AlphaServ.com Gets Patent for Networking Language
The Business Journal curse strikes again. Two weeks after we featured Emulex Corp. in a cover story about Orange County’s booming fibre-channel industry, the networking equipment maker has been one of the hardest hit in a recent Nasdaq sell-off, losing more than half its market value , about $4.8 billion , in about two weeks.
The stock fell from a March 27 high of more than $218 per share to just above $83 per share at close on April 11.
Investors have poured into stock message boards at Yahoo!, The Motley Fool and others, blaming everyone from Alan Greenspan to Emulex management to stock broker Morgan Keegan, which downgraded the stock, for the decline.
Emulex management, meanwhile, remained mum on the drop, citing “quiet period” requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
QLogic Corp., a company that spun off from Emulex and now competes with it in the fibre-channel arena, fell about $45 per share, or about a third of its total value, in the same period.
Patently Aggressive
AlphaServ.com, the Santa Ana company also known as Alpha Microsystems, has won a patent for part of its Network Query Language, a mini-programming language that promises to make it easier to retrieve, categorize and republish data over the Internet and other networks.
Modeled after Structure Query Language (SQL), the de facto standard for traditional databases, NQL converts data from a variety of sources and transmits it in a usable form to corporate computer systems, individuals or other software.
Company officials say the patent is only the first of several they plan to apply for in coming months as they market the software.
The company is offering a free trial of NQL at its web site: www.nqlsolutions.
Wha’choo Talkin’bout, Interplay?
Irvine game maker Interplay Entertainment Corp. was hoping to go Hollywood at last month’s Oscar festivities by hiring erstwhile child actor Gary Coleman to promote its upcoming title, “Messiah.”
The “Diff’rent Strokes” star and frequent “Where Are They Now?” subject helped prop up the game at Los Angeles’ House of Blues, which was hosting a reception for the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a fantasy trading floor in which movies and music are traded like corporate shares. (Sadly, Coleman is not listed.)
Interplay officials said they wanted to make sure “the highly anticipated computer game rubbed shoulders with Hollywood’s biggest stars,” though it’s not clear how Coleman facilitated that in any sense of the phrase.
“Messiah” hits store shelves this week. For more: www.interplay.com.
Broadband Broadcast News
Odetics Broadcast, a subsidiary of Anaheim-based telecommunications equipment maker Odetics Inc., hopes to get in on some e-commerce action with a line of systems that help traditional broadcasters set up shop online.
The company is developing a suite of products designed to make it easier to sell content online in an on-demand format, add targeted commercials into Internet broadcasts and manage the transition to digital television. Officials announced the plans last week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.
Odetics’ station-management system, dubbed Roswell, is already out, and the company plans to introduce more components during the next year.
The market for Internet video content is small now, but could explode as high-speed Internet access becomes more common.
For more: www.odetics.com.
Cutting the Cord
Troy Group is cutting the wires on its check and financial printing devices by adopting the much anticipated Bluetooth technology for an upcoming line of wireless devices.
Bluetooth, developed by a consortium of wireless phone and networking equipment makers including Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia, Toshiba, Intel and IBM, is designed to transmit data via wireless low-power radio-frequency connections.
Troy plans to make a line of wireless printers using Bluetooth by teaming up with Hewlett-Packard, which is introducing a complementary wireless protocol, called JetSend, that bypasses the computer altogether, allowing devices such as digital cameras to transmit directly to the printer.
For more: www.troygroup.com
Bits:
FutureLink, Irvine, will offer remote software hosting (ASP services) to Advanced Business Graphics, Mira Loma, in a contract valued at about $1 million Electronics retailer Best Buy will begin carrying computer peripherals by Irvine-based I/O Magic Corp. in the second quarter of 2000 Kiss Software Corp., a subsidiary of Tustin-based eSynch Corp., is offering a free web application that manages the applications automatically loaded on users’ Windows startup: www.StartUpMgr.com). It actually works Santa Ana computer distributor Ingram Micro launched a business unit focused on the high-end storage market MTI Technology Corp., Anaheim, signed on InterLan Technologies Inc. of North Carolina as a customer Procom Technology Inc. launched its NetFORCE 1500, a low-cost network-attached storage device for mid-size businesses.
