Telmar Network Technology Inc., which provides networking services and sells new and used telecommunications gear, moved its headquarters from Irvine to Plano, Texas.
The company said it consolidated some 150 workers from three different sites in north Texas into its Plano office.
Telmar is keeping its office near the Irvine Spectrum, which has 25 workers.
The Irvine office handles sales, finance, information technology and administrative functions.
Telmar made the move to north Texas to be closer to its telecommunications manufacturers and service provider customers, Chief Executive Steve Pickett said in a statement.
Telmar has several parts to its business.
The biggest part is providing services to support and maintain the telecommunication networks of manufacturers and large corporations.
Some of its services include repairing networks and helping companies reduce and manage networking costs.
Telmar also acquires product lines, some that are older or discontinued, from communications companies and continues to sell and service them.
A smaller part of its business is reselling new and used networking gear.
New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC acquired Telmar from another New York private equity firm Lightyear Capital LLC in 2006 for undisclosed terms.
Exec Moves
Compton-based Belkin International Inc., a maker of accessories for consumer electronics, snagged an executive from Santa Ana’s Ingram Micro Inc.
The company hired Deanna Johnston away from Ingram, the world’s biggest distributor of technology products, software and consumer electronics.
As chief information officer, she is set to head the global expansion of Belkin’s internal technology infrastructure, the company said.
Lantronix Leaders
Irvine’s Lantronix Inc., which makes industrial networking gear, is continuing to pick up executives in the wake of its ongoing turnaround.
It recently named Paul Pishal as vice president of marketing.
Prior to Lantronix, Pishal headed business development for Capgemini Financial Services USA Inc., where he developed new service offerings within the cable TV and wireless service provider markets.
Pishal went to Capgemini from HIG Ventures LLC, where he headed venture investing in digital media, telecommunications and information technology.
He’s done previous stints at Cisco Systems Inc., Philips Electronics North America Corp., a unit of the Netherlands’ Royal Philips Electronics N.V., Scientific-Atlanta Inc. and Hitachi Telecom USA Inc.
Lantronix makes small electronic devices that allow vending machines, thermostats, retail terminals, ATMs and other machines to be accessed via the Internet or other computer networks.
Lantronix’s shares have traded at less than $1 per share for more than a year now. The company, which is very lightly traded, had a recent market value of around $25 million.
Video Game Slump
The recession is beginning to hit home in an area that was previously thought to be a safe haven from plummeting consumer spending: video games.
The industry continued to see declines in sales of both games and consoles, according to June data from market tracker NPD Group Inc.
Some $1.7 billion worth of video games were sold in June, down 31% from the same period a year earlier.
For the year through June, the industry saw a 12% decline to $8.3 billion in video game sales, the data showed.
Consoles, handhelds and other game-related hardware took an even bigger hit,sales are off 38% for the month and 13% for the year through June.
NPD’s findings mark the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
However, the first half of 2008 was particularly good, making this year’s drop off appear more dramatic.
June saw the greatest year-over-year monthly decline since September 2000, when the industry fell 41%, according to Frazier.
For a time, some market watchers said that sales declines were due to video game players switching from console-based games to playing online, which is generally the less expensive option.
NPD found that isn’t quite true.
“While some of the decline in retail sales could be a migration on the part of consumers to acquiring content via digital distribution, our reports on downloads and subscriptions reveal that it’s not yet having enough impact on the console market to be an overly meaningful factor in the retail downturn,” Frazier said.
