MTI Taps Brocade, Emulex; Western Digital Eyes Video Market
So this is what it’s like to upgrade a building for a high-technology company.
Contractor DMK Inc. of Tustin is working on a 68,000-square-foot, $2.5 million warehouse improvement project for Celestica Inc., a Toronto-based contract electronics manufacturer that is expanding its facilities in Foothill Ranch. The work is being done in an aggressive three-month schedule set to be completed this month.
DMK is building a 7,0000-square-foot office mezzanine, adding 2,000 amps of power and laying 36,000 square feet of “electro-static dissipative” flooring over a concrete slab. This flooring, which requires a special epoxy for installation, prevents a static charge from being transferred to equipment during assembly.
The company also is constructing an 800-square-foot isolated computer room on the mezzanine with its own dedicated clean power and data lines.
The renovation includes new loading docks and 800 feet of cable tray for data, fiber-optic and communication wiring. Electrical contractor Anderson & Howard Electric of Irvine installed more than $700,000 of wiring.
DMK Project Manager Jay Eastman said one of the biggest challenges was fitting all the wiring and plumbing into the ceiling while maintaining the roof’s seismic integrity. To do this and provide an aesthetically pleasing look, DMK lowered the ceiling by 27 feet.
Celestica makes computers, communications gear, set-top boxes and other electronics for other companies. The Orange County facility’s major customers are Sun Microsystems Inc. and Britain’s International Computers Ltd., a provider of grocery store automated checkout systems and restaurant point-of-sale systems. ICL subleases 67,000 square feet of space from Celestica in Foothill Ranch.
MTI Gets Switches, Adapters
Anaheim-based MTI Technology Corp., a provider of storage services, announced a new agreement with San Jose-based Brocade Communications Systems Inc., a maker of fibre channel switches for storage area networks.
MTI plans to incorporate Brocade-branded SilkWorm 2040 and 2800 Fibre Channel switches with its storage-area network offerings. MTI expects to ship its first Brocade-based SAN products shortly.
Separately last week, MTI said it’s tapping Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp. for LightPulse LP8000S SBus Fibre Channel host adapter for use with its Vivant and Gladiator storage systems.
Simple Tech Enters New Market
Simple Technology Inc. just became a publicly traded company and already is entering new territory. Simple Technology, a provider of standard and custom memory products, said it plans to enter the embedded mass data storage market with the introduction of its Solid-State Flash Disk Module products.
“Our entry into the embedded storage market will allow us to benefit from a growing digital electronics market with a product equivalent to a hard disk drive,” said Mark Moshayedi, COO of Simple Technology.
Earlier this month, Santa Ana-based Simple Technology completed its initial public offering of 6.4 million shares at $11 per share, raising $70.5 million. Its shares had an initial plunge but have been holding steady near 8, for a market capitalization of nearly $300 million.
Western Digital Forms Video Unit
Western Digital Corp. of Irvine has formed a new subsidiary, Keen Personal Media Inc., which will market personal video recorder software and hardware,much like similar offerings from TiVo Inc. and ReplayTV Inc.
But Keen is looking to market more to makers of set-top boxes that record video on hard drives as well as to cable TV companies. Keen also announced a joint development agreement to develop and license its digital video recorder software to Scientific-Atlanta Inc.
Western Digital is hoping that video software and hardware will become a hot market in the next couple of years.
“Keen Personal Media represents an important part of Western Digital’s long-term strategy to propel its storage technology into a broader set of digital content management opportunities, including software and services,” Matt Massengill, president and CEO of Western Digital, said in a press release.
CMD Inaugurates Office
Irvine-based CMD Technology Inc. held an inauguration to celebrate its move last month from two small buildings into a single 91,000- square-foot building in the Irvine Spectrum.
CMD Technology was originally founded in 1986 to develop and market host adapters for Digital Equipment Corp. computer systems. Today, CMD makes advanced storage controller technology for various types of computer systems. CMD is a privately held company and employs over 220 people.
Canon’s Scary New Product
Costa Mesa-based Canon Computer Systems Inc. announced new technology to let consumers load their personal photos from digital cameras or scanners for use in creative projects. The technology helps users make Halloween masks, greeting cards, T-shirt iron-ons and personalized gift certificates. For more information, www.Canonprintplanet.com.
Now That’s a Bullish Report
Spotted in a report by Prudential Securities analyst John Barton on Irvine-based Broadcom Corp.’s recent earnings announcement: “Broadcom crushed another quarter … sequential revenue growth was a massive 30.2%. … We expect Broadcom to be a major winner in the communications arena.”
