Legacy Electronics Inc., a maker of memory and other circuit boards, has moved its headquarters to South Dakota from San Clemente.
Legacy designs and makes memory modules—circuit boards loaded with memory chips—as well as other specialized circuit boards for computer makers.
In February, the company said it was set to open a sales and administrative office in Sioux Falls, S.D., and expand its electronics manufacturing operations to the area.
Now Legacy’s headquarters has followed. Chief Executive Jason Engle has relocated with his family to South Dakota.
The company’s local offices, which once counted about 50 workers, are set to be shuttered after its lease ends.
Legacy picked South Dakota for its “beneficial tax structure and availability of manufacturing sites,” according to Engle.
South Dakota’s lower energy costs also were “a major factor,” he said.
The new site is set to have some 40,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
The privately held company, which started in 1993, has shifted some workers to South Dakota. It’s hiring upward of 50 people there.
“Doing that type of expansion in California is just not possible because of the cost structure,” Engle said.
Another local tech company has South Dakota ties.
In 2009, Irvine’s Vizio Inc., which designs and markets flat TVs, opened up a customer support and sales office at the old South Dakota stomping grounds of Irvine-based PC maker Gateway Inc., part of Taiwan’s Acer Inc.
Powerwave
The repercussions of AT&T Inc.’s pending $39 billion buy of T-Mobile USA Inc., a unit of Deutsche Telecom AG, are unclear for Santa Ana-based Powerwave Technologies Inc.
Powerwave makes antennas, filters and other gear for cell phone base stations that help boost signals from wireless service providers.
It could see fallout in the form of less investment by AT&T in its cell phone network, according to one analyst.
AT&T and T-Mobile spent a combined $11 billion on equipment in 2010, roughly half of the total for all telecom spending in North America, said Stephen Simpson, a stock analyst, in a report on website Investopedia.com.
“Given AT&T’s initial guidance, it looks like this deal will only expand their capital expenditures by about one-third to one-half of the prior T-Mobile level,” he said. “That contraction is not good news for the equipment sector.”
Powerwave has gotten dinged before by consolidation in the telecommunications industry, which shrunk its pool of customers by as much as 30% in the past decade.
That hasn’t stopped Powerwave’s shares from attracting renewed attention from Wall Street in recent months as the nation’s wireless carriers tout their rollouts of fourth generation networks.
The stock is up more than 50% since the start of the year on a recent market value of some $770 million.
Powerwave recently added an AT&T veteran to its board.
Richard Burns, a senior advisor at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., previously was president of network services at AT&T.
SRS Deal
Santa Ana-based SRS Labs Inc. struck a licensing deal with San Diego chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.
SRS Labs licenses technology to enhance the sound of TVs, stereos, computers, speaker bars, headphones, home audio gear and digital video recorders.
The company’s technology is set to be used in Qualcomm’s “snapdragon” chipsets, which are used in smartphones and other mobile devices.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
SRS got its start in 1993 when Hughes Aircraft Co. (now part of Raytheon Co.) spun off a division that specialized in reproducing audio.
The company saw some $30 million in sales last year and had a recent market value of $135 million.
Farewell
After more than 200 technology columns, this one will be my last.
I’m moving on from my post as a tech reporter at the Orange County Business Journal this month.
I’ve covered some of the biggest stories in technology, interviewed some interesting characters and learned a lot—so much so that I plan to stay in the tech field.
I’m taking a web editor position at Irvine-based Broadcom Corp.
The Business Journal has been both a proving ground and a safe haven for me as I’ve come into my own as a reporter and found my writing voice.
I’m grateful to my editors, for lending me their expertise and encouragement; to my colleagues, for lending me their humor and good cheer; to my sources, for lending me their trust; and finally, to my readers, for lending me their ears.
It’s been a great ride!
