalsa founder, chairman and CTO Savvas Chamberlain was one of 20 engineers to be made a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada in recognition of his contributions to engineering and society.
- Covarity has added Boston-based risk management consultant and author James Lam to its board of directors.
- LoyaltyMatch announced a partnership with Toronto-based travel planning site PlanetEye. The two will refer users to each other through direct links on both sites.
- Waterloo medical device startup AcMed Technology has been renamed Mespere Lifesciences.
posted by Gary Will at 12:37 AM
