The Power of Solar
BRADENTON'S SOLAR DIRECT (www.solardirect.com)
is designing a solar water heating (SWH) system
for the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. Dale Gulden,
CEO of Solar Direct, says: "Electricity is a precious
resource in almost all West African countries,
where blackouts are routine."
Solar Direct's initial focus in 1986 was NASA-developed
heat-pipe technology and geothermal heating/cooling
systems. It now sells 350 solar energy products
and pool heating systems. The consumer migration
to the Internet allowed Solar Direct to create
in 1996 its online source for renewable, energy-efficient
products that Gulden says has grown to include
over 30,000 customers with 1,000 visitors per
day. "In a little over a year and a half, we have
grown from $1 million to $3 million in revenue.
In 2004 alone, our revenues grew 160 percent,"
he says. Employees have also grown from four to
17.
Workers' Comp, Soup to Nuts
Tampa's PMSI-Tmesys rolled out a Web portal reporting
service providing instant reporting capabilities.
The service allows for easy downloads in many
formats. PMSI (www.pmsionline.com)
provides comprehensive workers' comp services
such as medications, medical equipment and supplies,
including for catastrophic accidents. Clients,
however, are insurance companies, self-insured
and third-party providers. Deborah Carr, marketing
manager, says clients now have anytime-account
access, instead of a mailed monthly statement.
"We believe this puts us in a more competitive
position," says Carr. "It expedites the information
and helps clients with cost containment."
Founded in Tampa in 1976 by Stan Harrell, PMSI
now employs more than 700 at three local locations.
For more than a decade the company has been owned
by PA-based AmerisourceBergen, a Fortune 25 wholesale
pharmacy distributor.
Carr says that technology is at the forefront
of PMSI's business. "Almost everything we do is
technologically driven. It has to be if we want
to stay in the game."
Voxeo's Kudos
Orlando's Voxeo (www.voxeo.com)
is buzzing. It was included in the 2005 Pulver
100 list, which features private companies in
the communications sector with substantial real-world
deployments and significant growth rates. Voxeo's
products make it easy to create, deploy and maintain
the widest variety of telephony applications,
such as automated prompting, multi-language voice
recognition and text-to-voice synthesis, call
conferencing, call recording, call center integration
and voice/Web application integration.
Voxeo teamed up with Skype (www.skype.com),
an Internet communications company that popularized
free Internet phone calls. The partnership will
connect Skype callers' credit accounts to enhanced
voice services running on Voxeo's platforms. Jonathan
Taylor, CEO of Voxeo, says the combination will
enable new kinds of voice services. "These are
without the limitations and concessions that come
with traditional telecom companies."
 Quick
Scans
Longboat Key's LaserSoft (www.silverfast.com)
rolled out an expanded version of its SilverFast
scanning software. Marketing manager Darren Vena
says the improvements allow more powerful editing
tools for users and meet today's most demanding
scanning and imaging requirements. "This strengthens
our competitive advantage in the marketplace."
As scanning and digital technology burgeoned,
so did LaserSoft, founded in 1986 by German physicist
Karl-Heinz Zahorsky, now president. While headquarters
remain in Kiel, Germany, the company has a growing
presence in North America (since 1997) through
its Longboat Key offices. Vena says the Florida
location supports sales and technology in the
Americas, and Kiel supports the rest of the world.
Its customers are a 'who's who' in the digital
marketplace: Products are bundled with those from
Canon, Epson, HP, Microtek and others. "We are
truly a global product," Vena says. "SilverFast
is regarded as the standard software for scanners
and digital cameras."
Tech FYI
Tampa's Hybrid Fuel Systems (www.hybridfuelsystems.com)
completed Phase I of the Dallas County School
System bus fleet conversion project … Gainesville's
Quick-Med Technologies (www.quickmedtech.com)
has developed a new generation of its technology
that can be permanently bonded to materials to
create advanced wound dressings. It is effective
against strains of bacteria that have become resistant
to common antibiotics … Bradenton's GE Security
(www.gesecurity.com)
introduced its new Itemiser FX, the first direct-transfer,
trace-detection instrument that can identify explosives
and narcotics from a simple finger touch. |
