Irvine’s Netlist Inc., a maker of specialized memory products for servers, is making progress on a turnaround, according to one analyst.
Late last year, Netlist embarked on a strategy to shift away from the dead-end business of making commodity memory modules.
Netlist now targets a niche by making memory boards with specialized controller chips that help manage other memory within servers.
“We are encouraged by the progress Netlist has made over the past six months,” said Richard Kugele, an analyst at Needham & Co. in Boston.
A few weeks ago, Netlist recorded second-quarter sales of $9.3 million, up nearly 200% from a year earlier and beating Kugele’s expectation of $8.3 million in sales.
Netlist reported a loss of $4 million, unchanged from a year earlier and below Kugele’s expectation of a $4.2 million loss.
The company said it’s currently qualifying its flagship HyperCloud product at nearly three dozen different server makers.
Shipments to customers are expected by the year’s end, Kugele said.
Kugele has a “buy” rating on Netlist and a price target of $3.50 per share.
The company’s stock was trading at about $2.80 per share at recent check with a market value of $70 million.
Broadcom Director
Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp. earlier this month added an independent director.
The board elected John Swainson, who’s the former chief executive of Islandia, N.Y.-based CA Inc., a maker of business software with a recent market value of $9 billion.
Swainson, 56, served as chief executive and director of CA from 2004 to 2009.
Before that, he spent nearly three decades at IBM Corp., where he held a number of senior management roles, including vice president of worldwide software sales.
Swainson is a senior adviser to Silver Lake Partners, a Cupertino-based private equity firm. He also holds director posts at Visa Inc., Assurant Inc. and Cadence Design Systems Inc.
Broadcom’s board now has eight members, of which seven are independent.
Including Swainson, the board is made up of Broadcom Chief Executive Scott McGregor, Chairman John Major, Joan Amble, Nancy Handel, Eddy Hartenstein, William Morrow and Robert Switz.
Name Change
An offshoot of Irvine-based networking products maker SMC Networks Inc. has changed its name and swapped out an investor.
LG-Ericsson USA Inc. split off from SMC Networks late last year and used to go by EdgeCore Networks Inc.
The Irvine company sells switches and other networking gear to small and midsize businesses via resellers.
The name change reflects a change in ownership of its parent company and chief investor, which was LG-Nortel Co. of South Korea.
LG-Nortel took a 60% stake in the company for undisclosed terms in February.
Nortel Networks Corp. filed for bankruptcy last year. In July, Ericsson AB—the world’s top maker of cell phones—agreed to buy Nortel’s wireless equipment unit for about $1.13 billion.
The deal prompted EdgeCore to drop its moniker. It’s now adopting LG-Ericsson as its brand name.
“With Ericsson in the mix, we now have more money behind us and the addition of another huge brand,” a spokeswoman said. “These internationally successful companies saw something great in our Irvine-based company and wanted to be involved.”
Chip Hires
Two Irvine chip startups have brought on executives of late.
Solarflare Communications Inc., a maker of networking chips, appointed Dave Parry as vice president of engineering.
Solarflare makes networking chips that help bridge older data networks to newer, faster ones.
Most recently, Parry has held executive roles at Fremont-based Silicon Graphics International Corp., where he handled product strategy, engineering, marketing and business management for the company’s server product line.
WiSpry Inc., a maker of cell phone chips, added Brian Hurst as vice president of worldwide sales.
Hurst is a 20-year veteran of the chip industry and is set to establish sales contacts for WiSpry as it readies its production plans.
He most recently was vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. Hurst held a similar post at New Jersey’s Anadigics Inc.
WiSpry’s seen other management changes this year.
In June, former chief executive Russell Garcia stepped back to make way for one of its cofounders, Jeffrey Hilbert.
Hilbert was president and operations chief but stepped in to fill the top spot.
Garcia left WiSpry to “pursue other opportunities.” He continues to have a board seat as vice chairman.
