Costa Mesa-based BandCon, which helps companies manage demand for access to their websites, recently was acquired by Florida’s Highwinds Network Group Inc.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
BandCon offers what’s called content delivery products—services and software that help companies run their websites by making sure viewers can access music, photos and video files, even during times of high demand.
To offer services, BandCon leases space on networks owned by big telecommunications companies, such as AT&T Inc.
The company has operations at large data centers in more than a dozen cities across the country.
Privately held BandCon has roughly 50 workers here.
Highwinds is set to keep BandCon’s local office and network operations center.
Chief Executive Ari Benowitz will join Highwinds as its chief revenue officer and report to Steve Liddell, who is president of content delivery and network services.
Benowitz started BandCon in 2000 with Mike Flatin, the company’s chief operating officer. The goal was to provide options to Internet companies in the wake of the dot-com bust.
“There was a lot of bad management but also a lot of good ideas in those days,” Benowitz said in an earlier Business Journal interview. “We started BandCon to find a home where growing websites could stay.”
The company’s seen rapid growth as websites get savvier about using video and other big files, such as video, animation and music files.
BandCon’s services and software can be mixed and matched depending on demand.
The company sees estimated yearly sales of about $15 million.
In 2008, it was No. 8 on the Business Journal’s list of fast-growing private companies.
A year later, it took a tumble amid the downturn and a slowdown in tech spending, falling to No. 63 on the same list.
Blizzard Writing Contest
Any aspiring novelists out there willing to wrestle the “inky beast”?
Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc., the biggest maker of online games, recently launched its second-annual creative writing contest.
The company is accepting 2,500- to 7,500-word pieces of fiction set in the realms of the company’s online games, “Diablo,” “StarCraft” or “WarCraft.” The deadline is Aug. 23.
Here’s Blizzard’s call to arms, er, quills: “Ready your tools, scribe, and prepare for combat with the inky beast called fiction!” the company wrote on its website.
The grand prize winner will receive a tour of Blizzard’s headquarters in Irvine to meet the company’s writing staff, which produces books based on its games. The winner also will walk away with some swag—a choice of a “Diablo III” diorama or a Frostmourne sword.
Seven runners-up are set to get complete archives of original “Diablo,” “StarCraft, and “WarCraft” novels (15 books in total), all signed by Blizzard’s writing staff and cover artists.
The winners will be announced in October, ahead of Blizzard’s yearly fan festival in Anaheim.
Blizzard is part of Santa Monica’s Activision Blizzard Inc., itself a unit of France’s Vivendi SA.
Conexant Wins
Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. recently landed audio chip design wins for a line of intercoms, kiosks and home automation devices.
The products are based on a Conexant technology that’s being marketed as “speakers on a chip,” which help makers of audio products improve sound and voice quality without spending a lot.
Conexant didn’t disclose its customers.
Audio chips are a fast-growing part of Conexant’s business. It sees them going into Internet phones, navigation devices, portable media players, computer speakers, audio headsets and other devices.
The company sees yearly sales of some $230 million.
AT&T Cell Expansion
AT&T is expanding its wireless network in Orange County.
The company, which has major operations in Anaheim, recently added two 3G cell sites in Irvine and Santa Ana, the company said.
The towers are set to boost AT&T’s network in the area to better allow its customers to surf the web, send music and video files and download mobile phone applications.
“We have a long history of investing in our network throughout Orange County to improve the quality of service we provide to our customers,” said Richard Porras, head of AT&T external affairs for OC.
The move is part of an ongoing effort by AT&T, which has an estimated 4,300 workers in the county, to boost its communications here.
In other local telecommunications news, Colorado’s Time Warner Telecom Inc. which has operations in Anaheim, was named a finalist for Forrester Research Inc.’s 2010 “voice of the customer” award.
The award recognizes initiatives that enable companies to improve how they collect, interpret and react to customer feedback.
Other finalists were Adobe Systems Inc., American Express Co., American Family Mutual Insurance Co., CDW Corp., Ceridian Corp., Dell Inc., EMC Corp., Fidelity Investments, part of Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, and United Services Automobile Association.
