Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal articles from February 2001

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal archives from February 2001

Oh, baby.
February 2, 2001... Valley births skyrocketing The flourishing economy has brought a lot more than jobs, high housing costs and traffic to Silicon Valley--it has also fostered a baby boom. This unexpected boom has sent valley hospitals scrambling to meet...

Rate cut won't have quick effect.
February 2, 2001... The Federal Reserve Board didn't disappoint at the Jan. 31 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, cutting interest rates by half a percentage point, as was widely anticipated. The cut was so widely anticipated, in fact, that market watchers...

Book looks at data and democracy.
February 2, 2001... Bernard Liautaud looked around him one day and saw all the data. There was data on sales, data on costs, data as far as the eye could see. Mr. Liautaud, a Frenchman, was working for Oracle Corp. at the time, and so he had a good sense of...

Take a ride on Redding.
February 2, 2001... The economic development folks up in Redding, the city that sits at the lip of the valley leading to Shasta Lake, know a good opportunity when they see one. They have municipal power up there and are completely unaffected by the high rates and...

Honda hunts for high-tech help.
February 2, 2001... 15th District Congressman Mike Honda, D-San Jose, was back in town Jan.29 to hold a seminar on technology and the classroom. Among others, Mr. Honda, a former teacher, got Ted Olsson, IBM's manager of corporate and community relations for the...

So nice, you say his name twice.
February 2, 2001... Mr. Honda got an enthusiastic welcome at the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce annual ltmcheon, which drew more than 500 people. The Business Journal's Gregg Parker reports that County Assessor Larry Stone drew his usual applause...

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 25, a judge prevented Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s major creditors from seizing its assets. ANDRES F. HAMM cogers sports management, energy issues and transportation for the Business Journal.

Moving district lines: What's at stake for valley politics?
February 2, 2001... Rod Diridon Jr. and Sally Lieber both want to run for state Assembly District 22, which stretches from Interstate 880 west through Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Mountain View. But will the district be there by the 2002 election? Mr....

Cardiologists scrub contract with medical group over money.
February 2, 2001... San Jose Medical Group is scrambling to find cardiologists for 1,200 patients after one of the county's largest cardiology groups terminated its contract Jan. 31 in a dispute over reimbursement rates. Northern California Cardiology Medical...

Energy Task Force.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 29, President Bush formed an energy task force to determine how to increase domestic energy production, including electricity and natural gas. ANDRES F. HAMM cogers sports management, energy issues and transportation for the...

RDA places downtown vision in high-powered firm's hands.
February 2, 2001... Palladium Co. is best known for turning 72 acres of urban decay in West Palm Beach, Fla., into a $600 million mixed-use development that has made the city a shopping and entertainment destination. And the San Jose Redevelopment Agency is...

State allocates training program to help its laid-off workers.
February 2, 2001... Does Silicon Valley need state help for its workers? Yes, says Gov. Gray Davis, who has announced a $3 million job-training program to provide employment and training services to dislocated workers in Santa Clara County "The overall...

Freshman lawmaker lands key assignments.
February 2, 2001... Former Santa Clara County supervisor Joe Simitian, elected to the state Assembly in November, has been named to several key committees. The Palo Alto Democrat was tapped to serve on the finance, budget, appropriations, transportation and...

State to world's automakers: Send more electric cars.
February 2, 2001... The California Air Resources Board has voted to require that a combination of 3 million electrically-powered or low-polluting vehicles be sold in California during the next 10 years. The ruling gives more weight to lowpolluting cars over...

Weather has swinging history.
February 2, 2001... Scientists from Stanford and Duke universities say massive climactic changes seem to occur regularly, Researching the impact of climate on Lake Titicaca, one of South America's largest lakes, the researchers found regular, alternative...

Turn down the volume, urges outgoing ISO chairman.
February 2, 2001... It's time to stop focusing on the California Independent System Operator and how it's running the state's power grid and focus instead on solving California's energy problems, says the outgoing chairman of the ISO's board of directors. ...

KNTV names news chief.
February 2, 2001... Scott Diener has been named vice president of news at San Jose's KNTV-Channel 11. The slot had been vacant for several months. He comes to San Jose from Cincinnati CBS affiliate WCPO. Mr. Diener also served three years as a political and...

Power plant supported.
February 2, 2001... The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce is urging San Jose City Council to reconsider its rejection of a power plant proposed for Coyote Valley "In light of the current energy crisis, which severely impacts all businesses...

Even with state solution, valley still faces shortages, outages.
February 2, 2001... Even if California solves its long-term power supply problems, energy experts say Silicon Valley could endure rolling blackouts and other disruptions for years because it lacks local sources to generate power and sufficient transmission...

Utilities' bailout likely to include payouts from stockholders.
February 2, 2001... Pacific Gas and Electric Co. still has shareholders for the same reason it's stayed out of bankruptcy court -- as the supplier of vital power to Northern California it's the exception to many business rules. But even if current legislative...

Crisis causing other states to pause before opening markets.
February 2, 2001... California's energy crisis is having a chilling effect on other states considering deregulation of their electricity markets. But, even as they keep one eye on California's dilemma, deregulation advocates in the 32 states considering...

Revised standards require new structures to be more enemy efficient.
February 2, 2001... Residential and commercial builders are preparing to meet beefed-up energy efficiency standards affecting windows, insulation and roofing components that will go into effect June 1. But residential builders aren't happy about the costs the...

Arena naming deal opened door for workers' living-wage pitch.
February 2, 2001... The sale of naming rights to the San Jose Arena last year was aimed at raising revenue and keeping the Sharks in the "tank." And, in fact, the deal led the National Hockey League team to extend its lease on the arena. But the deal also...

Stats show home prices are rising at slower rate.
February 2, 2001... One segment of Bay Area home sales declined in December, the result of sticker shock and economic uncertainty as potential buyers either put purchase plans on hold or bought elsewhere, a real estate information service reports. A total of...

Opus West completes sales in San Jose, Fremont.
February 2, 2001... Opus West Corp. has sold the second phase of Opus Technology Center in Fremont to tech company PerkinElmer Inc. The 88,000-square-foot building, located on Christy Street and adjacent to Interstate 880, will be used by PerkinElmer...

Developer McCandless dies.
February 2, 2001... Silicon Valley real estate developer and World War II veteran Charles Sprague McCandless died Jan. 11 in his home in Los Altos Hills. He was 83. Mr. McCandless was born Dec. 17, 1917, in Goldfield, Nev. In World War II, he was on the USS...

Dot-coms have company.
February 2, 2001... Supporting fields feeling the domino effect The Sunnyvale office of Scient Corp. is no more, crushed by a dot-com domino. The San Francisco-based Internet consulting services firm is one of a number of businesses that are getting hit...

All eyes are on Cisco as firm prepares to reveal Q2 results.
February 2, 2001... The financial world will be fixated -- even more than usual -- on Cisco Systems when the company releases its financial results for its fiscal second quarter Feb. 6. The public has been scrutinizing recent comments from CEO John Chambers...

ArcSoft is no Adobe, but it's comfortable being anonymous.
February 2, 2001... ArcSoft co-founder and President Michael Deng says he doesn't mind obscurity, even in the land where hype is as valuable as technology. In fact, anonymity is the gist of his business plan. His 6-year-old Fremont company makes the...

Firms work to light a fire under lethargic wireless networks.
February 2, 2001... A host of local companies are trying to speed up the sluggish wireless Internet. Today's wireless infrastructure does not allow users of handheld devices and cell phones the full-bodied Internet surfing experience to which they have become...

Proxim adding phones to futuristic home networking system.
February 2, 2001... Before its $223 million stock purchase of Netopia Inc. on Jan. 22, wireless networking company Proxim had already created a futuristic home network linking multiple desktop PCs, laptops and printers. The Sunnyvale-based company now aims to...

German firm aims to zap the competition in a crowded field.
February 2, 2001... When Anke and Michael Zimmermann first offered Dorian Cougias the top spot at their Web software company Zapwerk last year, he was standing naked in their pool, buzzed from "a little too much wine." Well, almost naked. "I still had my...

Utah firm packs its bags after acquiring valley company.
February 2, 2001... A Utah company is relocating to Cupertino after acquiring a valley company to expand its distributed network computing business. NextPage Inc. of Salt Lake City acquired NetLens Inc. of Cupertino for an undisclosed sum. NetLens chief...

Some advertisers' sites thrown for loss during Super Bowl.
February 2, 2001... Spending millions of advertising dollars during the Jan. 28 Super Bowl to attract new visitors to a Web site doesn't guarantee that the site will be ready to handle the huge upsurge in traffic, according to Mercury Interactive, a company that...

Go is gone.
February 2, 2001... The Walt Disney Co. says it's getting out of the Internet portal business, shutting down its Go.com portal and laying off about 400 workers, most of whom worked in the company's offices in Sunnyvale. The company says it will continue to...

More e-books to be offered.
February 2, 2001... Adobe Systems and Barnes & Noble.com have teamed up to give a boost to e-books -- books that can be read through the Internet. San Jose-based Adobe says it will offer its Acrobat eBook Reader 2.0 for free as the book publisher markets what...

Ariba to acquire Agile.
February 2, 2001... Ariba Inc. of Mountain View says it's signed a definitive agreement to acquire Agile Software Corp. in an all-stock merger. Ariba says the combined organization will be the first to offer a unified platform for Internet-based commerce and...

Revenues and losses both rise at Excite.
February 2, 2001... Excite@Home says its fourth-quarter 2000 revenue hit $169.1 million, up 31 percent from the same period a year earlier, and up more than 5 percent from the third quarter. But its losses likewise jumped. Net operating loss for the quarter...

Lesser loss looms, says Egghead.
February 2, 2001... Internet retailer Egghead.com Inc. says its fourth-quarter loss is expected to be less than what Wall Street experts have been predicting. It's now estimating a per-share loss of 23 cents to 25 cents on revenue of $91 million to $93...

TCI to he purchased.
February 2, 2001... SPX Corp. says its Dielectric business has signed a definitive agreement to purchase TCI International Inc. of Fremont, if the deal is approved by TCI shareholders. Terms were not announced. TCI is a developer of broad-bandwidth products,...

Fundings announced.
February 2, 2001... Three area companies say they have secured additional funding, each in excess of $10 million. Saratoga-based iQ.com which sells online direct-marketing products, says it has secured an additional $20 million in funding, lead by eVerger,...

New media expands to old media.
February 2, 2001... Salon.com, an Internet media company, is turning to one of the older forms of mass communication, radio, to expand its reach. It's launching "Salon.com Radio," a weekly radio show premiering March 1, to be distributed by Public Radio...

Got broadband?
February 2, 2001... Some 55 million U.S. workers will have broadband access to the Internet by 2005, but far fewer will enjoy the high-speed connections from their home computers, according to a new study of broadband usage by Jupiter Research. The company...

New tiff between tech giants.
February 2, 2001... Sun Microsystems Inc. has settled its longstanding lawsuit against Microsoft, but the ongoing rivalry between the two companies' visions of an Internet-centered future remains very much alive. A day after the company settled a dispute over...

No end in sight for building boom.
February 2, 2001... Nasdaq has suffered a 2,500-point skid. Electricity prices are forcing Californians to don sweaters -- inside. Retail sales, job and income growth seem to be easing. Yes, an economic slowdown is reminding nearly everyone that life isn't...

Under construction? Avoid making building boo-boos.
February 2, 2001... Building owners repeatedly make several common construction mistakes. These are caused in part by the lack of experience or by not providing adequate due diligence during construction. Following are several common mistakes I have seen as an...

What project schedule challenge did you handle best?
February 2, 2001... Turner Construction completed a project for a private client in Santa Clara in July 2000 that was extremely aggressive. We were contacted at the end of April for this project and began work the first of May. The project was a...

Land -- not helping hands -- is nonprofit's toughest find.
February 2, 2001... Less than a year ago, Manuel Viveros still lived in the two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in Campbell that he'd shared for the last six years with his daughters -- all five of them. But last spring the Viveros family moved into their...

Retail expansion at full steam despite potential slowdown.
February 2, 2001... Signs of retail development are to be found throughout Silicon Valley. Along Stevens Creek Boulevard, Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair is expanding from 1.1 million square feet to 1.4 million square feet. This expansion includes a new...

Largest Electrical Contractors.
February 2, 2001... Largest Electrical Contractors Ranked by number of electricians in Silicon Valley [*] Company Number of Address electricians in Rank Phone, fax ...

Labor recruitment constant as building projects continue.
February 2, 2001... Their numbers have grown dramatically as a result of the construction industry boom. But both contractors and labor unions say there is still a need for skilled laborers. There are now 30,000 union members in the Santa Clara San Benito...

Industry's challenge is in keeping up with all the work.
February 2, 2001... Nick Loukianoff would like construction of his company's 22-story office tower in downtown Oakland to finish ahead of schedule. Fat chance. He knows it won't happen, not during this construction boom where contractors are lucky to meet...

Largest Construction Projects.
February 2, 2001... Largest Construction Projects In Silicon Valley [*] -- ranked by total square feet of site Total Rank Project name square feet Total cost 2000 Rank Address ...

Largest Landscaping Companies.
February 2, 2001... Largest Landscaping Companies Ranked by number of employees in Silicon Valley [*] Company Number of Address employees in Rank Phone, fax ...

High-tech's 'back-door' man.
February 2, 2001... Security expert's firm keeps companies from getting hacked off Think your company's computers are protected from prying eyes and hackers? While they might have sufficient firewalls and other safeguards at the "front door" -- the Internet --...

Farm boy still makes hay while sun shines, but in high-tech.
February 2, 2001... John Stringer has gone from pitching hay on his dad's Texas cattle ranch to pitching potential clients on computing appliances and terminals. And, so far, the president and CEO of Wyse Technology Inc. in San Jose has hooked Frederick's of...

Volvo S60 a safe, sturdy addition, but it lacks sportiness.
February 2, 2001... Volvo continues to expand its product line with the new S60 sedan. Volvo has had a lock on the safety issue for the motoring public. Consequently, most of its new products in the last few years have been aimed at convincing potential...

Hear about great literature, straight from the authors' mouths.
February 2, 2001... San Jose State University and Villa Montalvo are offering bookworms the chance to crawl inside some great literary minds. This month, the Center for Literary Arts, part of SJSU's School of Humanities and Arts, is kicking off the 12th season...

A new Web consultant? Ask again later.
February 2, 2001... That round retro clairvoyant, the Magic 8 Ball, has gone high-tech. Visit 8ball.federated.com to view a live Webcast of a Magic 8 Ball that will provide cyber-answers to all those probing questions. This Webcast Magic 8 Ball is held by...

A stitch in time...
February 2, 2001... The Oakland Convention Center soon will provide a close knit community: The Stitches West Knitting Expo. Now in its fourth year, the expo will be held Feb. 23 and 24 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Feb.25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A knitting...

'We decided not to pass judgments on the clients we would serve'.
February 2, 2001... We built our company to last. That's why, when we went public in May 1999, we came to market in the black, during the time of red ink and dot-com mania. We provide an enabling technology in the area of Voice Over Packet, offering the whole...

Expensive valley has Red Cross seeing red at fiscal year-end.
February 2, 2001... The American Red Cross' legacy has been as a knight in shining armor to victims of fires and natural disasters worldwide, including help for those devastated by the Jan. 26 earthquake in India. But as the Silicon Valley chapter of the...

People.
February 2, 2001... Engineering Sandis Humber Jones of Mountain View has named Joe Leach senior project manager. Mr. Leach has more than nine years of civil engineering experience in both the public and private sectors, and most recently worked in the design...

Ask the exec: What would you put at the top of President Bush's agenda?
February 2, 2001... Dave Laukat Founder and CEO EcFood Santa Clara President George W Bush has a lot of work ahead of him, particularly as he faces negotiating with a heavily partisan Senate. His top priority should be the economy In the short...

Singing the blues over subsidies.
February 2, 2001... We don't mean to sing the blues, but we hear the strains of a familiar song, and the tune is a bit discordant. San Jose's City Council this week approved a $4.2 million subsidy to the famous House of Blues to entice it to occupy the...

Honey sweetens stars' contracts.
February 2, 2001... Rock stars are modern pharaohs, worshipped and catered to as their images are preserved in gold and platinum. The wonderfully snarky Web site www.thesmokinggun.com, which usually features celebrity mug shots and lawsuit papers, recently posted...

Letters to the Editor.
February 2, 2001... Low price can mean poor service Editor: I felt compelled to write to you after reading the comments regarding a general lack of customer service (Baudy Language, Jan. 12 Business Journal). When I took the reins of our family...

Nuclear submarines can light up state during crisis.
February 2, 2001... California is experiencing an energy crisis, due in part to the lack of development of additional generating capacity over the past 10 years as the sector undergoes deregulation. Efforts to build additional capacity are under way or will...

Power up solar.
February 2, 2001... Think rolling blackouts are disrupting your business? Just wait until a July afternoon when inland temperatures are looking down at 100 and the air conditioning cuts out. The state's looming predicament is as simple as the math: California...

Education figures more shocking than energy woes.
February 2, 2001... The current energy crisis is critical for all of us in Silicon Valley and California. It has galvanized policymakers, industry leaders and the general public in a desperate search for answers. It will cost residents and businesses a great...

California Public Utilities Commission.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 29, the California Public Utilities Commission released its audit of Southern California Edison, the state's second-largest utility Among the findings is that SoCalEd spent $4.8 billion on shareholder dividends even while it was piling...

Department of Water Resource.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 29, the state Department of Water Resources exhausted its $400 million budget to buy electricity for the state's utilities. Gov. Gray Davis used his emergency authority to continue buying electricity until the Legislature allocates more...

PG&E.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 30, PG&E revealed it would default on $1.3 billion in payments to electrical suppliers. Another bill estimated at $1.2 billion is scheduled to come due the next week. ANDRES F. HAMM cogers sports management, energy issues and...

They Investigating Charges.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 30, officials in Oregon and Washington state announced they are investigating charges that power generators there were manipulating wholesale electricity prices. A similar California investigation has turned up no evidence of collusion....

CPUC.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 31, the CPUC released its audit of PG&E, which states the company transferred $4.7 billion in profits to its parent company PG&E Corp. ANDRES F. HAMM cogers sports management, energy issues and transportation for the Business...

California Power Exchange.
February 2, 2001... On Jan. 31, the California Power Exchange made its last electricity trade and got out of the energy business. ANDRES F. HAMM cogers sports management, energy issues and transportation for the Business Journal.

The power brokers: Davis takes high road on state's energy woes.
February 9, 2001... California, once seen as the villain in the energy crisis that is engulfing the West, is beginning to emerge in a new role: that of victim and problem solver. The state's new status began to develop Feb. 1 and 2 when governors from the...

The power brokers: Some observers skeptical of mayor's power plant idea.
February 9, 2001... The small power plants that San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales has suggested building in the city's industrial areas would probably take longer to construct, generate twice as much pollution and use much more natural gas than building one large power...

Simitian gets check just in time.
February 9, 2001... A Silicon Valley state assemblyman who supports campaign finance reform has accepted the largest single campaign donation for an assemblyman in memory. Joe Simitian, newly elected to the District 21 seat, accepted a check for $100,000 from...

Wanted: a little more charm.
February 9, 2001... Has Joe Guerra been nice to you lately? Mr. Guerra, budget and policy director for the city of San Jose, has a reputation as a no-nonsense kind of guy. The problem is that he's apparently been rubbing some people the wrong way. Many of them...

Practicing what he preaches.
February 9, 2001... The lights aren't on but somebody's home: Gov. Gray Davis went to Portland on Feb. 1 and 2 in part to convince his counterparts in the West that Californians are doing their best to conserve energy. He admitted that Gov. Gary Locke of...

Tech AWOL from IPO mix.
February 9, 2001... The economic slowdown has yet to put a stop to Silicon Valley's VC investments or its entrepreneurial spirit, but local tech companies filing IPOs have come to a near standstill. New issue markets have seen some signs of life in the last...

OB/GYNs drop all managed care clients.
February 9, 2001... Twenty-nine valley obstetricians and gynecologists have severed their individual ties with their largest customer to contract as one entity with major health plans such as Blue Shield of California. The doctors, who are clustered in the...

California Gov. Gray Davis.
February 9, 2001... On Feb. 1 and 2, governors from 10 Western states, including California Gov. Gray Davis, gathered in Portland to confront the growing energy crisis. Gov. Davis claims the state is well on its way to "righting the ship." ANDREW F. HAMM...