San Francisco Business Times articles from August 2000

San Francisco Business Times archives from August 2000

BofA exceeds expectations -- in job cuts.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Bank reports extra 5,800 employees 'entered severance process' Bank of America Corp. has cut 5,800 more jobs than it projected when NationsBank and San Francisco's BankAmerica merged nearly two years ago. The numbers, part of a...

Building pressure.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Developers seeking approvals may have to wait, planning chief says San Francisco planners are unlikely to approve any large office developments before November's election, but may then rapidly OK up to 1.75 million square feet, depending...

Rosewood Hotels to top Bloomingdale's.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Luxury chain set to own, operate 230-room hotel at S.F. Emporium site Luxury hotel chain Rosewood Hotels & Resorts has emerged as the likely owner and operator of the 230-room hotel proposed atop San Francisco's Emporium Building,...

Online hotel booker sends staff packing.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Hoping to book a tour on the path to profitability online hotel reservations firm WorldRes.com has joined the rush of New Economy companies embracing an old strategy -- layoffs. Officials at the San Mateo startup insist the axing of 60...

Rocketing real estate posts bin profit for seller.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Price tag on Market Street building shoots from $30 million to $55 million in two years Boston Capital is selling 685 Market St. in San Francisco to CB Richard Ellis Investors LLC for $55 million, nearly doubling its money in just two...

East Bay woos VCs: Put mouth where money is.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The East Bay's proliferation of young entrepreneurial companies has led one venture capital firm to open offices there, and prompted city and business leaders to step up efforts to lure others. Dominion Ventures has relocated its San...

Turning risks into rewards.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... In midst of Silicon Valley, East Palo Alto students hitch dreams to startups Jon Thomas in many ways is like any budding entrepreneur -- laboring with partners over his business plan and pitching the idea to the financial world. But...

The stars come out for Red Herring's new TV venture.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Red Herring Communications has gone Hollywood. The San Francisco-based tech-industry publisher is following its fellow tech-publishing brethren into broadcasting, but anyone who. tunes in hoping to learn how to hook up their zip drive or...

Vote of no confidence.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Caleb Kleppner is battling against the odds, frying to right wrongs and change our voting system in the process. Not just any voting system, mind you, but the tribal council's method for voting folks off the island on CBS' "Survivor."...

Rise & Fall.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... A barometer of the region's movers, shakers and fakers Barry Bonds Life is good when you're making $11 mil per year, your team is in first place and a court has just upheld a prenuptial agreement which cuts your ex-wife out of a...

ViroLogic expands to meet demand for its HIV tests.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... ViroLogic, a South San Francisco-based medical testing company, is expanding to triple its capacity by the end of this year and double again by the end of 2001. ViroLogic signed leases for a total of 94,000 square feet in two buildings...

Skipper's loose lips could torpedo Lexar's IPO ship.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... CEO John Reimer waxed a bit too optimistically about Lexar Media Inc.'s prospects. Now federal securities regulators have given him and his newly public East Bay company cause for pessimism as part of a crackdown on selective...

Casecentral adds health documents to e-briefcase.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Armed with another $11 million investment, web-based legal document manager Casecentral Inc. plans to extend its services to corporations in the health and insurance industries. Such ambitious intentions mark a dramatic shift for the San...

Bay Area business journals partner with KGO-TV.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Beginning Aug. 21, KGO-TV Channel 7 morning viewers will get a daily dose of local business news generated primarily from The San Francisco Business Times and its Bay Area sister papers, the East Bay Business Times and the San Jose Business...

Jury favors former Oracle exec.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... A San Francisco Superior Court jury ruled that Redwood City's Oracle Corp. wrongly fired an employee because she was five months pregnant and complained about co-workers who copied a German software program. The court awarded former company...

Agilent profits top estimates.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Palo Alto-based Agilent Technologies Inc.'s third-quarter profits topped Wall Street expectations after the company met demand despite component shortages. The test and measurement company, a Hewlett-Packard spinoff, reported that net income...

Excite stake holder drops suit.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Cablevision Systems Corp. agreed to drop its lawsuit against ExciteAtHome Corp. of Redwood City. Cablevision had accused the high-speed Internet service provider of of making substantial operations changes without its approval after Comcast...

Cost Plus income, sales up.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Oakland-based home accessories retailer Cost Plus Inc. reported net income for the second quarter ended July 29 reached $1.4 million, a 31 percent increase over, the same period a year ago. Company chairman and president Murray Dashe said the...

Providian to offer $350M in notes.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... San Francisco's Providian Financial Corp., the nation's fifth-largest credit card issuer, agreed to sell $350 million of convertible senior notes, using the proceeds for general corporate purposes such as acquisitions, investments in...

Biotech firms battle over patents.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Palo Alto-based Incyte Genomics Inc. announced that it has filed a patent infringement suit against Affymetrix Inc. in the U.S. District Court of Northern California. The suit alleges Affymetrix of Santa Clara infringed on two of Incyte's...

ZDTV turns on new identity.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... In an effort to distance itself from former parent company, Ziff-Davis' tech-focused cable network ZDTV renamed itself techtv. The San Francisco-based network, now owned by Vulcan Ventures Inc. of New York, is expanding both programming and...

3Com park goes wireless.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Computer networking firm 3Com Corp., the company that put its name on San Francisco's Candlestick Park, said it will install wireless equipment that will allow fans at the park to order food and look up stats without leaving their seats. The...

E-trade scolded again.(E-trade Group)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Menlo Park's E-trade Group agreed to pay a $20,000 settlement over charges that it failed to file routine reports to regulators. It's the second time in in four months that the National Association of Securities Dealers' regulatory unit has...

NBC, Quokka team.(Quokka Sports Inc.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... NBC television announced it will invest up to $140.8 million in San Francisco online sports entertainment company Quokka Sports Inc. NBC and Quokka also said they would jointly produce the official web site of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt...

Avant pleads not guilty.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Avant Corp., its chief executive Gerald Hsu, and seven of its current and former employees pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to steal trade secrets from Cadence Design Systems Inc. Avant, based in Fremont, allegedly copied the...

Men's retailer earnings jump.(The Men's Wearhouse)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Fremont-based retailer The Men's Wearhouse reported net earnings increased more than 22 percent to $16 million for the second fiscal quarter ended July 29. Sales jumped nearly 15 percent to $294.5 million, compared to 1999's corresponding...

Interactive TV firms join.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Interactive TV firm RespondTV Inc. of San Francisco announced that it had purchased Accelerate Interactive Inc. of Los Angeles. Both companies make technology that allows cable viewers to order products and information through their...

Lloyd Dean.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Name: Lloyd Dean. Title: President and CEO. Company: Catholic Healthcare West, the San Francisco-based hospital system. CHW operates 48 hospitals and posted revenues of $4.6 billion in 1999. Education: Bachelor of arts degree in...

Rosenberg tests chilly SoMa warehouse waters.(Rosenberg Hood Ventures)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Rosenberg Hood Ventures has put one of its South of Market buildings on the market, and a lot of people are watching. Sales of SoMa warehouse conversions have been few and far between, and owners of other such projects are hoping a sale...

Silicon Valley brokers move up the Peninsula.(Cornish & Carey)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 25, 2000... Santa Clara-based Cornish & Carey is expanding its Bay Area presence. The brokerage firm opened a Pleasanton office last week and plans to open a San Francisco office by year's end. Founded in 1932, Cornish & Carey has grown to 130...

Brisbane, the new high-tech mecca?(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The converted warehouse concept is spreading across the Bay Area. The Martin Group recently bought a 51,000-square-foot warehouse at 145 South Hill Drive in Brisbane. Martin Group plans to convert the former Nabisco warehouse into a...

Real estate leader dies.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Swig Enterprises president Bob Swig died on Aug. 19 of pneumonia. He was 39. Swig is survived by his wife, Kim Baldwin Swig, daughters, Sarah, Leah and Becky, twin brother Kent and brother Steven. A scion of the San Francisco real estate...

NextCard Inc. tucks its credit cards into e-wallets.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Is it a credit card, a loan or an electronic wallet? This much is sure: When NextCard Inc. in early October launches the Instant Finance Network (IFN), the dual-branded product will stand as the company's first major foray outside credit...

New and improved? Providian cleans up.(Providian Financial Corp. launches marketing campaign.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... What a difference several hundred complaining consumers make. Providian Financial Corp., the target of consumer groups' scorn for its allegedly misleading sales pitches, is breaking out with new direct-mail literature, telemarketing...

FWA taps woman of year.(Lela Jahn of Jahn Investment Advisors Inc. wins award.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Lela Jahn, founder and owner of Jahn Investment Advisors Inc., will receive the Financial Women's Association of San Francisco's fifth annual Financial Woman of the Year award. The presentation will come at the group's Sept. 14 lunch at...

S.F. health media firm to follow the HealthLeaders.(HealthLeaders Inc. acquires Healthcare Business Media Inc.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... A new Nashville, Tenn., health-care media company bought San Francisco-based magazine publisher Healthcare Business Media Inc. for an undisclosed sum. HealthLeaders Inc. of Nashville, formed in June of this year, operates an...

EPocrates gets transfusion.(ePocrates secures $35 million in funding.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... San Carlos-based online pharmaceutical formulary provider physician ePocrates secured $35 million in second-round funding. Some of those writing checks were the Sprout Group, Bay City Capital, and all three Series A investors, Draper Fisher...

Imagine Media dreams of reel profits from new music mag.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The San Francisco-based publisher of such periodicals as Business 2.0, MacAddict, Maximum PC, Next Generation and PC Gamer is set to launch another niche market magazine Sept. 12 for news on film, music, digital entertainment and all of their...

Do Not Feed Pokemon.(Goldberg Moser O'Neill/Hill Holliday launches campaign for Oakland Zoo.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Goldberg Moser O'Neill/Hill Holliday recently launched its pro-bono account for Oakland Zoo that features television and print ads appealing to parents who may have kids that are too wired to tell the difference between virtual and real...

Low and outside pitch.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... In an effort to grab the attention of members of the media who are ill-perceived as too jaded to give the daily ream of press releases a second glance, several public relations firms have taken an overtly glib approach toward promoting their...

VCs seek 'next cool gadget' at end of web rainbow.(Mucho.com executive makes plans.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... We may not be in Kansas anymore, but Steven "Cash" Nickerson says geography is no excuse for living in Oz. According to Nickerson, the CEO and chairman of Mucho.com, based in Lafayette, Bay Area venture capitalists are still living a...

Nasdaq finds dark lining in H-P's silver cloud.(Hewlett-Packard's stock plunges.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Ask any tech executive about his company's stock price these days and you're likely to get the same answer: "I try not to think about the public markets. They're too irrational." (Funny, they seemed entirely rational just a few months ago.)...

Brit pans for golden ideas in San Francisco.(Mark Turrell has hopes for Ideadollar.com.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... British entrepreneur Mark Turrell is betting a startup swapping cash for ideas will strike gold in idea-rich San Francisco. Turrell, the 30-year-old founder of Ideadollar.com, is not a newcomer to the idea business. He started an idea...

Wall Street hocus-pocus.(Securities industry is analyzed.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Top Bay Area analysts demonstrate that knowledge is powerful indeed Most people might think the best securities analysts would have crystal balls, but some researchers suggest brass ones may be better. The San Francisco Business...

New BofA exec to settle private banking frontier.(Connie Beck joins Bank of America.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... It's a long way from Dallas to Sand Hill Road, but Connie Beck's made a quick journey.: Yet a year after arriving in San Francisco to lead a Northern California region leery of its one-time hometown bank, Beck remains an enigma to many...

Tech companies peeking into banks' deep pockets.(Banks buy minority shares of high tech cos.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... San Francisco bankers are picking up minority stakes in young companies, hoping to tap into the latest technology and share in potential profits down the road. Bankers, who were once considered dinosaurs in tech circles, are now finding...

Merger waves wash execs overboard.(Chris Callero joins Wink Communications.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... As Chris Callero's days as Bank of America Corp.'s interactive e-commerce chief drew to a close late last year, he pondered his future. Callero had been a banker for nearly three decades, but he was far from sure if the industry was...

BofA and Wells move B2B pawns on Net chessboard.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Bank of America and Wells Fargo -- along with the rest of the nation's major banks -- are jockeying for position in the burgeoning field of online marketplaces and exchanges. The outcome remains far from certain. But at the end of the...

Today's ATMs are Anywhere There's Mankind.(ATMs used everywhere.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The next time you're in Antarctica and you need cash, don't worry. An ATM sits conveniently inside the National Science Foundation headquarters so you won't freeze if the line gets long. After all, summer temperatures can dip to 40...

Research methodology.(BulldogResearch.com evaluates Wall Street performance.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... BulldogResearch.com evaluates Wall Street analyst performance based on the accuracy, consistency and performance of their predictions. Bulldog calculates this daily on a stock-by-stock and industry-by-industry basis on more than 3,000...

Dems laud small business stories in prosperity speech.(Fastsigns grows.)(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The first night of the Democratic National Convention featured two small business owners who have prospered during the Clinton administration. Their stories helped set the stage for the "prosperity and progress" theme of the night, which...

Business group bristles.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... The Small Business Survival Committee was quick to throw-cold water over the Democrats' attempt to take credit for the economic boom. "U.S. prosperity has come despite of, not because of, what the government has done over the past eight...

Viva pasta!(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Fast growth has become Pasta Pomodoro's bread and butter The East Bay is proving a valuable testing ground for Adriano Paganini's San Francisco-based Pasta Pomodoro restaurant chain. Though he has opened nine locations in the city...

Iris Harrell.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Title: President, owner, founder. Company: Harrell Remodeling Inc., a Menlo Park-based residential remodeling company. The firm maintains a team of designers, architects and contractors that focus on residential clients in the Menlo Park...

Cold calling and elusive cycles: No easy answers.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Answers. Salespeople want answers. Below are answers to a few questions that I have gotten from you. The purpose of this column is to assure you that you're not alone in experiencing the weirdness that everyday selling seems to breed....

New web calendars simplify sharing and synchronization.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... I loved the schedule program that Windows had six years ago. Windows for Workgroups Schedule+ was simple, reliable, easy to support and, believe it or not, free. That must be why Microsoft killed it with the introduction of Windows...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... ARCHITECTURE/PLANNING Sandy & Babcock International announced that Bruce Wright joined the firm's San Francisco office as project architect. Sandy & Babcock International is an architecture and planning firm. Robert Pena was promoted...

Energy woes make conservation the ultimate power trip.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Rolling blackouts; Uncontrolled price surges. California is losing power, literally. Now Californians -- especially those in business -- worry whether the juice will crash on any important deadline that happens to-fall on a hot day. And...

Airlines need to clip their wings.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Flying from one city to another has become a nightmare for many passengers this summer. Delayed and canceled flights have been commonplace. A record number of travelers have clogged airports and airplanes, taxing the system's ability to...

Finding our lost ticket to paradise.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... There was nobody there but us and the monkeys. I floated on my back in the hot springs. Suddenly, the clouds parted and there it was -- the volcano Arenal, just a mile away, a black cone jutting far up into the night. Rivers of red molten...

Current system has Feds subsidizing wackos.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... Democrats just completed their 2000 convention. Unfortunately, a good part of the convention was dedicated to getting over the immediate past (i.e., Bill Clinton's sexual escapades) by reaching into the distant past (i.e., John F. Kennedy and...

Once-happy flier now just another seething neurotic.(Brief Article)
August 25, 2000... I'm one of those business travelers that you'd think the airlines would like to have. I travel 60,000 to 70,000 miles a year, often to exotic and pricey Midwest destinations like Oklahoma City or Des Moines. Unlike most business travelers, I...

Inside Traders.
August 25, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

Largest Securities Firms in the Bay Area.
August 25, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

CORRECTION.(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
August 25, 2000... The profile of Ask Jeeves' new president in People on the Move (Aug. 18-24) misidentified his first name. His correct name is Adam Klein.

Kimpton pulls plug on sale to Marriott.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Hotel chain exec: 'We had conversations; we've terminated them' Local hotel magnate Bill Kimpton has scrapped plans to sell his Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group to hospitality giant Marriott International, Kimpton executives said. ...

Software firm raises voice at the web.(Nuance Communications)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 18, 2000... Call it the Spoken Web. The long-expected convergence of the Internet and cellular phones is already underway, but it's not happening the way you might think. The so-called "voice web" has little to do with the tiny display on your cell phone...

Berkeley takes dose of Bayer.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Pharmaceutical giant plans big boost, hiring, new drug at East Bay campus German pharmaceutical giant Bayer Corp. is spending $120 million to expand its Berkeley campus, add 300 employees and double production there as it ramps up plans...

Banks send developers a debt threat.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Real estate lenders' guidelines are not keeping up with the San Francisco rampaging real estate market, frustrating developers and investors seeking loans to either buy or build. "Lenders are underwriting at $55 per square foot," and we...

MeetChina gets ticket to pursue Asian trade.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Despite a shakeup among Asian startups that mirrors troubles facing domestic Internet firms, San Francisco's MeetChina.com has locked in $30 million from investors eager to bet on the future of Asian trade. The investment, which came from...

S.F.'s revolving door.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... West Palm Beach REIT sells its S.F. portfolio; new buyers swoop in Ocwen Asset Investment Corp. has found buyers for its San Francisco office buildings and will collect about $242.5 million for the four-building portfolio. The West...

Stock Answers.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Companies of the future will do it all - duh! If you were to walk up to your average technology investor these days and say something like, "Gee, the web is becoming pervasive," you might elicit a response on the order of, "duh." ...

Pacific Shores fills up before complex built.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Although the project will not be completed until August 2001, almost all of Pacific Shores, Jay Paul Co.'s massive $300 million office complex in Redwood City, is taken. Just one building, or 161,000 square feet in the 106-acre office...

Tech firm's failure drops the ball for the S.F. Giants.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... The mid-season trading deadline is over, but the San Francisco Giants still are scrambling for new players. Pandesic LLC -- the Intel-SAP double play that manages ticket sales on the Giants' official web site and built the backbone for...

Adobe slings legal mud.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... When software giant Adobe Systems last week sued its smaller San Francisco rival, Macromedia, most observers were left scratching their heads. Why would Adobe, the third-largest U.S. software maker after Microsoft and Oracle, wait four years...

Rise & Fall.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... A barometer of the region's movers, shakers and fakers Gavin Newsom It helps to be lucky. Ninety candidates have filed to run in the 11 new districts for S.F. supervisors -- but only one will "contest" District 2, Gavin's home turf,...

Andersen tech exec jumps ship to land on SiteRock.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Arthur Andersen's top technology partner in the United States has bolted the accounting firm for SiteRock Corp., and Emeryville startup. The arrival this week of Charles Ketteman significantly bolster prospects for the 150-person firm,...

Providian eyes Argentina as U.S. card market slows.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Providian Financial Corp. will launch a credit card in Argentina, part of a burgeoning international focus by the nation's fifth-largest credit card issuer. The move is with an eye toward slower credit card growth in the United States,...

CORRECTIONS.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Cliff Poleski is a co-founder of the Society for Human Resource Management and chair of several committees, not the association's president, as was stated in the Aug. 11 article, "IBM sues former execs for cashing options." ...

S.F. General writes private prescription for pharmacy.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... San Francisoo General Hospital has decided to replace its pharmacy serving the indigent and uninsured and out-source the services to a Sacramento firm. A review board convened by the city's Department of Public Health chose...

Greater Bay holdings grow.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Greater Bay Bancorp, which owns nine community banks in the Bay Area, said it will buy The Matsco Cos. In Emeryville. The Palo Alto bank holding company will pay $6.5 million in cash and up to an additional $6 million if certain earnings...

Informix to restructure.(Brief Article)
August 18, 2000... Database software maker Informix Corp. announced restructuring plans that include cutting about 12 percent of its workforce and consolidating its businesses. The changes are the first major move by Peter Gyenes, who replaced Jean Yves Dexmier...

Software firms spar.
August 18, 2000... Macromedia Inc. of San Francisco, led by CEO Rob Burgess, is being sued by graphic design software maker Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose. Adobe claims that rival Macromedia's Flash 5 web development software is based on technology it has...

Phone.com to buy Software.com.
August 18, 2000... Redwood City-based Phone.com Inc. announced it will buy Santa Barbara's Software.com for $8.24 million in stock. The two companies will combine to develop software that can send phone calls and email messages to wireless devices via the...