Ramtron shares slide on manufacturing defect news

Ramtron International Corp. stock fell Tuesday to its lowest level in nearly nine months after it told stockholders Monday it may be liable for customer losses stemming from a manufacturing defect in a semiconductor produced by its primary vendor.
Shares of the Colorado Springs-based semiconductor design company lost 57 cents, or 14.9 percent, to close at $3.25 in heavy trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Tuesday, the lowest level Ramtron stock has reached since closing at $3.22 on Oct. 19.

Springs still in top 10 for tech workers

Colorado Springs ranked seventh in the nation in the percentage of its work force employed in high-technology industries during 2006, according to a report by the American Electronics Association using the most recent data available.

That is down from fourth in 2001, mostly because the city had the second-highest percentage decline in technology employment among the 60 cities included in the Cybercities 2008 report, the first published by the Washington, D.C.-based organization since 2000. Boulder kept its second-place ranking in the percentage of its work force employed in technology despite losing more high-tech jobs on a percentage basis than any of the 60 cities.

Despite a decline in technology employment of 9,700 jobs between 2001 and 2006, the Springs still had 12.2 percent of its private-sector work force employed in technology jobs in 2006, the report found. San Jose, Calif.; Boulder; Huntsville, Ala.; Durham, N.C.; Washington, D.C., and Manchester, N.H., all ranked ahead of Colorado Springs in percentage of their work force in technology jobs.

Most of the city’s technology employment is in computer systems design, engineering services and semiconductor manufacturing, where the Springs still ranked 10th highest in chip making employment. The Springs isn’t likely to move in the rankings in coming years — Intel Corp. shut down its 1,000-employee Colorado Springs semiconductor plant late last year and Hewlett-Packard Co. is moving a 800-employee technical and customer support center to New Mexico next year.

The report uncovered a couple of bright spots for the local technology industry — local technology workers earned an average of $74,673 in 2006, or nearly twice the average annual private-sector wage, and the number of technology businesses grew by 15.1 percent between 2001 and 2006.

For more information, go to http://www.aeanet.org/publications/idjj_cc2008_overview.asp.

COPT buys Northrop building

Corporate Office Properties Trust, a Maryland-based real estate company, added to its local holdings Tuesday by paying $23.2 million for the Northrop Grumman building that opened in May in the Cresterra business park at the Colorado Springs Airport.
The 124,305-square-foot building, southeast of Powers Boulevard and the Milton E. Proby Parkway, houses 400 of Northrop Grumman’s 1,150 local employees. City officials selected Corporate Office Properties Trust last year as the business park’s master developer.
The company now owns 15 office buildings in the Springs, totaling 1 million square feet. It also is building three office buildings with 232,000 square feet, developing two others with 235,000 square feet and owns 192 acres that could accommodate 2.5 million square feet of space.

Simtek tells shareholders "process is still very much alive"

More than two months after Simtek Corp. turned down a $36.4 million acquisition offer from Cypress Semiconductor Corp., stockholders are still waiting for news about what comes next.
Simtek Chairman Robert Pearson told stockholders at the company’s June 19 annual meeting in Colorado Springs that “the process is still very much alive and we are actively working with our (financial) advisers,” but declined to answer questions.
The company released a statement last week that it continues to “explore various strategic alternatives in order to maximize long-term value for stockholders” and it continues to “actively work on such alternatives with our advisors,” but offered no specifics on what those alternatives might be or when it might choose one of the options.
Simtek hired Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pagemill Partners LLC in February to evaluate its “strategic options.”
Simtek turned down a $2.20-a-share offer in April from Cypress, one of its largest shareholders, saying it “significantly undervalued” the company.
Simtek’s stock fell Tuesday to a five-year low of $1.70 before rallying back to $1.86 on Wednesday

Google makes no-cost online medical records available

Google this week opened to the public an online personal health record service, www.GoogleHealth.

The move comes after 18 months of development and a pilot program with 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic.

Google Health allows users to store their medical records and lab test results online, along with information about medications, vaccinations and allergies. Users can enter some information and have data pulled from clinical records. Users also can decide whether to share information in their histories with health care providers.

Patient privacy experts have expressed concern that despite password protection, sensitive health information could be compromised. Google has said the system has the highest level of security.

Navsys hires firm to help develop GPS business

Monument-based Navsys Corp. has hired Core Capital Group’s electronics and semiconductor unit to help it develop a business around global-positioning system (GPS) technology it developed for military uses.
The technology, called “Tidget,” is a small device with low power requirements that captures GPS data for use later in a variety of ways and has been incorporated in missile defense systems, said Loren Lancaster, managing director of Colorado Springs-based Core Capital.
“They have patents, developed prototypes and found there is tremendous demand for these applications in the consumer and commercial markets,” Lancaster said. Among the potential commercial uses for the Tidget technology is tracking livestock, he said.
Core is completing market research, developing marketing materials, identifying strategic partners and a management team, putting together a funding strategy to raise “tens of millions of dollar" and launching the operation within three to six months, Lancaster said.

Springs firm wins Wyoming contract

Colorado Springs-based Managed Business Solutions LLC won a $2.28 million contract last month from the Wyoming Department of Revenue to upgrade 11-year-old software that tracks collections of sales, use, lodging, cigarette and estate taxes.
The company doesn’t plan to hire additional employees to complete the 18-month contract, which requires development of new screens for users to input data and get information from the software as well as a way for those paying tax to file reports on the Web.
Dan Noble, administrator of the department’s Excise Tax Division, said Managed Business Solutions was selected among seven bidders because of its experience in developing such software, its financial stability and the expertise of its software development team.
Managed Business Solutions is a subsidiary of Sealaska Corp., one of 13 corporations formed under federal law to benefit native Alaskans.

SRC Computers forms partnership

SRC Computers Inc. has formed a partnership with Atrato Inc. to market computer software and hardware to offer faster access to large databases.
Colorado Springs-based SRC, which was started by supercomputer pioneer Seymour Cray and employs nearly 50, sought out Westminster-based Atrato to improve data access for a government customer the company did not identify and recently installed the first system.
“To address all levels of our customer base, we search nearly three years for the right solution before we found Atrato,” SRC President Jon Huppenthal said. “This is pretty exciting for a group of customers that represent a potentially large market.”
SRC spent 10 years and $60 million trying to bring the power of a supercomputer to a much broader market, but instead developed a technology that combines microprocessors with a type of semiconductor that can be reprogrammed on the fly to do a specific task.

Disaboom keeps growing

Disaboom Inc. announced this week its first quarter 2008 shareholder letter, available at http://investor.disaboom.com. The company, founded by Colorado Springs physician Glen House and investor J.W. Roth, had a busy first quarter, launching disaboom.com 2.0 in January and disaboomjobs.com in February.

Disaboom, an online community for people with disabilities, launched last fall. The stockholder letter says it expects a positive cash flow in the fourth quarter of this year, with revenue coming from advertising. Disaboom has contracts with Ford, Cricket, T-Mobile, Cancer Treatment Centers of America and others.

Comcast offers new Internet pricing

Comcast is offering customers subscribing to its $42.95 a month "Performance" Internet service a price-for-life guarantee. Qwest has a similar offer for its DSL customers, but requires a two-year commitment - Comcast is offering its deal with no long-term commitment. Comcast says the Performance tier is its most popular Internet package.

CIOs remain optimistic about hiring

Chief information officers in the Denver area remain optimistic about hiring information technology professionals during the second quarter, according to a quarterly survey by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Robert Half Technology.
Fourteen percent of the 200 Denver-area CIOs interviewed expect to add staff during the April-to-June quarter, while 2 percent plan to reduce personnel, which is unchanged from the hiring outlook during the current quarter. The Denver results are identical to the national results from the most recent Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.
The results in Denver reflect a two-quarter rolling average based on interviews with 200 CIOs from companies in the Denver area with 100 or more employees; the national results are based on results from 1,400 executives.
"Executives are taking a measured approach to hiring, making sure that there is an ongoing need for additional staff," said Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology. "At the same time, CIOs are finding that competition is tight for IT professionals with experience in areas such as applications and web development, database management and network administration."
The California-based information-technology staffing company defines the Denver area as including much of northern and western Colorado as well as parts of Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. The survey does not include Colorado Springs or Pueblo.
For more information, go to http://www.rht.com.

TAEUS helps EU go after Microsoft

Colorado Springs-based TAEUS International Corp. played a key behind-the-scenes role in a record $1.3 billion fine imposed Feb. 27 against Microsoft Corp.
The European Union hired TAEUS (Tear Apart Everything Under the Sun) in 2005 for nearly $1 million to investigate whether Microsoft violated a 2004 antitrust decision. The EU ordered the company to share interoperability information with rivals and sell a version of its Windows computer operating system without its Media Player software.
If the software giant appeals the fine, TAEUS President Art Nutter said last week he hopes the EU will award another contract to the company to continue working on the case. Rob Fetter headed the six-person TAEUS team in the Springs working on the Microsoft case.
TAEUS employs about 20 along with more than 200 independent contractors worldwide who focus on reverse engineering used in patent infringement cases.
“We had to reverse engineer Microsoft’s software code to determine if they were doing what they said they would — making other software interoperable with Windows — and found repeatedly that they are not,” Nutter said.
In case you’re wondering, Nutter said most of the computers TAEUS uses are made by Apple Inc. and use the Mac operating system.
For more information, go to http://www.taeus.com/.

Simtek hires firm to assess buyout offer

Simtek Corp. has hired Pagemill Partners LLC as its financial adviser to evaluate a buyout offer from Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and “other strategic options.”

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pagemill represented Simtek in its 2005 acquisition of Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden AG. Simtek CEO Harold Blomquist said the company has “maintained close working relations with the senior members of the Pagemill team” since that deal.

Cypress disclosed last week it had approached Simtek about buying the company. San Jose, Calif.-based Cypress owns 6 percent of Simtek’s stock and has warrants allowing it to boost that interest to 19.3 percent and is developing a line of chips with Simtek.

Colorado Springs-based Simtek employs 72 people to design and market chips made under contract by other companies in Asia, mostly for servers used to store data.

Citi analyst bullish on Spectranetics

Spectranetics is among three medical technology companies that will benefit from increasing competition in the sector this year, Citi analyst Amit Bhalla predicted in a note to clients recently.
Bhalla expects strong upcoming quarters from Spectranetics because of the rollout of its Turbo Booster catheter for treatment of blockages in upper leg arteries. He also expects strong upcoming quarters from cancer therapy system manufacturer Varian Medical Systems Inc. and strong earnings in the first quarter and all of 2oo8 from Hologic Inc. with its digital mammography system driving revenue.
Bhalla maintained his$19 price target and a "speculative buy" rating for Spectranetics.
For more information on Spectranetics, go to http://www.spectranetics.com/.

Simtek gets inventive (again)

After not seeking any patents for nearly five years, Simtek Corp. announced this month it has filed 27 new patent applications in the last two years, including a record 15 applications last year.
Simtek said it has focused its research and development spending on solidifying its intellectual property in non-volatile static random access memory, which combines speed and the ability to retain information when power is cut, as well as other emerging types of non-volatile memory.
"Simtek has enjoyed both solid revenue growth and increasing product margins over the last several years," said Ron Sartore, the company's executive vice president for research and development investments and building its patent portfolio. "We have funneled much of those proceeds into developing new technologies we believe will drive rapid growth and profitability."

For more information, go to http://www.simtek.com/.

Tech support outsourcing less

Technical support centers are outsourcing less this year than they did a year ago, according to an annual study by HDI, a Colorado Springs-based trade group for information technology service and support professionals.

Just 42 percent of the 1,005 information technology professionals surveyed between June and August outsource or plan to outsource part of their support operation, compared with 57 percent a year earlier.

A majority of those surveyed said they don’t outsource because they want to maintain control and have concerns about service quality and lack of customer acceptance. Hardware support and repair was the most common outsourced area of support, the survey found.

The survey also found that technical support hiring remains strong, with 45 percent planning increased hiring, 13 percent expecting to freeze hiring and 5 percent anticipating layoffs.

Simtek CEO writes open letter

Days after Simtek Corp.’s stock fell to a nearly five-year low, chief executive Harold Blomquist said the company’s performance “is the strongest it has been since (it) went public nearly 17 years ago” in a seven-page open letter to shareholders.

Simtek shares fell to $2 on Dec. 7, the lowest since early 2003 and down 50 percent since the company cut its revenue and profit forecasts Oct. 30 after missing its own and analyst forecasts for the third quarter with a small loss and lower-than-expected revenue.

Blomquist reaffirmed the company’s revised 2007 revenue forecast of $32 million to $33 million, which would be a second consecutive annual record, and said projected revenue from design wins through Sept. 30 exceeds a similar projection for all of 2006.

“Based on new products, design wins from customers, and a strong relationship with a credible partner, Cypress Semiconductor, the outlook for Simtek is very good,” Blomquist concluded in the Dec. 19 letter. Simtek stock has since recovered to $2.41 by midday Thursday.

Self-Service Shredder wins UL mark

Colorado Springs-based RealTime Shredding, Inc. has received approval from Underwriters Laboratories Inc. for The Self-Service Shredder. The UL mark indicates compliance with rigorous industry safety standards throughout North America. Underwriters Laboratories granted the mark to RealTime’s self-service shredding kiosk after a 15-month process of testing and evaluation, the company said.

SEC sues Maxim in stock-options probe

Some of Maxim Integrated Products Inc. employees may think they have jumped from one stock-options scandal to another.

Maxim in October bought Vitesse Semiconductor Corp.'s Colorado Springs-based Storage Products businesses and retained 55 of the operation's 60 employees. Another 50 people work for another local Maxim division. Vitesse has not reported earnings for two years as a result of a stock-option backdating scandal and investigation that led to the departure of its chief executives and several other top managers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday sued Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Maxim; John Gifford, its former chief executive, and Carl Jasper, its former chief financial officer, for allegedly falsifying financial information by improperly backdating stock option grants to employees and directors. The company's profits were inflated by more than 10 percent between 2003 and 2005 as a result of the scheme, the agency said.

The SEC agreed to settlements in which the company agreed to cease and desist from future violations and Gifford paid at $150,000 fine and returned $652,681 in bonuses tied to the company's performance. Neither the company nor Gifford admitted or denied the allegations as part of the settlement. Jasper has not settled with the agency and his attorney, Steven Bauer, told the Associated Press that Jasper didn't receive any backdated options and didn't have any authority to issue them.

Stock options give holders the right to buy shares in the future at a preset price. In Maxim's case, the SEC alleged the company routinely granted options at below-market prices, but avoided reporting the cost by backdating paperwork to make it appear that the options had been granted at an earlier date when the stock price was lower.
To view the suit against Maxim and Gifford, go to http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20381-maxim.pdf. To view the suit against Jasper, go to http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20381-jasper.pdf.

No more Room at the Inn

Room at the Inn, a Victorian-style bed and breakfast at 618 N. Nevada Ave., has been sold and will no longer operate as a B&B. Owners Dorian and Linda Ciolek, who operated Room at the Inn for nine years, sold the property to a software developer who will relocate his offices there next year. They did not identify the business.

A Gazette story in 2006 said the B&B was for sale at $1.2 million. Dorian Ciolek said it sold for “close to that.” The three-story building, built in 1896, has also served as a single-family residence and an apartment building.