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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
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Iteris Lands Traffic-Management Contract in Virginia

Santa Ana-based Iteris Inc., which makes traffic-management sensors and other gear, has secured a $10 million contract from the Virginia Depart-ment of Transportation to improve video and data services for the public and within the agency.

The five-year deal includes the option for two extensions of two years.

Work on the project is expected to begin immediately, executives said.

The new system, scheduled to roll out over the next six months, is intended to improve voice-recognition software, create a user-friendly menu to access information, deliver personalized email alerts on road conditions in real time, add applications for smart phones and enhance the department’s traffic information website.

Publicly traded Iteris sees yearly sales of about $60 million and had a recent market value of about $43 million.

WD’s European Plan

Irvine-based drive maker Western Digital Corp. is ready for anything when it comes to regulatory approval in Europe for its pending acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc.

The company has signaled a willingness to make concessions, if necessary, in response to antitrust complaints raised by a European Union commission that has regulatory authority over the effects of the deal there.

The willingness to make concessions was disclosed on the EU commission’s website.

Western Digital, the global leader in disk drives in terms of numbers shipped, expects the acquisition to be cleared unconditionally, according to spokesman Steve Shattuck.

“However, we have submitted a proposed remedy to address issues raised by the commission in the course of its review in the event that the commission ultimately decides that our acquisition should be cleared subject to conditions,” he said.

The company would not elaborate on the “remedies.”

The $4.3 billion deal for San Jose-based Hitachi GST, a unit of Japanese parent Hitachi Ltd., is expected to close this quarter. It is expected to increase Western Digital’s corporate business and make it the undisputed leader in drives in terms of shipments and revenue. It would also increase its corporate business.

Western Digital’s proposed buy prompted Scotts Valley-based Seagate Technologies LLC—the market leader in terms of revenue from disk drives—to offer $1.4 billion for Samsung Electronics Co.’s drive business.

The buy would give Seagate added market share and access to Samsung flash memory chips in new solid state drives that use chips instead of spinning disks to store data.

If both deals are approved, it would trim the big players in the drive market from five to three, with Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. being the other.

Hispanic Focus

The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) is holding its annual conference at the Anaheim Convention Center this week. The four-day conference will include a career expo, certified courses in business development and sustainable engineering, lectures, seminars for future faculty and researchers, and a program for Latino students in grades six through 12 to explore career opportunities and developments in science, technology, engineering and math. The conference is intended to boost awareness of these areas and draw more Latinos into the field. Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S. but account for only 5% of the science, technology, engineering and math work force, according to the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. “We continue to face a lack of diversity in STEM industries and a shortage of qualified talent,” said SHPE Chief Executive Pilar Montoya. “We believe that SHPE is an important part of the solution to these issues by inspiring Hispanic youth to pursue STEM-related careers and supporting Hispanic professionals who are making inroads at their respective organizations.”

Bits and Pieces

Adapters from Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp. will be imbedded in storage products from NEC Corp. The adapters will help customers of the Tokyo-based company transition from 1-gigabit Ethernet to 10-gigabit Ethernet to meet growing capacity demands in virtual data centers and cloud computing … Irvine-based Paragon Software Group scored a design win from computer products maker Acer Inc. of Taiwan. Acer’s Iconia TAB A500 line of tablets will embed Paragon’s software that enables systems and devices to access file systems and allows users to connect their tablets to other devices via USB and share files. In one application, users can attach their Windows USB hard drive to stream and store movies, videos, music and other media, and then load it to a tablet. Users also can play back multi-media content directly from their hard drive without having to load it onto the tablet.

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