Irvine-based Aqcess Technologies Inc. is facing financial problems but insists it’s moving ahead with plans to produce several thousand of its personal computer tablets, the Qbe Vivo, and may have a white knight on the way.
“I just got the first 14 (Qbe Vivos) off the production line,” said Lisa Pia Byers, the company’s marketing vice president. “We’re in a limited production of a couple thousand with plans for upwards of 10,000 units. We already have orders for 10,000 units.”
Byers also said the company is bringing in a strategic partner, which she declined to identify.
The company in mid-October sent a letter asking its suppliers for a 30-day grace period on its bills.
“Aqcess Technologies is currently undergoing a financial restructuring,” said company President and Chairman Jon-Erik Prichard in the three-paragraph letter. He apologized for any late payments and said the company plans to pay its bills as soon as possible. Byers said the company has since started paying its vendors.
Two months ago, the company restructured as a result of slow sales, Byers said. Aqcess brought in an additional distributor, Great Cities Inc. of Irvine, which Byers said created a short-term cash flow problem. The restructuring involved a few layoffs, but she said the company retains about 60 to 70 employees.
Byers said the newest line of personal computer tablets are being made by contract manufacturer SCI Systems Inc. of Huntsville, Ala. Besides Great Cities, Ingram Micro Inc. of Santa Ana and Tech Data Corp. of Clearwater, Fla., are distributing Aqcess products. Tech Data is distributing on a consignment basis, she said.
Aqcess also is facing a breach-of-contract lawsuit from one of its former vendors, Aliso Viejo-based BLT Electronics Inc., a specialty distributor with $100 million in annual sales.
A BLT official declined to comment on the suit, but Byers said it is “a business dispute between our two companies regarding their performance and the compensation that goes with their performance.”
Prichard developed the original concept for Aqcess in 1993 while working as an advertising executive with Frozen Music Design Studio. Prichard founded Aqcess Technologies in 1996.
Aqcess has gotten rave reviews for its previous Qbes (pronounced “cubes”). They are personal computing tablets that the company said combines the power of notebook and desktop computers with the mobility of a hand-held device. PC Week last year named the tablet Best of Comdex in the desktop, mobile and hand-held system category, beating out Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Vectra VL 600 Corporate PC and Sony Corp.’s Vain PCG-XG9 notebook.
The Qbe Vivo is about the size of a standard piece of paper, 9 inches by 12 inches, and weighs less than 4 pounds. Its processors can range up to a Pentium III running at 850 MHz. The device is expandable to 384 megabits of memory and hard drives with up to 20 gigabytes of storage capacity.
Earlier this year, Aqcess moved from Santa Ana to a 50,000-square-foot building at 16800 Aston in Irvine. n
