Irvine’s Integrien Corp., a software startup, added an Orange County software veteran to its board.
Former FileNet Corp. chief executive Lee Roberts is set to be a director at Integrien, which makes software that helps manage e-commerce, stock trading and other programs that are costly if they go down.
Costa Mesa-based FileNet was bought by IBM Corp. for $1.5 billion in 2006. Roberts was chief executive for nearly a decade.
Roberts stayed on as general manager of IBM’s enterprise content management software group until 2008, when he left to do consulting.
FileNet makes software to manage files and big database systems on corporate networks.
Privately held Integrien doesn’t disclose financials. The Business Journal estimates it has raised roughly $30 million in venture funding to date.
Integrien’s software helps manage other monitoring software. It crunches data and tells tech workers when to pay attention and what to pay attention to in order to head off potential problems.
Integrien targets customers in healthcare, banking, payment processing and online retail.
Some of its customers include Western Digital Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., eBay Inc.’s Shopping.com, Qualcomm Inc. and Baxter International Inc., among others.
WiSpry Patent
Irvine-based chip startup WiSpry Inc. landed a patent last month for a technology that helps extend battery life in cell phones and allows them to have fewer dropped calls.
WiSpry’s patent is for parts of moving microscopic machines that are thousandths of an inch in size.
WiSpry designs the “Mems”—as they’re known for short—into chips that go into cell phones.
WiSpry has had its chips in production for nearly a year. It hasn’t disclosed its wireless phone maker customers.
WiSpry is one of the best-funded local tech startups, with some $50 million raised to date.
Netlist Hire
Irvine’s Netlist Inc., a maker of specialized memory products for computers, added a head of research and development.
Netlist hired Ron Nikel as vice president of research and development. He’s set to oversee Netlist’s engineering team and head up product and intellectual property development.
Nikel, 44, is set to report to Chief Executive C.K. “Chuck” Hong.
Nikel previously held similar posts at the U.S. office of Taiwan’s Global UniChip Corp. and at San Jose-based Metaram Inc., which closed in mid-2009.
Netlist is in the midst of reworking its business to focus on making memory boards with specialized controller chips that help manage other memory boards within servers.
The publicly held company changed gears recently after finding it wasn’t big enough to compete in the commodity memory market that includes companies such as Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co. and Northern California’s Smart Modular Technologies Inc.
UST in Philippines
Aliso Viejo’s UST Global Inc., which provides custom software services, outsourcing and consulting for big companies, last month opened an office in the Philippines.
The company is looking to hire around 1,000 workers at the center in Manila, which will do software development for UST Global’s customers in North America and Europe. It could grow to employ as many as 5,000 people in the next few years.
UST builds custom software for large companies in several markets, including healthcare, insurance, finance and media.
The company has smaller offices in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Chile.
Science Education
Broadcom Corp. cofounder and technology chief Henry Samueli was a keynote speaker at an event last month put on by the Samueli Foundation that focused on improving education in science, technology, engineering and math, or Stem for short.
The two-day event, held at the University of California, Irvine, included a series of talks by notables in academia, science and the media to address the biggest problems in teaching the Stem subjects at California schools.
The event was cosponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, the giving arm of the Irvine-based chipmaker that was started last year with a charter of giving $2 million a year.
Other speakers included UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake; Rafael Bras, professor and dean of UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering; and Deborah Lowe Vandell, chair of education at UCI as well as a professor.
Others hailed from University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Davis, Harvey Mudd College—which focuses on mathematics, the physical and biological sciences and engineering and is part of the Claremont Colleges—and the National Research Council’s division of behavioral and social sciences and education.
