Viking Isn’t Forgetting About DDR; Viking Still Backing DDR
XO Communications Inc. recently changed its name and now its Santa Ana office is getting ready to invest in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
“We have a huge capital expansion plan,” said David Lakso, vice president and general manager of XO Communications’ Southern California operations.
McLean, Va.-based XO Communications, formerly Nextlink Communications Inc., was founded in 1994 to provide fiber-optic communications to businesses. The company offers service in 49 U.S. markets. In June, Nextlink spent $3.4 billion to buy San Jose-based Concentric Network Corp., a provider of high-speed digital subscriber line service, Web hosting, e-commerce, and other Internet and data services.
XO Communications declined to state publicly how much it plans to invest in Southern California, but here are some clues to the size of its expansion.
Its regional employee count is 250, including 175 at its Santa Ana office. Lakso said the company wants to increase its Orange County presence to 300 employees by the end of next year.
On a recent visit to XO Communications’ 38,000-square-foot facility near the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway, construction workers were busy installing yet more data banks. The company also is adding a 60,000-square-foot facility in Costa Mesa, and it’s looking for a 40,000-square-foot facility in the Irvine Spectrum.
“We’ll be expanding our fiber footprint south to the Spectrum,” Lakso said. “We’re looking to expand in Long Beach as well.”
The company’s loop eventually will run from Glendale and Burbank through El Segundo and Century City down to the Spectrum. It’s also working on putting fiber into the Anaheim Convention Center so nearby hotels can offer high-speed data service.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, XO Communications’ revenue totaled $224.3 million, up 59% from a year ago. But losses from operations were $337 million, compared with an $86 million operational loss reported the prior year. Still the company is flush with cash, with $2.7 billion on hand as of Sept. 30.
The company changed its name because of its merger with Concentric. But also, Lakso said, NextLink often was confused with Nextel Communications Inc., though it doesn’t sell cellular telephones.
“When you think of XO, you do think of hugs and kisses,” Lakso said. “XO was designed to get attention. We thought it would catch people’s eyes.”
Viking Sticks With DDR
Rancho Santa Margarita-based Viking Components Inc. said it’s staying the course with its support of the next-generation memory technology known as Double Data Rate SDRAM.
This follows a recent announcement by rival Kingston Technology Co. of Fountain Valley that it had won a deal worth some $200 million annually in sales to build a rival memory chip known as Rambus for Intel Corp.
While Rambus is generally considered the better technology, it’s also seen as more expensive to produce.
Viking said it is now shipping engineering samples of its next-generation 184-pin DDR SDRAM modules supporting the Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s 760 chipset, which is the next-generation technology for the AMD Athlon processor.
“DDR memory is manufactured at cost levels that are in line with today’s mainstream PC memory costs, making it possible to realize improved system performance at comparable costs to current SDRAM,” said a Viking press release.
Viking also announced a deal with Amazon.com Inc. to bring online shoppers a “Memory Finder.” The company said it’s a new easy-to-use online search tool that makes locating compatible memory for a variety of computer systems and electronic devices. It’s available at Amazon.com.
Awards, and More Awards
Plenty of awards to announce:
Mazdausa.com received best of show as the best Orange County Web site at the First Annual Orange County eWards Gala held last month in Newport Beach.
The winners included: Riechesbaird.com, business e-commerce service; 1221oceanavenue.com, business-to-consumer e-commerce service; gateway.com, business e-commerce; Mazdausa.com, business-to-consumer e-commerce; Stemcellselection.com, education/training; Mymission.com, nonprofit/association; Alisogolf.com, travel; Flyweight.com, lifestyle; and Surfermag.com, online publication.
The eWards were conceived by Web site developer Lisa Rubenstein. Rubenstein is the founder and president of WebEvents Orange County, an organization devoted to celebrating Orange County’s online achievements.
On Nov. 7, The 7th Annual Southern California Software Industry Awards picked three OC companies for awards. Irvine-based LeadingWay Corp. won the Multimedia Company of the Year Award for its work in electronic learning and knowledge management.
Santa Ana-based Starbase Corp. was chosen Internet Company of the Year for its e-business application management. As mentioned in last week’s column, FileNET Corp. Chief Executive Lee Roberts was named CEO of the year.
