Irvine’s Lantronix Inc., a maker of networking gear for industrial uses, is set to appeal its delisting from the Nasdaq exchange, which happened earlier this month.
The company received a delisting notice from the exchange a few weeks ago after it failed to boost its stock above $1 per share.
Lantronix initially was notified on Dec. 26, 2007, by Nasdaq after its stock closed at less than $1 per share for 30 consecutive days.
The company had until June of last year to get back into compliance.
The exchange gave Lantronix several extensions beyond that. The most recent one expired on Oct. 8.
The company’s appeal can take up to eight weeks to be resolved, according to Chief Executive Jerry Chase.
In the meantime, Lantronix is seeking shareholder approval to do a reverse stock split—where the pool of outstanding shares is reduced to boost the price.
“Our board of directors has decided that continued listing on Nasdaq is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders,” Chase said.
Chase said that Lantronix currently is “in compliance with all other continued listing requirements” of Nasdaq.
Lantronix’s shareholders are set to vote on the stock split at its annual meeting next month.
Lantronix makes small electronic devices that allow vending machines, thermostats, retail terminals, ATMs and other machines to be accessed via the Internet or other computers.
It’s recovering from a big turnaround attempt headed by Chase, who was brought on board last year after an executive shakeup and a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Chase oversaw a big round of job cuts and other cost-cutting measures. In the past few months he’s been revamping the company’s sales teams and installing new managers.
In May, the company opened a European headquarters in the Netherlands.
The company, which isn’t tracked by analysts, had a recent market value of about $38 million.
For the 12 months through June, Lantronix saw a profit of $19,000 on sales of $49 million.
Chip Wins
Newport Beach-based Jazz Semiconductor Inc., part of Israel’s Tower Semiconductor Ltd., is set to manufacture chips for a NASA mission that will check out all of the dust circulating in the moon’s atmosphere.
Torrance-based Advanced Science and Novel Technology Co. designed the chips. Jazz is set to manufacture them at its local factory, or fab.
The chip was selected by NASA for its Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer mission, which will send a robotic spacecraft to orbit the moon.
The launch date for the mission is scheduled for May 1, 2012.
In other chip news, Irvine’s Microsemi Corp., which makes chips for military, aerospace and industrial uses, landed a $2 million contract from the Air Force.
Microsemi’s power products group, which is based in Bend, Ore., is set to develop what’s called silicon carbide chips that will be built into upgraded communications systems for Air Force jet fighters.
Silicon carbide chips are more reliable, use less power and require less cooling than other silicon materials.
Ready at Dawn Engine
Irvine’s Ready at Dawn Studios LLC, a maker of handheld and console video games, released its own game development platform to sell to others.
The game development platform, dubbed the Ready at Dawn Engine, includes software and programming tools to help other developers make console video games from scratch.
“We are faced with the challenges of making a great game every day,” said President Didier Malenfant. “We are building something for developers who are tired of the challenges of PC engines shoe-horned into consoles, or trying to stitch together layers upon layers of middleware from multiple vendors.”
It features programming code and software for editing 3-D content, sound and building a user interface, among other tasks.
It’s geared toward developing games for Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (a handheld device) and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360.
Ready at Dawn is the studio behind “God of War: Chains of Olympus,” “Daxter” and “Okami.”
Computer Shipments
Breaking a downward trend, global PC shipments were on the plus-side during the recently ended quarter.
Computer shipments totaled 81 million units during the three months through September, according to a report from Stamford, Conn.-based market research company Gartner Inc.
That’s up half a percent from the third quarter of 2008, the data showed.
The modest gain was better than what Gartner had expected. It was looking for a decline of around 6% in PC shipments year-over-year.
“These are good results especially given that PC shipments for the third quarter are being compared to a very strong third quarter from 2008,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
Shipments grew 18% from the second quarter to the third quarter of this year, Gartner’s data showed.
The jump is “higher than the historical seasonal growth” for that period, Kitagawa said.
