Lake Forest-based Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc. will remain the multifunction printer provider for the Los Angeles Unified School District until at least November 2019.
The second largest school district in the country renewed a two-year contract with the local Toshiba unit that’s worth $60 million, according to documents obtained from the district’s Procurement Services Division.
Toshiba America Business Solutions, which recently moved its headquarters from Irvine, declined to provide the contract’s value to the Business Journal.
Its print services and about 10,000 of its printers are used at the district’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters and 950 schools used by more than 650,000 students and 28,000 teachers.
The vast majority of Toshiba America Business Solutions’ $1 billion in annual revenue is generated from its scanners, printers and copiers sold to small and midsize businesses. It has about 165,000 U.S. customers.
The company has gotten strong demand for digital signage products since it entered the growing segment in 2013 with the installation of one of the largest and brightest scoreboards in the minor leagues. The 30-by-82-foot scoreboard, featuring nearly three million LED lamps, debuted when Chicago White Sox AAA affiliate the Charlotte Knights opened its $54 million BB&T Ballpark. The contract was valued at $3 million.
Its digital signage customers include StubHub Center in Carson, Oracle Arena in Oakland, L.A. Live, Staples Center, T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and New Hampshire-based Brookstone, which operates retail stores in malls and airports.
While it has several local customers, they don’t include Angel Stadium, where several video boards are being installed, including a 9,500-square-foot Jumbotron in right field, work that’s being handled by South Dakota-based Daktronics Inc.
The office products business is considered a flat market, but the digital signage segment carries a nearly 8% compounded annual growth rate through 2024, when sales are projected to hit $31.7 billion, according to San Francisco market tracker Grand View Research Inc.
Toshiba America Business Solutions employs about 300 in Orange County who occupy two floors and 70,000 square feet at 25530 Commercentre Drive at the former home of Oakley Inc. The company employs over 2,800 in more than 100 U.S. offices and a toner plant in South Dakota.
Cyber Buy
Irvine-based Ingram Micro Inc. has acquired another provider of cybersecurity services in a segment Chief Executive Alain Monie has singled out for growth in the new year and beyond.
Financial terms of the buy of San Jose-based Cloud Harmonics, a value-added reseller for U.S. and Canadian markets, weren’t disclosed.
The purchase, which closed late last month, was Ingram’s second last year in the red-hot cybersecurity space. The world’s largest distributor of technology products and services acquired Dubai-based Network Information Technology in April on undisclosed terms. NIT distributes security products in the Middle East and Africa.
Ingram said the Cloud Harmonics buy will bring it new education, training and technical services, along with relationships with new and emerging security vendors. Cloud Harmonics employs about 50.
Ingram employs about 900 at its Park Place headquarters. It posted sales of about $42 billion in 2016 and net income of about $100 million.
Ingram was acquired in late 2016 for $6 billion by Chinese conglomerate Tianjin Tianhai Investment Company Ltd. It enters 2018 as OC’s 14th-largest foreign-owned company by local employment.
Clean Energy
Anaheim-based Willdan Group Inc. has received $6.3 million in grants from the California Energy Commission to develop emerging energy-efficiency technologies.
The engineering company will develop applications for laboratory and critical environments, office and exterior spaces, and water cooling plants. Work will include chillers using a new ozone layer-friendly refrigerant; LED fixtures with integrated, advanced controls; an advanced building management system; direct-current lighting systems; advanced ventilation and laboratory-fume hood exhaust systems; wirelessly integrated plug load controls; and a demand response system.
The applications will be demonstrated at South Coast Air Quality Management District’s headquarters in Diamond Bar, with the overall goal of scaling them for California’s commercial market. Â
The three-year project is part of the commission’s Electric Program Investment Charge, which has provided about $162 million annually since 2012 to address policy and funding gaps related to the development, deployment and commercialization of clean energy technologies. The funding sunsets in 2020.
The air quality management district is the air pollution control agency for OC and parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The area totals 10,743 square miles and is home to over 16.8 million people—roughly half of the state’s population.
