February 14, 2001

Allegiance Telecom Inc. of Dallas has added CTSnet of San Diego -- one of the region’s largest providers of Internet access to businesses -- as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 1993, CTSnet is the former wide-area networking division of San Diego-based Datel Systems Inc. The company provides services to more than 30,000 individual users, including 2,500 business users.

CTSnet's 60 employees have all become employees of Allegiance.

"We carefully selected an industry leader such as Allegiance Telecom to broaden our product offerings and better serve our customers," says Bill Blue, co-founder of CTSnet.

While struggling providers are eyeing acquisition as a convenient relief valve, Blue says that CTSnet's desire to be acquired was for a very different reason.

"We have a solid, well-run, highly-regarded Internet business -- everything an ISP could hope for -- except for one thing: access to the kind of capital needed for advanced growth. Allegiance brings that to the table."

Blue says that CTSnet's data center expansion, for example, demonstrates the company's confidence in its growth strategy. Located in a fiber-rich area in Kearny Mesa, the "telco-grade" hosting facility was designed by CTSnet's senior employees. The environmentally controlled complex is the latest of its kind in the San Diego area, which until now has experienced a serious Internet server space crunch. Local high-tech companies have found it difficult to locate well-connected hosting real estate with serious amenities such as CTSnet's private server suites, redundant power generators, and sophisticated security, seismic, and fire systems.

"Increased demand for expanded hosting facilities is what led us to partner with a company that brings substantial assets to the table," says Blue, who sees the new data center as a model infrastructure for serving Allegiance's data products.

Allegiance likes what it is getting.

"CTSnet has extensive experience with broadband and server collocation technologies, making it an excellent fit with Allegiance's growth and expansion plans," says Royce J. Holland, chairman and CEO of Allegiance. "In combination with several recent additions of similar Internet service companies, Allegiance is even better positioned to provide extensive Internet, Web hosting and e-commerce services for our target market of small and medium-sized businesses."

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Jack in the Box Inc. is reporting record first quarter results, earning a profit of $24 million, up 18 percent from a year earlier, on revenue of $540.7 million. A year ago the company recorded a profit of $20.4 million on revenue of $476.8 million in the same quarter.

"We continue to achieve earnings and sales targets due to our ongoing guest focus, offering high quality food, service and promotions that benefit the consumer," says CEO Robert J. Nugent.

During the quarter ended Jan. 21, company restaurant sales grew 13 percent to $506.5 million.

Same-store sales in the first quarter were 4.3 percent higher than in the comparable quarter a year earlier. Of that amount, the average check increased 3.4 percent, while customer visits improved 0.9 percent. It was the company's 24th consecutive quarter of year-to-year, same-store sales growth.

Restaurant operating margins remained steady at 19.4 percent in the first quarter compared with the same quarter a year earlier. "We were pleased to maintain our margins despite increases in labor and utility costs," Nugent says.

The eatery opened 32 new restaurants during the quarter for a total of 1,346 company restaurants, and expects to open about 130 new company restaurants during the fiscal year.

The Ximed Medical Group physican network has grown to include 300 specialists and primary care doctors in San Diego County, reports James B. Bishop, CEO of Ximed.

The organization has grown by 100 physicians in the past three to four years.

Headquartered on the campus of Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Ximed has experienced growth due to its ability to offers its patients a greater number of choices in quality physicians and health care, Bishop says.

"We've experienced solid growth in the XIMED due in large part to our commitment to supporting our doctors so that they can succeed in private practice," says Bishop. "From our health plan contracting to our marketing to group purchasing and other services offerings, these programs are made available for the benefit of our physicians. We believe the evidence is conclusive that doctors in private practice produce the environment where people get the best quality medical care."

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Previo of San Diego has released eSupport Essentials 3.2 with a month-to-month licensing option.

ESupport Essentials is designed to help solve computer problems, whether caused by user errors, configuration problems, malfunctioning software, incompatible applications, virus attacks, or data corruption.

"Previo's eSupport Essentials gives Help Desk personnel control of their enterprises' infrastructure, provides an easy-to-install eSupport solution, and integrates well with the Microsoft operating system and domain environment," says Tom Dilatush, CEO of Previo. "With eSupport Essentials' pricing flexibility, enterprises benefit by not having to make a large up-front capital investment."

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Rancho Santa Fe Technology Inc. celebrated its 10th anniversary with a move into a new San Diego headquarters building and an expansion that more than doubles the size of its Bay Area regional office in Alameda, reports Trestand Conrique, company president.

Originally co-founded as a minority-owned business in 1991, Rancho Santa Fe Technology is a communications contractor in the western states with regional offices in San Diego, Alameda and Tempe, Ariz.

"We have proven a couple of things to ourselves over the past 10 years," says Conrique, who prior to founding RSFT spent nine years as president and San Diego manager, respectively, for two local and regional interconnect companies. "We have been able to manage our business based on a set of core values that we started the with, and we've demonstrated that those values are significant in the long-term relationship building with customers as well as with employees."

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Venetec International of San Diego has been awarded a five-year contract by the Veterans Health Administration.

More than 40 veterans administration medical centers around the United States already purchase StatLock securement devices from Venetec, but the medical centers have had to do so on an off-contract basis. Many other VA medical centers were not able to purchase StatLock because they had standing policies that bar the purchase of off-contract items.

The new agreement will remove that constraint and open up a much broader market for StatLock sales among the VHA's 173 medical centers, as well as other VHA facilities.

"A number of VA medical centers have already made hospitalwide conversions to StatLock for securement of all intravenous catheters and/or Foley catheters," says Dr. Steve Bierman, medical director and CEO of Venetec International. VA customers typically purchase products from most of the StatLock product line, he noted.

StatLock replaces tape and suture for securement of virtually all kinds of catheters and tubes, and is used in hundreds of medical facilities around the world. The devices are proven in clinical studies to provide significant cost savings, while eliminating medical errors and protecting healthcare workers against accidental needlesticks.

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San Diego-based Pulse has released two surface mount low-pass filters for cable modems.

These filters allow low-frequency data signals to pass while blocking interfering high-frequency signals. Thus, unwanted frequencies resulting from television and incoming Internet data will not affect transmission of upstream (user-to-Internet) data over standard coaxial cable.

Two models are available, C5001 for domestic applications operating over 1-50 MHz bandwidth and C5003 for international applications operating over 1-80 MHz bandwidth. These products have low pass-band insertion loss (below 1 dB) to minimize signal loss and have stop band attenuation above 15 dB to reduce interference.

Currently in mass production, the C5001 and C5003 are available in both tubes and in tape-and-reel packaging. They are priced at $1.42 each in quantities of 100,000 with substantial price discounts in higher volumes.

Engineering samples of the C5001 and C5003 low pass cable filters are currently available. Details are listed in data sheet C209 available at www.pulseeng.com/pdf/2209.pdf.

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LightPointe Communications Inc. has expanded its European operations to accommodate its growing sales, corporate development, manufacturing and research departments.

The San Diego-based company is moving into a 37,000-square-foot building in Dresden in the Saxon state of Germany, which has experienced a recent influx of technology sector companies.

"LightPointe's presence is a big step forward on Dresden's way to becoming one of the top 10 European technology areas," says Dresden's Mayor Herbert Wagner.

Peter J. Frasso and Gerald Nuernberger, managing directors for LightPointe Europe, GmbH, say the expansion will enable the company to deliver on its international growth strategy, while ramping up production capabilities to meet customer demand.

"The market for free-space optics has arrived, and LightPointe is ready to deliver," Frasso says. "Today, we have 30 highly skilled employees in Dresden. To meet our projected production requirements, we expect our workforce to grow some 800 percent by 2002."

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Qualcomm has amended Denso Corp.’s CDMA subscriber unit license agreement, which expands the licenses under Qualcomm's CDMA patent portfolio to additionally include the development, manufacture and sale of subscriber units for third-generation CDMA (cdma2000, cdma2000 1xEV, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA).

Under the terms of the amended agreement, Denso will pay Qualcomm a license fee and ongoing royalties at the same rate irrespective of the standard supported by the licensed CDMA subscriber unit.

"Qualcomm is pleased to extend Denso's license agreement to include 3G CDMA subscriber units," says Steve Altman, president of Qualcomm Technology Alliances. "DENSO's expertise in developing and manufacturing CDMA products will provide significant contributions to the expanding wireless industry."

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Also at Denso, Roger Berg has been appointed v.p. of engineering.

Berg will be involved in the development of 2.5G and 3G, or third generation, wireless phones and telecommunications products, as well as Bluetooth technology and other wireless networking standards.

Prior to joining Denso, Berg was a director of engineering with Motorola, Inc. in San Diego. He has more than 18 years of experience in the electronics industry.

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Novatel Wireless Inc. of San Diego, and Dataradio Inc. of Canada say they will work together to create more reliabble radios for public safety and utility users.

"The combination of Novatel Wireless and Dataradio products allows access to information which is critical to the safety and effectiveness of field workers," says Luke St. James, v.p. of major accounts for Novatel Wireless. "Complex messages, congested voice communication and limited human resources are some of the issues that can be addressed by taking advantage of the new combined private and public networks."

Under the terms of the agreement, Dataradio will package Novatel Wireless' Lancer 3W Wireless 3 Watt Modem for CDPD together with its conventional radio-modem technologies.

The resulting dual-mode solution will be distributed along with the stand-alone Lancer 3W and Merlin Wireless PC Card Modem for CDPD through Dataradio's direct and indirect sales forces throughout North America.

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SwapIt, based in Massachusetts, is offering a new service designed to capitalize on the connection that San Diego-based MP3.com Inc. has to music fans.

This service, called CDSwapper, allows MP3.com visitors to send in CDs and games they once purchased, but no longer want, to receive a credit that can be used to purchase different titles. Complete details on the service can be found at swapit.mp3.com.

"This is a perfectly symbiotic relationship -- we provide the service and MP3.com provides users who seek music," says Howard Schneider, president of SwapIt. "We've long admired MP3.com's commitment to its customers and we are excited to provide this turnkey service."

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Wireless Knowledge, a Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. company, has announced its support of Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless.

Joining an growing roster of software developers, Wireless Knowledge has signed an agreement with Qualcomm to develop a new class of enterprise-grade mobility applications based on the BREW platform.

"We are excited to join this group of industry leaders and to demonstrate our support for the BREW platform," says Eric V. Schultz, chairman and CEO of Wireless Knowledge. "This agreement will be a springboard to extend current and next-generation corporate mobility products and services to BREW-enabled devices. In addition, the widespread support of the BREW platform among device manufacturers, carriers and other developers will give us added opportunities to expand our global customer base."

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WebSideStory Inc. reports its HitBox Enterprise service was named as a finalist in the eWEEK eXcellence Awards Program, an online competition for the best new e-business products and services introduced in 2000.

HitBox Enterprise was among 63 products and services that were chosen from 985 entries. The awards program was created to assist IT professionals in assessing products and services that enhance electronic commerce and to recognize and honor companies, services, and technologies that are critical to improving e-business performance.

The judging team for the awards is comprised of eWEEK Labs analysts, corporate partners, and leading IT professionals on eWEEK's editorial advisory board. The winners will be announced Thursday.