Puget Sound Business Journal articles from October 2000

Puget Sound Business Journal archives from October 2000

Cell phone with music.
October 27, 2000... HitHive joins Sprint to offer new MP3 service HitHive Inc. of Seattle is teaming with Sprint PCS to launch the nation's first wireless phone that doubles as a digital radio for playing a user's personal library of music. The service,...

Half a world away.
October 27, 2000... Firms handle customer service from India Two Washington companies are cashing in on the globe-shrinking powers of the Internet by establishing Internet-based support centers in India to serve the needs of large corporations in the West....

Managed care fades, fee-for-service returns.
October 27, 2000... The post-mortem for Valley Physicians Organization might read like this: "Succumbed to is placed optimism about the future of managed care." Faced with declining patient rolls and inadequate payments for services, the 140-doctor...

Lawsuits target dot-corn debts.
October 27, 2000... Frustrated creditors' cases mount Many of yesterday's promising online prospects have quickly become today's dot-corn deadbeats. A recent check' at the King County Courthouse turned up more than 20 lawsuits against Internet-related...

Tully's marches into Oregon with 10-store buy.
October 27, 2000... While Marsee Baking's bakery shops have vanished from Seattle, they have continued to thrive in Portland, most recently under the ownership of Tri-Brands Inc. Now Tully's Coffee Corp. of Seattle has agreed to buy the remaining 10 Marsee...

Singing the same tune.
October 27, 2000... An online magazine is hoping to fill at least part of the void left by the demise of The Rocket, Seattle's longtime music publication, which closed down last week. In an Oct. 19 e-mail to readers of Sounds of Seattle, the publisher of...

Optical illusion?
October 27, 2000... The Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce this week unveiled a new logo that plays off of the business community's connections, fiber optic and otherwise. The chamber's new logo is a blue oval streaked with radiating lines and a...

From rags to riches to rags.
October 27, 2000... The economies of some developing nations have so weakened that their people can't even buy used clothing, and that's causing pain at Buffalo Industries Inc. in Seattle. A fifth-generation company that is one of Seattle's oldest, Buffalo...

Who's Who on the Net? Not you-know-who.
October 27, 2000... Ziff Davis' Smart Business magazine, formerly called PC Computing, has named its "Who Gets the Net?" list of companies. And unlike most lists, this one's notable for those who didn't make the list. Redmond's Microsoft Corp. isn't on the...

CORRECTION.
October 27, 2000... MEMS A story in the Oct. 20 issue misidentified the location of Micronics Inc. The company is based in Redmond.

Amazon sales up 79 percent.
October 27, 2000... Amazon.com Inc. said third-quarter sales were $638 million, an increase of 79 percent from the same period last year. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said its electronics store has become its second-largest U.S. operation, behind books but...

Newspaper Guild gives strike OK.
October 27, 2000... Journalists at the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild voted to authorize a strike if there's no progress in contract negotiations with The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. By a lopsided vote of 399 to 32, Guild members...

$1 billion blitz for MSN service.
October 27, 2000... Microsoft Corp. is launching a $150 million global advertising campaign as part of a $1 billion marketing push aimed at making its MSN network the top Internet brand worldwide. The ad blitz, which began this week, includes television ads...

Net has Silver lining.
October 27, 2000... Despite dot-corn doldrums, PR firm prospers A Seattle public relations firm is adding staff and expanding its business -- little more than a year after it bet heavily on the New Economy by deciding to represent nothing but...

Squeeze is on for salmon-egg firms.
October 27, 2000... For huge harvest, it's Chile today or gone tomorrow Tens of millions of salmon eggs may soon be piling up with no place to go, and Washington's salmon-egg producers are raising a stink over it. It's harvest time for the egg...

Surprise cuts shake up surviving Pro2Net staff.
October 27, 2000... In today's dot-com world, it can be a short journey from celebratory keg party to pink-slip blizzard. For about a quarter of the employees at Seattle-based Pro2Net Corp., the trip took only a weekend. Employees at Pro2Net found...

Freeinternet.com's debt tops $30 million.
October 27, 2000... A custody battle is brewing over Baby Bob, the precocious toddler with an adult vocabulary that hawked Freeinternet.com's free Internet service. Immediately after the Federal Way-based company Freeinternet.com filed for Chapter 11...

Vendaria puts product videos on Web sites.
October 27, 2000... Vendaria Inc. of Seattle has launched a service that will enable manufacturers to show product videos to online shoppers who visit e-commerce sites. Given that many e-commerce sites are as wobbly as a Seattle Seahawks quarterback,...

Quality Veneer hopes to sell two shuttered mills.
October 27, 2000... Quality Veneer & Lumber Inc., the Seattle wood-products company that recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, plans to downsize by selling its two Washington mills and reopening its single mill in Oregon. That Quality Veneer...

360 Powered hunts $30M for search engine.
October 27, 2000... 360 Powered Corp. of Seattle hopes to make searching the Internet a lot more effective and up-to-date, if it can just get the world's proliferating thousands of Web sites to install and use its software technology. Rather than collecting...

Nordstrom staff's move will free big office space.
October 27, 2000... A sizable chunk of downtown Seattle office space has been put on the market in anticipation of Nordstrom's move next year to a new office tower. Martin Smith Inc. is seeking new tenants for 260,000 square feet in the Museum Plaza...

Unico backing away from acquisition of S.F. high-rise.
October 27, 2000... The dot-com doldrums have claimed another victim, with a Seattle firm canceling the $152 million purchase of a San Francisco high-rise because of concerns about the local Internet economy, say several sources close to the deal. Unico...

Stamps.com lays off 70 at Bellevue operation.
October 27, 2000... Stamps.com laid off about 40 percent of its staff, including about 70 of its 180 employees in Bellevue, said a spokesperson for the Santa Monica, Calif.-based online company. Stamps.com, which provides mailing and shipping services, said it...

Drugstore.com eliminates 60 jobs to conserve cash.
October 27, 2000... Drugstore.com Inc. is laying off about 10 percent of its staff, or 60 people. The Bellevue-based online drugstore, which will announce its quarterly earnings Oct. 23, said Friday it is making the cuts to reduce spending "in order to continue...

Frontier Financial buys Interbancorp of Duvall.
October 27, 2000... Frontier Financial Corp. of Everett will absorb Duvall-based Interbancorp Inc., a commercial bank with two branches that operate as Valley Community Bank in Duvall and Kirkland Bank of Commerce in Kirkland. The all-stock transaction is valued...

Paccar quarterly income drops 35 percent.
October 27, 2000... Paccar Inc. of Bellevue said its quarterly income declined 35 percent to $93.1 million, or $1.21 per share, as North American truck orders slowed to their lowest level in several years. The truck manufacturer said its results "benefited from...

Weyerhaeuser earnings down 24 percent.
October 27, 2000... Weyerhaeuser Co. of Federal Way reported third-quarter net earnings of $199 million, or 90 cents per common share, down from $237 million, or $1.18 per common share, for the same period last year. The forest products company's sales were $3.7...

New Edge lands $140M to expand broadband DSL.
October 27, 2000... New Edge Networks of Vancouver, Wash., has raised $76.9 million in equity capital and another $63 million in debt financing to help roll out its wholesale broadband DSL services nationally in under-served small, midsize and semirural markets....

Icos loss is narrower than was expected.
October 27, 2000... Icos Corp. of Bothell reported a net loss of $21.7 million, or 47 cents per share, for the third quarter, compared to a net loss of $16.4 million, or 37 cents per share in the third quarter a year ago. The loss was smaller than the 49 cents...

Sonus cuts staff 25 percent.
October 27, 2000... Sonus Pharmaceuticals Inc. will lay off a quarter of its 40 employees in a restructuring plan that focuses the biopharmaceutical company on future drug delivery and blood substitute products. The cuts are expected to yield a 25 percent...

Avista chairman and CEO is leaving.
October 27, 2000... Avista Corp. of Spokane said chairman president and CEO Tom Matthews will leave the energy and communications company at the end of the year. Effective immediately, the company has named executive vice president Gary G. Ely as acting...

Tangis software helps wearable computers fit right.
October 27, 2000... Tangis Corp. is moving out of the research and development stage by launching its first product, which executives hope will jump-start the next wave of mobile computing. The Seattle software company's products help other companies...

Few farmers using genetically modified crops.
October 27, 2000... Potato growers are finding fewer takers for engineered varieties, cooling their early enthusiasm Washington's fall potato harvest is just wrapping up, but almost none of the potatoes are genetically modified varieties. That's not...

ZymoGenetics financing key to long-term hopes.
October 27, 2000... Promising drugs still years away from market ZymoGenetics Inc. has raised a remarkable $150 million from venture investors, but its deal-making is really just beginning. The Seattle biotechnology company will need more money and more...

Satsop dust-up is finally settled by state officials.
October 27, 2000... The governor's office, concerned about losing a big employer in Grays Harbor County, has brokered a peace in a dispute between a dot-corn and a wood-products company at the Satsop Development Park east of Aberdeen. SafeHarbor.com, which...

Seattle sending more inspectors to work sites.
October 27, 2000... One step at a lime, Seattle is changing its development regulations as the city adjusts to the Endangered Species Act, the federal law that now protects runs of wild chinook salmon that spawn in rivers and streams surrounding Puget Sound. ...

State's economy compares well to others.
October 27, 2000... Once again, Washington state got high marks in an annual rating of state economies by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit economic-development organization based in Washington, D.C. The report, now in its 14th year,...

New Start Youth Offender Project.
October 27, 2000... A $488,000 federal grant will pay for two programs aimed at troubled youth in King County. The New Start Youth Offender Project steers children away from gangs and into the work force, while the Out-of-School program provides training for...

Red Door Ale House and Dubliner Tavern.
October 27, 2000... The city of Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board is considering whether to grant landmark status to a building that houses the Red Door Ale House and Dubliner Tavern in the city's Fremont neighborhood. The board will consider landmark status...

For-profit Social Ecology gives nonprofits a cut.
October 27, 2000... Seattle-based Social Ecology Inc. has found a number of ways in recent months to use its for-profit status to good advantage. The year-old technology company, founded by Nonprofit Online News publisher Michael Gilbert, specializes in...

REI, learning center ally.
October 27, 2000... Recreational Equipment Inc. has entered into an agreement to be the exclusive provider of outdoor gear to the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center. "The learning center, located on Bainbridge Island, is the latest charitable project of...

Chicken Soup Brigade and Northwest AIDS Project.
October 27, 2000... When Chicken Soup Brigade and Northwest AIDS Project decided to merge, the new organization had one executive director too many. So Terry Stone, executive director of Northwest AIDS, will depart in March. Chicken Soup Brigade executive...

Partnership for Youth.
October 27, 2000... Partnership for Youth founder Nancy Amidei is leaving the 6-year-old organization. The group will conduct a search for a replacement. Partnership for Youth has started a school, a respite care program and an employment-training program.

Jean Rahn.
October 27, 2000... Jean Rahn, executive director of The Western Foundation, departed for a similar post at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Cob., after 11 years. The Western Foundation is the charitable arm of Western Washington University.

Parent company will fold Tredegar VC fund.
October 27, 2000... One of the area's most successful venture capital firms will call it quits at the end of the year, but its partners plan to raise a fund of their own sometime next year. Tredegar Corp., the Richmond, Va.-based parent company of...

NW venture investing cooled in second quarter.
October 27, 2000... Venture capital investments in the Northwest took a dramatic plunge in the second quarter of this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Money Tree report. Venture investments in the Northwest dropped 26 percent, falling from $800...

Builders like HUD budget but want fewer rules.
October 27, 2000... The real estate industry applauded the 16 percent budget hike Congress recently granted the Department of Housing and Urban Development, saying the increased funding for community development block grants and housing assistance vouchers will...

Women-owned businesses face sizable credit gap.
October 27, 2000... Women own 38 percent of all of the small businesses in the United States but receive only 12 percent of all the credit provided to small firms, reports a new study conducted by the Milken Institute for the National Women's Business Council....

Longtime local real estate figure Jim Norman retires.
October 27, 2000... Jim Norman, a prominent figure in Seattle real estate for the better part of three decades, has retired from the business. The development was somewhat unexpected. Norman, 59, who merged The Norman Co. of Seattle with Texas-based Trammell...

Go2Net, Triad reach truce.
October 27, 2000... A dispute between Go2Net Inc. and its landlord in the high-profile Pier 70 project has been quickly and quietly defused. Go2Net, which recently completed its merger with InfoSpace Inc. of Bellevue, filed suit in early October against...

Sienna expands in Seattle.
October 27, 2000... Sienna Architecture Co. of Portland has expanded its Seattle office to six with this month's addition of four architects formerly with Mulvanny G2 Architects of Bellevue. Sienna said Steve Harmon, Darryl Custer and Kirk Callison joined...

Dot-com update.
October 27, 2000... When Acadio Corp. of Seattle laid off 28 employees earlier this month, the firm didn't know precisely how much space the cutbacks would require it to sublease to another tenant in Martin Smith's Provident Building in Seattle. Now the number...

Big Pittsburgh project hinges on Nordstrom.
October 27, 2000... After more than two years and hundreds of hours of planning, the fate of Pittsburgh's $522 million Market Place at Fifth and Forbes could be decided next month at a Nordstrom board, meeting. The Seattle retailer was to be the cornerstone...

Edifecs aiming to clear B2B trading bottlenecks.
October 27, 2000... Executives around the globe have jumped on the Internet business-to-business bandwagon because they universally envision the potential savings and efficiencies from setting up electronic exchanges on the Internet But the promise of...

Consumer price index numbers pop upward.
October 27, 2000... Inflation is becoming a concern again. The consumer price index soared 0.5 percent in September, according to seasonally unadjusted figures released this month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The large upswing came in the wake of...

Regional traffic at Portland airport is down.
October 27, 2000... Although overall passenger numbers are up this year at Portland International Airport, 2000 is shaping up as yet another year of sluggish growth for PDX After the first eight months of 2000, passenger count is up a minuscule 0.6 percent....

Small biz optimism slips slightly.
October 27, 2000... Small business optimism slipped a fraction of a point last month, accord lug to the latest Small Business Economic Trends report from the National Federation of Independent Business Education Foundation. The SBET report indicates a "very...

Women's Web site up.
October 27, 2000... The White House office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach, along with the Interagency Committee for Women's Business Enterprise and the National Women's Business Council, has launched a Web site for women-owned businesses selling to the...

REAPING REWARDS.
October 27, 2000... Seattle Tilth, a grass-roots agency, is ready to come above ground Seattle Tilth Association is digging deeper into the dirt. After 22 years of surviving as a largely volunteer effort, the nonprofit organization is poised at a new stage...

A good office chair can be worth its weight in comfort.
October 27, 2000... When I started my own business several years ago, I bought a $49 chair from an office supply store. After a couple of months, I was ready to fling it across the room. I thought I'd gotten a bargain, but what I really had was a backache. ...

High-tech supplier Schmitt still in doldrums.
October 27, 2000... Schmitt Industries is still ticking. But it hasn't exploded like Wall Street and company officials expected it would three years ago. With fiscal year 2000 revenues of $8.9 million, the company has fallen far short of the $23.7...

Acquisition draws Network Commerce into lawsuit.
October 27, 2000... Network Commerce Inc. of Seattle has been sued by a Texas e-commerce company that alleges it received faulty software from a firm recently acquired by Network Commerce. The lawsuit, seeking about $48 million in damages, was filed by...

Spokane group plans a technology campus.
October 27, 2000... A broad-based group of Spokane businesspeople and civic leaders headed by Biomedex Inc. president George Coleman and Avista Corp. executive Pete Kerwien has begun putting together what is envisioned to be a several-hundred-acre technology...

Creative cuisine marks Zoe's belltown debut.
October 27, 2000... There could be no more stark symbol of the evolution of Belltown than the transformation of the old Millionair Club Thrift Store at Second and Blanchard into the trendy new Restaurant Zoe. The owner/chef is Scott Staples, formerly...

Women investors are more cautious than men.
October 27, 2000... When it comes to investing, women tend to be significantly more cautious than men, according to a recent University of California-Davis study conducted by professor Brad Barber and assistant professor Terrance Odean, and reported in Ticker...

The latest survey.
October 27, 2000... The latest survey from the American Association of Individual Investors shows that only 17 percent of investors are bearish on stocks. Over the years this reading has been a remarkably prescient contrary indicator. The lowest bearish reading...

Third Avenue Value Fund.
October 27, 2000... Third Avenue Value Fund buys well-managed, financially sound small stocks selling at rock-bottom prices. Its composite price-to-book ratio was recently just 41 percent of the S&P 500's. It also holds onto its stocks a long time. Portfolio...

To help lift diamond prices.
October 27, 2000... To help lift diamond prices, De Beers, which controls 70 percent of the world's supply, has been convincing other suppliers to restrict sales, observes Individual Investor magazine (125 Broad St., 14th Floor, New York NY 10004). "Combined...

Ernst Institutional Research.
October 27, 2000... Ernst Institutional Research in Boston has devised a "dual cash flow" screen to identify stocks with sustainable growth. It looks for companies whose operating cash flow is rising while balance-sheet cash flow is falling. Recent favorite...

BRIEFCASE.
October 27, 2000... * ACCOUNTING Jeffrey Brown, Julia Lackey and David Schilling were named partner at Moss Adams LLP in Seattle. * ADVERTISING, MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Kathie Hunt joined Shandwick International in Belleuve as account...

American Red Cross.
October 27, 2000... American Red Cross Snohomish County chapter received a $3,333 grant from The Fred Meyer Foundation for its transportation services program, serving clients who need to reach United Way agencies in Snohomish County.

Association of Washington Business.
October 27, 2000... Association of Washington Business received an award in honor of being one of the fastest-growing membership associations in the country from the Association of Membership and Marketing Executives.

City of Tacoma.
October 27, 2000... City of Tacoma received an Honor Award from the American Planning Association Washington chapter and the Planning Association of Washington for its Station Area Development Strategies Report.

Millines Dziko.
October 27, 2000... Millines Dziko, founder of the Technology Access Foundation, received the Isabel Colman Pierce Award for Community Service from the YWCA of Seattle-King County-Snohomish County.

Jeff Feeney.
October 27, 2000... Jeff Feeney, senior project manager at Berger/Abam Engineers Inc. in Federal Way, received the Contract Employer of the Year award from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Mindi Waldemar.
October 27, 2000... Mindi Waldemar, Seattle University senior, received the Thomas J. Burns National Student Seminar Superior Manuscript Award for her paper on "How E-commerce is Changing Accounting."

National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses Northwest chapter.
October 27, 2000... National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses Northwest chapter awarded $6,000 in scholarship money to Seattle University students studying information technology.

Seattle Art Museum.
October 27, 2000... Seattle Art Museum received a $1.2 million grant from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds to deepen community involvement and promote ethnic diversity in all aspects of the museum.

Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics.
October 27, 2000... Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics received a $226,500 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust towards support of the Center for Electronic Commerce and Information Systems.

Light rail review in good hands.
October 27, 2000... Rice promises objective study Former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice will bring vital credibility to an independent review of Sound Transit's light rail plans -- and just in time. Sound Transit's bright promise has dimmed as questions...

EBJ's strengths add value to PSBJ.
October 27, 2000... "You cannot become what you need to be by remaining what you are," says talk-show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey. Her quotation provides insight into the thought process that went into our decision to merge Puget Sound Business Journal...

San Francisco delegates find ideas in Seattle.
October 27, 2000... A few weeks ago I joined a delegation of 0 San Francisco leaders who traveled to Seattle on the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's "City Trip" -- an annual expedition to learn how another city is tackling economic development challenges. ...

LETTERS.
October 27, 2000... Duwamish details I read your story on the proposed Superfund listing of the Duwamish (Oct. 13) with interest, and would like to pro vide you with some more information. I have been working on federal Super fund and state Model Toxic...

Building identity.
October 27, 2000... The right name influences how a structure is perceived When Paul Allen's Vulcan Northwest was allowed to select from a range of possible street numbers for its translucent Union Station office building, it wasn't content to simply pick...