Arizona’s Inter-Tel Inc., a maker of digital phone systems and software for businesses, has upped its local operations with a Santa Ana showroom.
The company’s Orange County Technology Demonstration Center on East Dyer Road is designed to show off communications gear for Web conferencing, mobile and Internet calling.
Inter-Tel targets midsize companies with 75 to 125 workers.
Local customers include Catalina Channel Express Inc. in San Pedro, American Red Cross of Orange County and First American Corp.
“If we look at the opportunities that exist in Orange County, we have found that we can have a big footprint,” said Doug Gaylor, Inter-Tel’s senior vice president for the West. “OC is our second-largest market this year in the U.S.” after Dallas, he said.
Inter-Tel, with some 60 offices across the country, has been in OC for more than 20 years and has stayed because of the local workforce, Gaylor said.
“We believe in hiring well-educated employees and good technical employees,” Inter-Tel President Craig Rauchle said. “With UCI and Cal State Fullerton so close, it was a good opportunity to recruit the right personnel.”
There are about 70 workers at Inter-Tel’s Santa Ana site and about 1,900 worldwide.
The company is looking to grow that number by 20% in the next few years, Gaylor said.
Most of the company’s engineers are in the Phoenix area, where Inter-Tel has its headquarters in Tempe.
The branches consist of sales, customer service and technical support staff.
Almost all manufacturing is done overseas.
In the September quarter, Inter-Tel had sales of $117 million. At a recent check, the company was valued at $543 million.
Inter-Tel, founded in 1969, always has had close ties to the area.
President Rauchle lived in South County for 14 years and worked from the company’s local operations before shifting to Arizona.
In 2004, Steven Mihalyo, one of Inter-Tel’s founders and a California State University, Fullerton, graduate, gave about $3 million to the business school at his alma mater.
Mihalyo, the company’s former chief executive, recently withdrew a bid to buy out Inter-Tel on Nov. 8 after a 10-month battle. Shareholders in October rejected a proposal he
put forth that would’ve cleared the way for the company to be sold to the highest bidder.
Mihalyo and San Francisco-based private equity firm Vector Capital Corp. offered shareholders $23.25 a share in the most recent bid.
Mihalyo is the company’s largest shareholder with about a 19% stake.
SiliconSystems in Canada
Aliso Viejo-based SiliconSystems Inc., a maker of storage devices that use flash memory instead of disk drives, has signed a deal to have its products distributed in Canada.
Toronto’s Electro Sonic Inc., a computer parts distributor, plans to sell the company’s SiliconDrive and SiliconDrive Secure product lines.
Terms weren’t disclosed.
SiliconSystems headed north to better serve Nortel Networks International Corp., spokeswoman Annette Keller said. Nortel is based near Toronto.
“One of our biggest customers is Nortel, so that’s one of the reasons to have that extra coverage up there,” she said.
Like disk drives, flash memory storage devices have a controller,a circuit board with chips,for connecting the device to a computer.
Unlike disk drives, though, flash storage is made of chips that have no moving parts. They’re designed to store small amounts of data, sometimes in hot, cold, dusty or otherwise tough settings.
SiliconSystems’ products are used in video poker machines, electronic voting gear, ATMs and military equipment. They also are found in medical devices such as glucose monitors.
Other SiliconSystems customers include European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., better known as EADS, Motorola Inc., Avaya Inc. and Honeywell Inc.
SiliconSystems was started in 2000 by former executives of Santa Ana-based SimpleTech Inc., which is a rival in flash storage products.
The company secured three rounds of venture funding in the past few years. The first round, worth $3 million to $5 million, was in 2004. The second round was in 2005 and the third was just completed. SiliconSystems declined to say how much it raised in subsequent rounds.
The company has about 70 workers in Aliso Viejo. It’s outgrown the office and is looking for larger space nearby.
“They will probably end up taking new office space if they can’t expand in their own building,” Keller said.
A move is planned for February.
U-Nav Buys License, Ends Suit
Irvine-based u-Nav Microelectronics, a maker of chips and software for global positioning systems, settled a patent dispute with a rival.
San Jose-based SiRF Technology Inc., part of SiRF Technology Holdings Inc., filed the infringement lawsuit in late 2005.
SiRF’s technology is used in car navigation systems, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, digital cameras and watches.
As part of the settlement, SiRF granted u-Nav a license to some of its 175 GPS patents. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. U-Nav paid in cash and will pay royalties on the patents. SiRF also is licensing some of u-Nav’s patents.
MTI Faces Delisting
Irvine-based MTI Technology Corp., a seller of data storage computers and software, has received two letters from Nasdaq officials because its securities don’t meet minimum requirements.
Nasdaq has been sending out a lot of warning letters to OC companies lately, largely related to missed filings because of options probes.
MTI’s case is different.
The company hasn’t met the minimum stock price to stay on the exchange. The market value of the company’s shares also is below the exchange’s $35 million requirement.
MTI Technology said it plans to monitor its listed securities over the coming weeks and then consider its options if it does not meet the minimum bid requirement.
