When the annual International Consumer Electronics Show kicks off today in Las Vegas, Orange County will be well represented.
A few local companies will come home with honors for their products.
Irvine-based Networks in Motion Inc. plans to show its VZ Navigator developed for Verizon Wireless. It couples a cell phone with satellite tracking to help find the way home, a restaurant or that business appointment you’re desperately late for.
The subscription service came out last year and is being honored as one of the best wireless peripherals by CES this year as a finalist for the Innovations 2007 Awards.
Other finalists:
n Fountain Valley-based CarMD.com Corp. for a device for drivers that can determine the source of trouble when the check engine light comes on.
n Fountain Valley-based D-Link Systems Inc., part of Taiwan’s D-Link Corp., for its V-Click phone, which can toggle between standard cellular and wireless fidelity networks.
n Irvine-based Linksys, part of Cisco Systems Inc., for its Wireless-N Gigabit Storage Link Router, which boosts networking connections and can connect to a storage drive via a universal serial bus port.
n Irvine-based SmartLabs Inc. for a light dimmer that can work with any lamp.
n Irvine-based Techkno Inc. for a paper shredder that will decimate 100 sheets at a time.
n Buena Park-based Yamaha Corp-
oration of America, part of Japan’s Yamaha Corp., for a digital piano.
CES is the “big Kahuna” of trade shows, said Steve Andler, vice president of marketing for Networks in Motion.
As the tech industry’s focus shifted from business customers to consumer electronics, CES has grown. Others,namely computer show Comdex, held each November in Las Vegas through 2003,fell by the wayside.
“As convergence happened to the tech industry, it turns out most of the innovations in computers go to consumers rather than businesspeople,” Andler said.
Heather Skinner, spokeswoman for Anaheim-based computer products maker Targus Inc., said she looks forward to CES as part of her job. The company plans to host two suites at a hotel near the Las Vegas Convention Center.
“There’s everything from car stereos to the most techie gadgets,” Skinner said. “When you’ve got more things that people can actually use and touch and use them in their everyday life, it’s a lot more fun to go.”
Others set to attend include Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. and Cypress-based Universal Electronics Inc., a maker of remote controls.
“Our customers are the ones displaying there, so we bring them into a private suite to show them new technologies and products,” said Paul Arling, chief executive of Universal.
Bitfone Buy
We’ve had Laguna Niguel-based Bitfone Corp. pegged as an acquisition target for some time.
But we’ve got to admit we didn’t have Hewlett-Packard Co. at the top of our list of potential suitors for the maker of wireless software for remote updating of cell phones. Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. or Qualcomm Inc. maybe. But HP?
The move is part of HP’s plan to build its wireless phone business. Bitfone could help the company in its efforts to sell computer gear to operators of mobile phone networks.
Bitfone’s sales doubled in 2006, though Chief Executive Gene Wang declined to give specifics. Bitfone increased its workers by 20% to 140, he said.
The company has raised about $70 million in several rounds of venture funding. Past rounds came from a venture capitalist with ties to Sun Microsystems Inc. and from Qualcomm, with whom Bitfone is working to get its software into Qualcomm’s chips.
Now analysts say rivals of Bitfone and HP could be looking to do deals. Buyers could include IBM Corp., CA Inc. and Motorola.
M-Flex’s Singapore Drama
A deadline Anaheim-based flexible circuit board maker Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc. set for preconditions to an acquisition has come and gone with no action.
The company, known as M-Flex, is fighting to get out of a bid it placed on sister company MFS Technology Inc. last year.
Both M-Flex and MFS are owned by Singapore’s WBL Corp.
As part of the sale, M-Flex had set preconditions and a deadline of Dec. 31 to meet them, in order for the Securities and Exchange Commission to sign off on a registration statement for the deal.
But only a few days before the year’s end, Singapore authorities refused M-Flex’s bid to pull out of the deal and suggested M-Flex move the deadline to March.
A quirky rule says the same Singapore authorities could allow M-Flex to back out if the registration wasn’t declared by the SEC by year’s end.
Still no word from M-Flex on what its next step will be. A statement from the company last week said only it still was considering its options.
