Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal articles from July 2001

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal archives from July 2001

Mexico's stability, vigor help valley.
July 6, 2001... Six years ago, Hewlett-Packard Co. executive Federico Lepe was enduring the same anguish as 100 million other Mexicans, as political instability and economic chaos assaulted his country. This was not a new experience. Much the same thing...

Tech's wild ride.
July 6, 2001... You have to give them some credit for not talking the country into a recession, but most analysts and companies that forecast a tech turnaround in the second half of the year are starting to look like wishful thinkers. So far, there has...

Bush camp seeks Hispanic support.
July 6, 2001... Californians in the White House have grown so concerned over the perception that the president doesn't care about California that they've formed their own little circle of Golden State expatriates. In an interview after addressing the...

Voltage drop should be tolerable.
July 6, 2001... Most Silicon Valley companies will be able to weather a planned drop in electricity voltage this summer -- but they should double-check their systems just to be sure. All three of the state's major utilities -- Pacific Gas & Electric Co.,...

Valley VCs navigating billion-dollar backlash?
July 6, 2001... Glancing around the conference room walls at Venrock Associates, it appears the venture firm has early stage investment down pat. Large framed posters offer a timeline of the 32-year-old firm's history including its start investing the...

Villa Montalvo scores a coup with Buena Vista booking.
July 6, 2001... If this year is a test for Villa Montalvo's staying power, so far it's passing. In addition to challenges all nonprofits face in an economic slowdown, last year Montalvo lost its scenic and lucrative Mountain Winery venue to Bill Graham...

High-tech comes to sportscasts -- despite some resistance.
July 6, 2001... What started out as a glowing hockey puck has morphed into a multimillion-dollar business for Sportvision Inc. -- and is gradually changing people's minds about technology's place in televised sports. On July 1, cable network ESPN unveiled...

United California Bank opens; power plant comes online.
July 6, 2001... United California Bank, the new bank formed from the merger of two long-standing California banks, opened its doors for business July 2 with plans for expansion in the Bay Area and other parts of the state. "The name United California Bank...

Large power plant comes on line.
July 6, 2001... The largest power plant to be built in California in a decade went on line July 2 in Yuba City, north of Sacramento. San Jose-based Calpine Corp.'s new Suffer Energy Center is designed to produce 540 megawatts of electricity with the output...

State cracks down on hyacinth.
July 6, 2001... Eradication of water hyacinths in the vast California Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has resumed following a 19-month hiatus caused by legal challenges to the program, the California Department of Boating and Waterways says. Crews are...

Future NBC affiliate expands reach of its cable system.
July 6, 2001... San Jose television station KNTM which is scheduled to take over the NBC affiliation for the San Francisco Bay Area next January, says it has reached agreement with AT&T Cable to put its signal on more cable systems in the region. AT&T...

San Jose man bags record lottery prize.
July 6, 2001... A retired supermarket clerk from San Jose is the winner of the largest single-payout state lottery prize in California history. He says he'll use some of it to pay for the graduate education of his daughters and then he and his wife will do...

Little change in hiring, predict chief financial officers.
July 6, 2001... Chief financial officers expect a net 7 percent increase in the hiring of accounting and finance professionals in the third quarter of 2001, a decline of one point from the prior quarter, according to Robert Half International, a Menlo...

Freeways free, trains uncrowded.
July 6, 2001... Instead of the miles-long freeway snarls in Silicon Valley traffic generally ran at close to the speed limit during the week of the Fourth of July, according to radio traffic reporters for several stations. And commuter trains pulling into...

Would you like files with that?
July 6, 2001... The market may have cooled, but entrepreneurs will sizzle at the Silicon Valley debut of the Golden State Capital Network's "The Entrepreneur's Grill: Where Hot Entrepreneurs Cook or Go Down in Flames" on July 18 at the Hyatt San Jose. The...

For CEOs, school's not out.
July 6, 2001... More than four out of 10 top-level executives are canceling or curtailing vacations this summer, opting instead to stay at the helms of their firms, according to Jeffrey Christian, chairman and CEO of Christian & Timbers, an executive search...

Family tree may hide cancer cause, says researcher.
July 6, 2001... Family history is an important risk factor for most, if not all, cancers, says a Stanford University Medical Center researcher. The finding runs counter to an earlier study that pinpointed environment as the primary culprit. When...

Californians have stepped up electricity conservation efforts.
July 6, 2001... July 2 * The state unveils numbers that show Californians have stepped up electricity conservation efforts, cutting energy usage by 12.3 percent compared with June 2000 numbers. That's up from an 11 percent reduction in May. Ten times in...

The California Independent System Operator.
July 6, 2001... June 29 The California Independent System Operator reported that an unusually high number of power plants were up and running. Only about 2,600 megawatts of power were offline June 29, far less than the 9,000 to 15,000 megawatts normally...

The California Public Utilities Commission.
July 6, 2001... June 28 The California Public Utilities Commission granted California's 15 major oil refineries exemption from rolling blackouts. Oil company executives told the commission gasoline shortages could occur if the refineries were not granted...

Mixed news for ACE riders: delays in fare hikes, service.
July 6, 2001... Train riders commuting to Silicon Valley from the East Bay and beyond are getting a trade-off: a four-month delay in scheduled fare increases in exchange for service delays in October and no service expansion until the spring of 2002. The...

Housing market not as placid as it appears on the surface.
July 6, 2001... Silicon Valley presents a complicated picture these days for KB Home, the largest home builder and developer in Northern California and one of the largest in the United States. Like a deceptively calm bay whose placid surface conceals...

Microsoft may be premature in popping the cork.
July 6, 2001... Microsoft Corp. officials have declared victory after winning a reversal of a court-ordered breakup, but it might be a little too early to break out the champagne. By upholding most of the lower court's findings, the US. Court of Appeals...

Satellite dishes creeping upon cable services.
July 6, 2001... As its dispute with San Jose drags on, AT&T Broadband's cable TV market is being invaded by aggressive satellite TV upstarts. The city is arguing with AT&T over terms for renewing its cable franchise: That dispute has delayed the city's...

$40M cash infusion comes in nick of time for Sunnyvale firm.
July 6, 2001... Troubled iBeam Broadcasting Corp., a Sunnyvale provider of streaming media services, has received a $40 million investment -- and not a moment too soon. The company has a hybrid network of satellites and fiber-optic lines that allows...

CEO departures slow a bit, but latest list includes more experienced execs.
July 6, 2001... Turnover among the ranks of America's top executives slowed slightly in June, according to outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas. But the jobs of the top executives at high-tech companies continued to make up the bulk of the...

Oakland steps up its efforts to lure biotechnology companies.
July 6, 2001... Robert Williamson likes to joke that his role in an East Bay technology company consortium is to remind people about the "tech" in biotech. The chief operations officer of DoubleTwist Inc., an Oakland bioinformatics firm, isn't alone in...

Big firms horn in on Web-based services for small business.
July 6, 2001... A Cupertino company that helps small businesses sell their products and services online is now facing competition from some big Web names that have entered the market. But Bizfinity Inc. is encouraged, rather than threatened, by recent...

Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis selected to design new Computer History Center.
July 6, 2001... The architects have been picked to design what may be the world's first computer museum -- not counting the stack of old computers out in your garage. Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis of San Francisco will design the Computer Museum History...

Investors may get stuck with bill from online flop Quokka.
July 6, 2001... Top-tier investors in Quokka Sports, already nursing big losses from the cob lapse of the sports Webcaster, may also be forced to repay $12 million to the firm's creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco. The 34 investors --...

Omni is almost the last word.
July 6, 2001... Text-recognition software has been around nearly as long as computer scanners, bridging the gap between the printed page and digital documents. Anyone who's scanned in a favorite newspaper article or a passage from a book knows there's not a...

IT hiring decelerates as a result of cautious economic climate.
July 6, 2001... Menlo Park Chief information officers project a net 12 percent increase in companies hiring information technology workers during the third quarter of 2001, a decline of 9 percentage points from the prior quarter's forecast, according to a...

The HP way: voluntary pay cuts.
July 6, 2001... High-tech equipment maker Hewlett-Packard Co. is asking its 45,000 U.S. employees to take voluntary pay cuts. The Palo Alto-based company says employees can sign up to take a 10 percent pay cut for the next four months, or choose a 5...

High-tech internships expanded.
July 6, 2001... A special internship program to introduce students to the high-tech world has gained the support of Homestead Technologies Inc., Applied Materials, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The program targets academically strong students from two...

Adaptec chops work force 15%.
July 6, 2001... Data storage equipment maker Adaptec Inc. is cutting 325 jobs, or 15 percent of its work force, because of the slowing high-tech economy, it says. The company did not reveal the location or types of jobs being eliminated. "These...

Record spending for Web auctions.
July 6, 2001... Internet auction sites grossed record revenues of $556 million in May 2001, as eBay took the lead with 64.3 percent of all auction revenue, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, a Milpitas-based Internet audience measurement service, and Harris...

Nokia, F5 Networks align.
July 6, 2001... Cellular phone maker Nokia and F5 Networks Inc., which sells Internet traffic and content management products, have announced a strategic alliance for their products, channels, technology offerings and development activities. Under terms...

Yahoo acquires Launch.
July 6, 2001... Internet portal Yahoo is pumping up the volume of its Internet music presence by acquiring Net music company Launch Media of Santa Monica for $12 million. Santa Clara-based Yahoo says the acquisition "supports Yahoo's overall strategy to...

New measurements fur Latitude.
July 6, 2001... Faced with an expected sharp decline in revenue, Santa Clara-based Latitude Communications Inc. says it will lay off roughly 17 percent of its work force, or about 40 people. The company says it expects to report revenue of $8 million to...

TollBridge collects more money.
July 6, 2001... TollBridge Technologies, a Santa Clara developer of technologies used to transmit voice over broadband Internet connections, says it has closed a fourth round of venture funding of $22 million, bringing total capital raised by the company to...

Altera trims work force.
July 6, 2001... San Jose-based chipmaker Altera Corp., predicting a 25 percent drop in revenue, is cutting its worldwide work force by 7 percent, or 152 jobs. While the firm continues to see signs of stability in North America, international business has...

Optical equipment chops staff.
July 6, 2001... Alidian Networks, which makes optical networking equipment for metropolitan-area networks, says it's cutting its staff by 25 percent, or 55 people. The cuts are distributed across the administrative, marketing, engineering and operations areas...

QuickLogic mulls lower figures.
July 6, 2001... QuickLogic Corp., which makes embedded standard product semiconductors, says total revenue for its second quarter is expected to fall by 25 percent to 30 percent from the previous quarter. It earlier had predicted a drop of 15 percent to 25...

VA Linux exits hardware, shows the door to 150 workers.
July 6, 2001... Fremont-based VA Linux Systems Inc. says it will focus on application software, rather than hardware, in the future. With the shift in corporate strategy the company will layoff 35 percent of its work force, or roughly 150 people. The...

Good Fortune for two area firms.
July 6, 2001... Two Silicon Valley companies have been named to Fortune magazine's top 25 list of "best companies for minorities." Silicon Graphics Inc. is listed as seventh-best in the country Applied Materials Inc. is No. 14. Two investor-owned...

Insider trading.
July 6, 2001... The following transactions have been reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 3do Co. James A. Cock, vice president, sold 7,030 shares of common at $3.82 each on May 31 and now directly holds 6,069. Bell...

Highest-Paid Executives of Public Companies.
July 6, 2001... Highest-Paid Executives of Public Companies In Silicon Valley [*] -- ranked by total compensation in 2000 Executive Company Rank Title in 2000 Total compensation 2000 Rank Company Web...

Largest Vintners.
July 6, 2001... Largest Vintners In Silicon Valley [*] - ranked by number of cases sold in 2000 Company Number of cases sold Address in 2000/ Rank Phone, fax ...

Continuing education.
July 6, 2001... Dedication to family and cultural roots drives CEO to improve himself Aziz Valliani has achieved success in the business world but is driven by his family's roots to achieve success serving others around the world. "I came here for...

As 'Other' series ends, Music in the Park original to kick off.
July 6, 2001... For the last 13 years, festive crowds, rockin' entertainment and Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park have become synonymous terms. Come each July, thousands of people visit the downtown San Jose park on warm Thursday evenings to enjoy the series of free...

Menlo Park law firm reaches out to community it works in.
July 6, 2001... Offering pro bono litigation services is a law firm's bridge toward strengthening relationships with its community. But what does a law firm do when its specialty isn't litigation? That was a concern for Menlo Park firm Gunderson Dettmer...

'Show them the big idea, one that will improve the world'.
July 6, 2001... Businesses are built on organic relationships. When meeting with a potential customer, partner or backer, have your intended results in mind, but be flexible enough to adapt the agenda to their needs. Flexibility allows you to hear things...

GMC Denali offers lots of luxury with a full-size price tag.
July 6, 2001... The GMC truck unit of General Motors Corp. takes another step forward in the luxury SUV market with the revised Yukon Denali, a full-size truck that is at the top of the charts in terms of luxury appointments. A base price of $45,950 and...

San Jose filmmaker cut his celluloid teeth while in prison.
July 6, 2001... Bob Gliner began his filmmaking career in Soledad prison. As a full professor of sociology at San Jose State University, Mr. Gliner was teaching a class there. The inmates decided they wanted to do a documentary on how they ended up in...

People in the News.
July 6, 2001... Architecture Bottom Duvivier of Redwood City has named Denise Tom-Sera and Heather Ferguson senior designers. Ms. Tom-Sera has 13 years of experience in corporate interior design and most recently had been at AAi, where she served as...

Ask the Exec: What is the one thing a company can do to make Silicon Valley a better place to live and work?
July 6, 2001... Edward [Ed] Keible President and CEO Endwave Corp. Sunnyvale As a relatively small company, we find that allowing our employees flexible work hours is one of the most appreciated ways of making a living and working in Silicon...

A fiesta in historic Santa Barbara.
July 6, 2001... Santa Barbara, that Mediterranean-like jewel 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, has for decades been the refuge of movie types seeking genteel respite from Hollywood's glare. A century ago, lured by tales of Santa Barbara's year-round gentle...

In Bacara, you can't help but become star-struck.
July 6, 2001... Blame Iowa for my fascination with movie stars. Growing up in Dubuque, there wasn't much to do besides watching old movies. When I heard about the new Bacara resort in Santa Barbara, I knew it was a chance to get away to the glamour days of...

Study shows American workers just can't seem to get away.
July 6, 2001... Feeling a little overworked? A national survey released in February shows that one in six Americans is so overworked he can't use his yearly vacation time. Oxford Health Plans of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut polled 600 men and...

What reading material are you taking on your getaway?
July 6, 2001... I usually bring along a light, entertaining novel and a handful of technology and business magazines that I need to read to keep up to date on the industry Right now, my light read is "Getting Over It" by Anna Maxstead -- sort of a "Bridget...

Restaurants of Paris offer a different kind of satisfaction.
July 6, 2001... France is a country of paradoxes. Its cheese smells like stinky shoes... yet tastes divine. Its restaurants are world-renowned... yet pets are allowed inside. Four-course meals with wine are common... yet the French are thin. Voila!...

Rome in 3 days? Start at the historic center and walk around.
July 6, 2001... All roads lead to Rome, goes the old saying, and for tourists planning a vacation this summer it should ring especially true. The Roman Catholic Church's Jubilee 2000 celebration has left the Eternal City so sparkling clean even Romans...

Unusual destinations provide the surreal travel experience.
July 6, 2001... Want to journey to the center of the world? How about wandering through a forest to encounter an unexplained phenomenon? Or visiting a coroner's office to shop for mementos? These trips might seem to lead to the Twilight Zone, but they are...

The road to Shangri-La is over there in Ojai.
July 6, 2001... In 1937, director Frank Capra used a stretch of Southern California countryside as a backdrop for an idyllic valley in the Himalayas called Shangri-La in the film "Lost Horizon." It's easy to see what caught his eye. The first thing I...

Make a grape escape to the wineries at San Luis Obispo.
July 6, 2001... When you think of a wine-tasting weekend, most likely you look north toward Napa and Sonoma. However, you have another choice to experience a scenic sojourn through verdant vineyards and world-class wineries -- and without the heavy flow...

Chip, hardware slowdown: Still no light at end of tunnel.
July 6, 2001... "With a new quarter, hope springs eternal," mused a talking head on CNBC Monday. But just past the half-year mark of a down year for computer hardware and chip manufacturers, there is little hope that the slide has hit bottom -- or that...

Telecom industry recovery unlikely before fourth quarter.
July 6, 2001... With a few exceptions, telecom companies will issue gloomy second-quarter financial reports in the coming weeks that will delay recovery from the current slowdown until at least fourth quarter. The telecommunications and networking sectors...

Some software segments starting to show signs of life.
July 6, 2001... Harry Truman once quipped that he needed a one-armed economist -- that way the official couldn't hedge any conclusions with "On the other hand...." This ambivalence seems to be true of the business software segment, which shows...

Cell phones, cars: a law rings true.
July 6, 2001... It's time to turn up the volume on this message: Cell phones and driving do not mix. New York deserves praise for being the first state to affirm that message. A bill just signed by Gov. George Pataki outlaws use of handheld phones while...

NASA may save earth -- or not.
July 6, 2001... I'm starting to feel like one of those bell ringers in the movies who chants "The end is near!" I once warned about the scientist who invented a robot fueled by meat Now I have real cause for concern. The geniuses at NASA have come up with...

Other Voices.
July 6, 2001... Supervisors rescue city from danger of more housing Only in the topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass world of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors could the answer to the city's chronic housing shortage be... less housing. In a...

Privatizing Social Security would be risky business.
July 6, 2001... Stock options used to be a source of much envy. They were going to be the road to early retirement. For some they were. For many more, they were disappointing. Imagine if everyone's compensation had been exclusively in the form of options? Many...

State dents Shield plan.
July 13, 2001... Halts pulling 10,000 from medical practice The state's new managed-care agency has halted an attempt by Blue Shield of California to pull 10,000 HMO members out of one of the area's largest medical practices. At issue is what will...

Santana bets $1B on future.
July 13, 2001... Stand near the southern extreme of the 1,500-foot dirt road that will become the central boulevard of Santana Row, look north, and a sense of the project's massive scale comes through. Even with the hammers pounding, the enormous cranes...

Valley chip resides in Cheney's chest.
July 13, 2001... Four years ago engineer John Callahan of San Jose-based NanoAmp Solutions Inc. developed a very energy-efficient memory chip. The new semiconductor caught the eye of a medical products manufacturer in Minneapolis named Medtronic Inc., which...

Others may fill Webvan void.
July 13, 2001... Allison Edwards represents the typical customer of now-defunct Webvan.com "I really only used it once," says Ms. Edwards, 30, a San Jose teacher. "I still have some of their crates here." She may want to hold onto those crates and use...

Male-dominated venture capital sees more women making deals.
July 13, 2001... Twice a week, venture capitalist Amy Vernetti wakes up in the wee hours of the morning and prepares herself for an hour or so of cutthroat competition with 20 businessmen. It's not a partner meeting. At 5:30 am, every week for years,...

Caps stabilize energy prices, but some fear artificial highs.
July 13, 2001... Federal price controls on electricity have stabilized state energy expenses but may be keeping costs artificially high. Separate Stage 1 emergencies July 2 and July 3 kicked in federal price controls for the first time since the Federal...

Microsoft allows PC makers to remove Explorer.
July 13, 2001... REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. said July 11 that it will allow computer manufacturers to remove the Microsoft Explorer browser icon from desktops using the Windows XP operating system. The company said the move, which won't affect the XP...

State hopes separate Calpine talks spur general energy pact.
July 13, 2001... Gov. Gray Davis is looking toward Calpine Corp. as possibly breaking a stalemate between the state and energy generators over electricity price refunds. The governor mentioned San Jose-based Calpine as being among companies that will...

Correction.
July 13, 2001... Q&A column In the Q&A column, "What stores would you like to see in downtown San Jose?" in the June 29 Business Journal, two responses were incorrectly attributed. The request for Coffee Tea & Bean, BCBG, Restoration Hardware, etc., came...

Grocery meat cutters union carves out new wage contract.
July 13, 2001... A new contract covering 10,000 meat cutters and clerks working for Albertson's and Safeway supermarkets in Northern California has been reached, according to the union. The new three-year contract features wage increases each year, "an...

State phases in "super-secure" licenses.
July 13, 2001... The California Department of Motor Vehicles has unveiled what it says is a "super-secure" driver's license, designed to thwart counterfeiting. The first of the new antifraud licenses will begin showing up in the mailboxes of Californians...

Law firm merger called off.
July 13, 2001... The proposed merger of a major Bay Area law firm and a larger Chicago firm has been called off. Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe and McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen say they have decided jointly to terminate their discussions involving a...