Thursday, September 10, 2009Santa Barbara Firm In $725M Deal To Revive Ford FactoryA Santa Barbara-based firm Clairvoyant Energy, is behind a plan to revive an idled, Ford Motor Vehicle plant in Michigan, according to an announcement from Ford Thursday. According to Ford, it is selling its Wixom Assembly Plant to two firms--Xtreme Power, based in Texas, and Clairvoyant Energy, of Santa Barbara--to create a renewable energy manufacturing park. Ford said that Xtreme Power and Clairvoyant are investing $725M to redevelop the 320-acre site, where Clairvoyant Energy will manufactur (More info...)
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Direct Drive Systems Acquired for $120MCerritos-based Direct Drive Systems, a developer of high speed motors for the oil and gas industry, has been acquired by Houston-based FMC Technologies, FMC said earlier this week. According to FMC, it will pay $120M for Direct Drive Systems, which makes components used for pumping natural gas pipelines, offshore platforms, and for the subsea processing market. Direct Drive is a spinout of Calnetix.
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Occam Networks Settles Class Action LawsuitSanta Barbara-based Occam Networks said Thursday afternoon that the firm has settled a class action lawsuit, which was filed against the firm in 2007. The company said it will pay $1.7M as part of a $12.66M settlement, the remainder of which will be coming from Occam's insurers and another defendant. The lawsuit stemmed from a financial restatement made by the firm in October of 2007. Occam Networks is a provider of broadband equipment to the telecom industry.
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Overland Names Gopal As Ops VPSan Diego-based Overland Storage reported earlier this week that it has hired on Christopher Gopal as the firm's Vice President of Worldwide Operations. Gopal was most recently COO for Applied Solar; he has also served as VP of Worldwide Operations at Dell, was a senior partner at Ernst & Young's Global Supply Chain & Operations Consulting Services, and has served at SAIC and Unisys. Overland Storage is a developer of tape libraries, disk backup and recovery appliances, and other storage product (More info...)
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Mobile-XL Ties Into Orange CameroonLos Angeles-based Mobile-XL, an angel-backed developer of mobile phone applications, said today that it has linked with telecom carrier Orange in the country of Cameroon. According to Mobile-XL, Orange will offer the firm's XLBrowser software to customers starting in October. Financial impact of the deal was not disclosed. Mobile-XL is developing SMS-based mobile applications specifically geared towards areas with limited or expensive internet access. The firm provides news, information, email, (More info...)
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Entropic, NXP Collaborate On Set Top Box DesignSan Diego-based Entropic Communications reported yesterday that the firm has inked a deal with NXP Semiconductors, on a joint set-top box reference design. The firms said they have created a set-top box reference design for the satellite, cable, and IP set-top-box market which uses Entropic's single-chip, Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) chips. The design provides a reference for a digital video recorder.
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SharesPost Ties With Advanced EquitiesSanta Monica-based SharesPost.com, which recently launched a marketplace for private company shares, said Wednesday that the firm has inked a deal with Advanced Equities. According to the firm, AEI brokers will be available to assist SharesPost members who need help marketing the shares in private companies; the deal also allows clients of AEI to have better control over resale of shares on SharesPost's bulletin board. The firms said they expect to offer approximately $150M worth of private plac (More info...)
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DivX Signs PanasonicSan Diego-based DivX said today that it has signed a license agreement with Panasonic Corporation, covering the firm's HD codec technology. DivX said that Panasonic plans to include its DivX Plus HD technology into a line of semiconductor chips, intended for use in digital TVs, Blu-ray disc players, and in-car players. Financial details of the license were not disclosed.
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CyberDefender Snags Antivirus VeteranLos Angeles-based CyberDefender, a developer of PC antispyware and antivirus software, reported today that it has appointed Brian Yoder as its new Vice President of Engineering. The firm said that Yoder was an early member of the Peter Norton Computing/Symantec team, and has been a software developer since the late 1970's. CyberDefender explained that Yoder has also been involved in a range of companies developing software development tools, video games, and automatic language translation system (More info...)
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Integrien Adds To Advisory BoardIrvine-based Integrien, a developer of IT analytics software, announced today that it has added Carol Dingle, most recently VP Product Development and Shared Services at Digital Insight/Intuit, to its technology advisory board. Dingle spent the last 12 years at Digital Insight serving as VP Operations and Infrastructure. Integrien is backed by Acartha Group, Clearstone Venture Partners, and the Tech Coast Angels.
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BridgeCo Sells Off Swiss OperationsHuntington Beach-based BridgeCo, a developer of semiconductors for entertainment electronics, said today that it is selling off its Switzerland-based operations and company, which handles the firms ProAudio and BeBoB business. Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed. BridgeCo's ProAudio and BeBoB business developed hardware for audio processing for musicians. BridgeCo said the move would allow it to focus on its worldwide consumer electronics business, specifically mainstream consumer ele (More info...)
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