Trend Spotting
TONY HOLCOMBE predicts huge
changes in cell phone technology. The
change is called convergence, and it
takes on a whole new meaning in his
wireless world.
Holcombe, president and CEO of
Tampa’s Syniverse Technologies (www.syniverse.com), has more than 20 years
experience as a tech executive.
Convergence, he says, is “the ability to use a personal device to do a
variety of functions, and it moves with you wherever you go. It’s not fair to
call it a phone anymore. It’s an electronic wallet to purchase things with,
a ‘presence management’ system so that someone knows where you are
and can communicate with you. You walk in and out of your house and
your phone number moves from the land line to the wireless device to your
computer. That’s the hot trend where all new services are coming from.”
The technology already exists – and is in use – in other parts of the
world, Holcombe says.
“In Japan today you can use your phone to ride the subway and park in
the parking lot or use it at the convenience store. When you purchase an
item, you pull out your phone and wave it in front of the scanner.”
“Presence management” via a phone, Holcombe says, could be useful
in travel and marketing. “The phone will send text messages as you’re
walking around, with directions to museums and restaurants. It uses cell
towers to pinpoint where you are. This is becoming a marketing environment
where if you‘re interested in certain things, information will be pushed
to you. Convergence is putting all the information together so that when
you move from different types of networks – wireless or whatever – the
technology moves across them wherever you are in the world, doesn’t
matter if its Florida, Maine, Russia or Uganda.”
Let Us Entertain You
Tampa’s Switch & Data Facilities (S&D), a provider of Internet exchange TTampa’s Switch & Data Facilities (S&D), a provider of Internet exchange Tand collocation services, launched a new division focusing on content and collocation services, launched a new division focusing on content Tand entertainment services, with clients like Google and YouTube. Tand entertainment services, with clients like Google and YouTube. T“Look at the Google Web site and four years ago it was a simple ban- T“Look at the Google Web site and four years ago it was a simple banner and query search engine,” says Ernie Sampera, S&D’s SVP of mar- ner and query search engine,” says Ernie Sampera, S&D’s SVP of marketing. “Today it’s a rich medium with instant keting. “Today it’s a rich medium with instant messaging, voice, video clips, images, music
files. The goal is to put content near viewers
in America
quickly. These
media companies
need more power and space interconnection.
That’s the value proposition we
bring.”
Other S&D (www.switchanddata.com)
content clients include Virgin Radio, the
Limelight Network and DIRECTV. “We just
closed an opportunity with CBS and Forbes,”
says Sampera. “We’re in 23 markets covering
21 of the top 24 MSAs (metropolitan statistical
areas) in the nation. Where we have
our facilities is where most of the eyeballs
are. Demand is exploding from this segment
of the market.”
Revenues of S&D, which issued its first
IPO in February 2007, were $69.8 million
in 2003, $111.8 million in 2006, and Sampera says revenues will be
at $137 million for 2007. “It’s primarily organic growth; content and
entertainment is a big leap in organic growth.”
Nerve Energy
Investment dollars are pumping up AxoGen (www.axogeninc.com),
an Alachua-based firm commercializing nerve repair technology. In
a round of Series C funding, AxoGen received $12.1 million from
Accuitive Medical Ventures, Cardinal Partners, De Novo Ventures and
Springboard Capital II. “These investors did our initial round of funding
of $7.75 million to complete development of our technology,” says Karen
Zaderej, AxoGen’s COO. “This latest funding will allow us to take our
product into the marketplace.”
AxoGen was formed in 2002. It now has
32 employees and plans to add a sales staff.
Using technology from the University of Florida,
University of Texas and Emory University,
AxoGen has developed the AVANCE nerve
graft for peripheral nerve repair.
When a nerve is injured or severed, it has difficulty
regenerating the axons that transmit nerve
signals between the spinal cord and peripheral
areas. AxoGen’s graft provides the scaffolding
to help axons know in which direction to regenerate.
It also supplies growth promoters to stimulate
axon regeneration. To date, “20 patients have
received the graft with good results so far,”
Zaderej says.
No other product of this sort exists, she adds.
“It has a market potential on a worldwide basis
of $1 billion.” Of note, the graft is beneficial
to men with prostate cancer. “Some patients
with prostate cancer elect not to receive treatment
because of resulting erectile dysfunction and incontinence,” says
Zadarej. “Now with this product, there’s a unique opportunity to help
patients have a better quality of life.”
Tag, You’re It
A St. Petersburg firm is working with Microsoft
to enable users to create content that can automatically
be updated by computers. In.Vision Research
Corp. (www.invisionresearch.com) is advancing
the word processing application by allowing the
embedding of XML (extensive markup language)
in order to provide control over technical information.
It’s done by “tagging” content.
“Think of HTML (hyptertext markup language,
used for Web pages) as the simplest level of
tags,” says CEO John Friske. “XML is a step up
from that.”
XML was originated to update data in technical
documents – many of them 1,000 pages
long – for the U.S. Department of Defense. Now
the business world is discovering its benefits. “A
pharmaceutical firm has information on drugs that
must be submitted to the FDA,” Friske explains. “If
there’s a change to one aspect of the drug, you
don’t want to reproduce the entire document. A
tag just changes that one aspect only, and all the
data associated with it, and updates the document
in real time. When you apply XML to content,
that information will always be 100-percent
searchable and 100-percent usable.”
Fifty-employee In.Vision, which also has an
office in Ireland, is partnering with Astoria, Vasont
Systems and TriSoft to bring content management
to clients in U.S., U.K. and Canadian government
agencies, the pharmaceutical and life sciences
industry, financial services and manufacturing
and distribution.
Chaos’ Intelligent Growth
Helping academic institutions organize IT is
a page out of Intelligent Chaos’ book. That’s
what the Tampa technology firm (www.intelligentchaos.com) did at Northwestern University in
Evanston, IL, by providing SOA (service-oriented
architecture) and system integration solutions.
“We design and build the enterprise architecture
in order to blend the client’s business processes
into their applications without heavy-duty customization,”
says Elaine Myrback, president and
CEO of Intelligent Chaos (IC). “We make them
more efficient in the business process side and
internal operations.”
IC is the sister firm to Myrback’s other company,
EMS Consulting, which installs and customizes
enterprise applications. Clients include
North Carolina State University and All Children’s
Hospital. “We’re a fast-growing company,”
Myrback says. Besides Tampa, her 100-employee
firm has offices in Kansas City, Chicago and
Washington, DC.
Tech Bytes
UTEK Corporation (www.utekcorp.com) in
Tampa received the Professional Services of the
Year award from the Tampa Bay Technology
Forum … Tampa’s Verticent (www.verticent.com)
is providing its enterprise software for real-time
inventory optimization to Reliable Tube Inc. in
Canada … Sonitor Technologies Inc. (www.sonitor.com), based in Norway, established a
Tampa office for support of its ultrasound indoor
positioning system and real time location system
technology for hospitals. |
