Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal articles from June 2001

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal archives from June 2001

Clash of the titans.
June 1, 2001... Bush, Davis differences a reflection of their cultures Think of the proposed solutions to the California energy crisis as the double helix of America's DNA. Two strains of thought embedded in the nation's consciousness, twirling into...

Clash of the titans.
June 1, 2001... Tech battle heating up between Texas and California Californians angry at Texas energy companies sometimes characterize the Lone Star State as a sea of rednecks and oil companies -- a view that overlooks the state's emergence as a...

Drama unfolds at 'summit'.
June 1, 2001... President George W. Bush and Gov. Gray Davis were not the only politicians on stage at the Century Plaza Hotel on May 29. President Bush addressed the Los Angeles World Affairs Council before meeting privately with Mr. Davis. Sitting to the...

'Mezzanine' funding harder to come by.
June 1, 2001... Anand Jagannathan has raised 10 venture capital rounds in almost 20 years as an entrepreneur with three different startups. He knows tech is a boom-and-bust business -- but he's never seen times like these. Raising a third round for his...

Service union sets sights on three hospitals.
June 1, 2001... With the United Steelworkers of America out of the picture, the Service Employees International Union plans to move forward with its organizing efforts at three San Jose hospitals. But the situation has been complicated by another union...

Scientists developing drug treatments to penetrate cells.
June 1, 2001... If CellGate's new technology works in clinical trials, it could enhance various drugs and do a better job at fighting disease. Getting a cell to absorb drugs through the highly fortified cell membrane has always been a challenge for medical...

Residents vow to fight Metcalf.
June 1, 2001... Residents of Santa Teresa say they will sue to stop the construction of the Metcalf Energy Center, a 600-megawatt power plant that Calpine Corp. of San Jose and the Bechtel Group of San Francisco have proposed for Coyote Valley. "There...

Bankruptcies fall in state amid rise in U.S.
June 1, 2001... Not all economic news in California is doom and gloom. Nationwide, bankruptcies reached an all-time first quarter high of 366,841, a total surpassed only once - in the second quarter of 1998, when Americans filed 373,460 bankruptcies,...

Lucky few won't have blackouts -- for now.
June 1, 2001... The most coveted business addresses this summer won't have anything to do with commute times, rents or reputation. They'll be in an electricity grid designation known as Block 50. Being in Block 50, within the same circuit as a hospital,...

State, PG&E officials accuse Texas energy company of forcing rise in natural gas prices.
June 1, 2001... A deal between a Texas energy company's two subsidiaries concerning California pipeline capacity rights may have driven natural gas prices up 35 percent in Northern California last winter, say officials with the state and Pacific Gas & Electric...

Correction.
June 1, 2001... AT&T The photo caption accompanying the May 11 Business Journal story "City, AT&T at an impasse" incorrectly identified ownership of Mountain View's public-access TV program. The program is run by an independent nonprofit.

Despite dip in sales and median prices, market is 'robust'.
June 1, 2001... It's taking longer to sell a luxury home in the Bay Area and it's likely to go for a bit less than a year ago, according to figures released May 30. Sales of Bay Area million-dollar-plus homes have declined 23 percent this year to date...

California home sales, prices increased in April.
June 1, 2001... Sales of existing homes in California in April increased 0.5 percent and the median home price rose 10.7 percent compared with the same period a year ago, the California Association of Realtors says. "What we're seeing at the national level...

Bipartisan panel to pass on California judicial nominations.
June 1, 2001... California's two senators and the White House have agreed to submit the names of the men and women nominated to be judges on the federal courts serving the state to a special bipartisan panel. The new Judicial Advisory Committee will be...

Toothbrush inventor dies.
June 1, 2001... The San Jose dentist who invented one of the world's most popular toothbrushes, the Oral-B, died May 20. Robert Hutson was San Jose's first periodontal dentist -- a specialist in diseases of the gums -- who came up with the...

Milk makers may make electricity, too.
June 1, 2001... The combination of the California energy crisis and a state grant program has spurred interest among dairy farmers to generate electricity from cow manure, the California Farm Bureau says. Western United Dairymen says a significant number...

Airline leases stalled.
June 1, 2001... Renewal of leases for Air Canada and Mexicana Airlines at San Jose International Airport are being delayed by San Jose City Council until the airlines sign a pledge that they will not violate the city's airport curfew. The council decided to...

Indictment in online gaming case.
June 1, 2001... A Utah man has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Jose on 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of extortion in connection-with what prosecutors say was an online gaming scam. Robert W. Robb, 23, of Orem, Utah, is accused of...

Options still part of compensation packages.
June 1, 2001... Stock options have lost their appeal, yet few companies are changing compensation packages, according to a survey of 50 chief executive officers, members of corporate boards and venture capitalists. Executive recruiting firm Christian and...

Quake shakes money tree.
June 1, 2001... Quake Technologies, which operates research and development facilities in San Jose, says it's received $30 million in financing. This second round of investment will enable Quake to expand its R&D efforts, accelerate product delivery and...

Information frenzy.
June 1, 2001... Americans crave information, according to a survey commissioned by Infogate, a Web-based news, information and alerting delivery service in San Diego. Weather information has fanatical followers who want updates even while sleeping (36...

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
June 1, 2001... May 29 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. * Pacific Gas & Electric Co. asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to allow it to pay out $17.5 million in bonuses to the managers who crafted its bankruptcy. (The utility distributed $50 million in bonuses...

Jurors say key testimonies needed in NFL vs. Raiders case.
June 1, 2001... Some of the jurors who sided with the National Football League in the Oakland Raiders' $1.2 billion case against the league say the absence of testimony from former Hollywood Park racetrack officials was key to their decision. Former top...

Stanford has second thoughts on axing HMOs.
June 1, 2001... After announcing that it would cancel all HMO contracts as of the end of the year, Stanford University Hospital and Clinics has reversed course and said in a letter to large employers that it will attempt to renegotiate deals with six big...

Sharper Image seeking sequel to successful scooter ride.
June 1, 2001... Richard Thalheimer, CEO, founder, marketing guru and most recently infomercial star for gadget retailer Sharper Image, understands what any veteran showman knows: You're only as good as your last smash hit. Coming up with a sequel to last...

San Jose girls' high school getting long-awaited building.
June 1, 2001... Notre Dame High School adds a much-needed $14 million building to its downtown San Jose campus. The four-year college preparatory school for girls has been part of the valley's social and academic milieu since the Sisters of Notre Dame de...

Closing in on hotel project.
June 1, 2001... A final contract for the long-awaited renovation of the old Montgomery Hotel, 211 S. First St, goes to the city's Redevelopment Agency board on June 5. San Jose-based Divco West Properties and Pacific Caribbean Hotel Group, which operates...

Wireless standards wars.
June 1, 2001... Battle could slow goal of seamless connections The wireless industry is working to make obsolete the mess of cords that clutter most modern workspaces, replacing them with a host of devices that connect seamlessly through radio waves at...

Yahoo gives file sharing a corporate face-lift.
June 1, 2001... Yahoo plans to turn the concept of file sharing, notorious for being an underground pastime for software pirates and music bandits, into a mainstream form of corporate collaboration. Searching for new streams of revenue, the Internet giant...

Auction firms rake it in as dot-coms put assets up for bid.
June 1, 2001... An auction of failed dot-coms' assets is a place to watch Silicon Valley reinventing itself. Companies that overspent on computers, servers, cubicle walls and-- yes, foosball tables -- are unloading at auction all the stuff that, it turns...

Berkeley Lab boots up new supercomputer facility.
June 1, 2001... In its first venture off campus, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has opened its new, state-of-the-art supercomputer facility in a renovated bank building in downtown Oakland. The facility dubbed the National Energy Research...

Three Texas cities poised to attract more biotech activity.
June 1, 2001... Dr. David Edwards wanted to maintain close ties to his alma mater, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. But, more important, the center's molecular research was an asset to Hybrigen Inc., the drug-targeting company...

BBO joins broadband companies falling by the wayside.
June 1, 2001... It seems the playbook for broadband companies continues to get stuck on Chapter 11--regardless of how good the backing for them might be. A case in point is BroadBand Office Inc., a San Mateo broadband service provider, which has filed for...

Pacific Bell to file long-distance application with the state.
June 1, 2001... Pacific Bell says it will give California regulators a preview of the application it plans to submit to the Federal Communications Commission later this year in its effort to gain approval to enter the state's $15 billion long-distance market....

His 'law' lives on, but chip pioneer Gordon Moore bows out.
June 1, 2001... The man who came up with "Moore's Law," which postulates the doubling of microchip memory every two years, has stepped down from the company he helped start and build into the world's largest chipmaker. Gordon Moore officially retired from...

Redback adds Merlin.
June 1, 2001... Merlin Systems Inc., a privately held Fremont firm that designs optical networking equipment, has agreed to be acquired by San Jose-based Redback Networks Inc. in an all-stock transaction worth about $57 million. Redback says the value of...

More servers to Latin America.
June 1, 2001... Latin America server shipments totaled 42,965 units in the first quarter of 2001, an increase of 11.5 percent over the first quarter of 2000, according to Dataquest Inc., a San Jose-based unit of Gartner Inc. Brazil continued to lead all...

Hacker heads to prison.
June 1, 2001... A former Berkeley and San Jose resident who went by the nom d'Internet "Max Vision" will be seeing the inside of a cell in federal prison for the next 18 months. Max Ray Butler got the prison term, plus three years of supervised release...

Microchips licensing deal.
June 1, 2001... Two makers of microchips -- Transmeta Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices -- say they've reached an agreement over licensing of technologies in certain cases. Transmeta will incorporate AMD's HyperTransport technology to boost the speed of...

Covad posts $1.4 billion loss.
June 1, 2001... Auditors for broadband Internet provider Covad Communications Group Inc. are cautioning that the Santa Clara-based company may be in danger. Covad's 2000 financial report posted May 25 shows a loss of $1.4 billion. The company attributes...

$227 million bid for Siliconix.
June 1, 2001... Vishay Intertechnology Inc. has initiated an offer to exchange 1.5 shares of its stock for each share of Siliconix Inc. it does not already own, a value of about $227 million based on the May 24 closing price of Vishay stock. The company...

Lockhart quits Oracle.
June 1, 2001... Five months after arriving at Oracle Corp.'s Redwood Shores headquarters, former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart has quit as the software company's chief spokesman, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Lockhart had been...

Uncovering clue to brain mystery.
June 1, 2001... Stanford University researchers say they have found an answer to a longstanding mystery surrounding Huntington's, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Their discovery focuses on one of the telltale signs of...

DNA scientist honored.
June 1, 2001... Roger Kornberg has won the 2001 Welch Award in Chemistry, one of the nation's most prestigious awards for research, says Stanford University, where he is a structural biology professor. The honor carries a reward of $300,000. Mr....

Online travel sites soar.
June 1, 2001... Sitting in your cube at work, daydreaming about traveling to some exotic location? If you were to log on to one of those Internet travel sites, you'd be joining a tidal wave of those seeking crystal-clear water, sunny beaches, rugged...

Solectron buys Singapore firm.
June 1, 2001... Solectron Corp., which sells electronics manufacturing and supply-chain management services, says it is buying Singapore Shinei Sangyo Pte Ltd., a privately held manufacturer and designer of enclosures for electronics products. Following...

Polycom to acquire PictureTel.
June 1, 2001... Broadband communications company Polycom of Milpitas says it is acquiring PictureTel Corp. in a deal valued at roughly $362 million. The announcement "represents a major step forward for the video communications industry," says Polycom...

Offline brands gain e-prominence.
June 1, 2001... Traditional retailers using the Internet to generate sales are making stronger inroads against Web-only retailers, according to the NextCard eCommerce Index, described by the San Francisco firm as "the only resource that reflects actual...

Hunt goes to the movies.
June 1, 2001... Twentieth Century Fox is launching what it calls the first motion-picture promotion involving the worldwide high-tech scavenger hunt known as Geocaching, which has become the latest and hottest online gaining phenomenon. The studio is...

Simitian to lead privacy group.
June 1, 2001... State Assemblyman Joe Simitian of San Jose has been named chairman of the Assembly Select Committee on Privacy, which is studying the issue of Internet privacy. The committee plans to expand its scope to explore various other aspects of...

Point and click -- underwater.
June 1, 2001... This mouse is all wet. Opening the door to the next stage of "bring it with you" technology, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography near San Diego are taking computer technology to new "depths" with their new underwater...

CardScan a practical gadget.
June 1, 2001... From an industry that spews out heaps of gadgets with plenty of gee-whiz appeal but less obvious utility, it's nice to find something as practical as Corex Technology Corp.'s CardScan Executive. The CardScan 600 series, set for release...

LSI Logic to acquire AMI's RAID unit.
June 1, 2001... Milpitas-based LSI Logic Corp. is acquiring the assets of the RAID (redundant array of independent disks) business of American Megatrends Inc. As a result of the transaction, LSI Logic will gain the expertise of AMI's more than 200 RAID...

Salira hopes to loosen logjam over that last telecom mile.
June 1, 2001... One of the biggest bottlenecks in the public telecom network -- the "last mile" -- may soon be a little less congested. San Jose-based Salira Optical Network Systems Inc., launched last week, makes optical networkingproducts that transport...

Common ground.
June 1, 2001... Serving on multiple boards gives execs perks, perspective After 17 years, Carol Mills Baldwin made a move. In 1998, she resigned as general manager of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s enterprise systems division and signed on as president and CEO of...

What types of companies have the best IPO chances?
June 1, 2001... Q&A The companies coming out are both selective and across the board by industry type. The characteristics of the probably successful IPO company are: They are three to six months away from being a quality company; they should be...

Companies using disclosure rules to push media out of the loop.
June 1, 2001... A federal rule designed to increase the flow of information about public companies may be restricting it in some cases. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation ED, for "full disclosure," enacted Oct. 23, 2000, already is...

Largest 100 Public Companies.
June 1, 2001... Largest 100 Public Companies Based in Silicon Valley [*] - ranked by most recently completed fiscal-year revenue Company Address Rank Phone, Fax Revenue/ 2000 Rank Web address ...

Few tech companies among those going public these days.
June 1, 2001... It's a slow year for IPOs. As of mid-May 2001, only 33 companies have gone public. Of those, only five were based in Silicon Valley (see chart at left); and of those five, all but one --Align Technology a manufacturer of orthodontic...

Bowling-pin reseller an early idea of Hewlett and Packard.
June 1, 2001... Hewlett-Packard Co.'s humble beginnings took shape in a garage on Addison Avenue in Palo Alto. Fresh from a stint in the East, David Packard returned to Palo Alto in 1939 and reunited with an old classmate, Bill Hewlett. The pair would...

Battling cyberterrorism.
June 1, 2001... Several big tech firms have joined forces to fight cybercrime. IBM, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Oracle are among 19 high-tech firms that have hooked up with the government in January to catch hackers before damage is done to Internet...

Powering drug research.
June 1, 2001... Intel Corp.'s Philanthropic Peer-to-Peer Program is spearheading a project designed to fight cancer by harnessing spare processing power from personal computers. The project works by having individuals share processing power, says MSNBC....

No glass ceiling here.
June 1, 2001... Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Carleton "Carly" Fiorina is the only woman to hold the title of chief executive officer among 500 executives polled by Forbes.com. Out of the 500 executives surveyed, only 24, or less than 5 percent, are women. The...

The richest of them all.
June 1, 2001... The richest of them all Forbes annually ranks the 400 richest people in America, whose worth in 2000 totaled $1.2 trillion. Here are the top five from the list: Name Worth Source of wealth 1. Bill Gates ...

Employers can be liable for not checking worker's background.
June 1, 2001... The fundamental relationship between employee and employer has gone through tremendous changes in recent years. lawsuits on sexual harassment, wrongful termination and negligent hiring are frequently in the news. One solution to limit...

Diverse board can bring fresher vision.
June 1, 2001... Women may start more small businesses than their male counterparts and constitute the largest buying sector in the world, but local experts and executives say they're virtually absent from the boardroom decision-making process in small...

50 Fastest-Growing Public Companies.
June 1, 2001... 50 Fastest-Growing Public Companies In Silicon Valley [*] -- ranked by three-year revenue growth Company Address Rank Phone, fax Three-year 2000 Rank Web address ...

Largest Travel Agencies.
June 1, 2001... Largest Travel Agencies Ranked by 2000 sales in Silicon Valley [*] Company Address Sales in Rank Phone, Fax Silicon Valley [*]/ 2000 Rank Web address ...

Ex-spy's mission: Give Cylink new life.
June 1, 2001... Former NSA official trying to right struggling security software maker The spy has come in from the cold and taken the hot seat, trying to resuscitate a pioneering Internet security firm. William Crowell, one of the nation's top...

Pair of downtown San Jose parks offer summer concert fun.
June 1, 2001... For the last 13 years, the start of summer has trumpeted the arrival of music in downtown San Jose. Since 1988, the San Jose Downtown Association has presented a free concert series in Plaza de Cesar Chavez, drawing thousands of people for...

'Companies must be exceptionally efficient and offer added value'.
June 1, 2001... Although e-business has taken some lumps recently, it still offers viable opportunities for those who adapt to the changing market. In terms of business-to-consumer, most of the pure-play companies are doing poorly For the traditional...

Ellison among buyers of obscure carmaker's Mangusta.
June 1, 2001... The Qvale Mangusta is probably the most intriguing car you've never seen or even heard of. It's tons of fun and is manufactured in Italy by a company based in San Francisco -- the same city famous for dot-com burnouts, tourists and singles...

Online source of disabled needs makes offline hunting easier.
June 1, 2001... If you needed to buy a wheelchair within 24 hours, where would you find one? How would you compare models and prices or search for replacements when essential parts wear down? Enter ResourceHunt.com, a Web site offering dealer and...

Exec with diverse background adds tour guide to resume.
June 1, 2001... Thomas Loker is used to wearing many hats, so being president and chief operating officer for San Jose's SyberSay Communications isn't unusual. But he also plays tour guide to traveling trade show attendees -- shuttling them around in a bus and...

People in the News.
June 1, 2001... Banking Bay View Capital Corp. of San Mateo has promoted Richard Arnold to chief operating officer. Mr. Arnold has more than 30 years of banking experience, and most recently had been vice president and director of retail banking. ...

Ask the Exec: After all the layoffs, how much easier is your commute?
June 1, 2001... Kim Delevett Area Marketing Manager Southwest Airlines San Jose I'm in a car pool and am rarely the driver. But the main driver did comment that he thought there was less traffic lately. I don't pay much attention; I am...

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
June 1, 2001... May 26 Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called for hearings into the possibility of an improper relationship between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the industry the commission is responsible for regulating.

California Independent System Operator [Cal-ISO].
June 1, 2001... May 25 Gov. Gray Davis issued an executive order demanding that Californians get a one-hour warning of impending blackouts. The California Independent System Operator [Cal-ISO], manager of the state's power grid, had proposed a 30-minute...

Managers, workers too busy defaming to define problems.
June 1, 2001... What is truly puzzling in this age of enlightenment is the increasing number of people who are still not able to make any connection between the results of their efforts and their company's future. When their employers get smacked in the...

Professor honored.
June 1, 2001... Kenneth Parker, associate professor of political science at San Jose State University, has received the 2000/2001 Faculty Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Parker has been with the faculty since 1990 and was active in the university's academic...

Outstanding teacher named.
June 1, 2001... The Northern California Section of the Mathematical Association of America has given West Valley College math instructor Wade Ellis the Distinguished College or University Teaching Award for 2001. Mr. Ellis is the first community college...

CPA service recognized.
June 1, 2001... The California Society of CPAs has named John Dodsworth the recipient of its Distinguished Service Award for 2001. Mr. Dodsworth was awarded for his efforts to develop Camico Mutual Insurance Co., the nation's second largest provider of...

Insider trading.
June 1, 2001... Adobe Systems Inc. Bruce R. Chizen, president, exercised an option for 20,000 shares of common at $8.45 each an April 27 and said 20,000 shares at $45.09 each oh April 27 and now directly and indirectly holds 38,567. Bryan Lamkin, vice...

Texas utilities take wait-and-see approach to deregulation test.
June 1, 2001... 'Wait and see' is the prevailing attitude of utilities and customers alike toward energy deregulation in Texas. The pilot program that will "test" the state's retail electrical power deregulation system begins June 1 to work out the bugs...