Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were prepared for the July 9, 2003 issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Wireless Roundup
One industry’s bad news is another industry’s good news.
Take mad cow disease. It’s a disaster for ranchers and meat packing
companies but an opportunity for companies with wireless tracking
technology. Psion Teklogix, a global firm with a sales office in Jamesburg,
employs a system of radio frequency identification devices to track
shipments of individual cows at slaughter houses. If there were to
be a problem, the steaks from the problem cow could be quickly identified.
The wonders of wireless, which some think is worth about $75 billion,
will be the topic for the New Jersey Technology Council on Tuesday,
July 15, at 5 p.m. at the offices of Sprint, 1420 Route 206, in Bedminster.
Kyle Maguire, Sprint PCS regional manager, will moderate a panel
on trends in the wireless industry with Bill Casey, of Flarion
Technologies Inc., which offers an alternate cost-effective technology,
flash-OFDM, to provide both voice and data. Also on the panel Richard
Dominach of Kirusa, a software service company that offers multimodality
(voice and data) services for cell phones that can work on Sprint,
Flarion, and other platforms. Cost: $40. Call 856-787-9700.
Sprint is the only service provider with wireless integrated into
its business, according to Patti Dominach of the Manalapan-based
Lewis Group, the NJTC program organizer. “Kyle Maguire will discuss
how wireless projections will affect the wired industry. There’s a
lot of `dark fiber,’ fiberoptic that was laid — and overbuilt.
They anticipated so much usage and it didn’t happen. Now wireless
is offering services for lower rates and eating into the revenue share
for the wired companies.”
Wireless trends will be of interest to the Princeton area companies
that are developing products in the wireless market. These half dozen
companies are a diverse group, and except for air time providers like
Sprint and Verizon, they don’t compete head to head. In fact they
are often each other’s clients. The U.S. 1 area wireless line-up:
Psion TekLogix (PON), 7 Centre Drive, Suite 6,Jamesburg 08831. John Streppone, regional vice president. 609-409-0666.Home page: www.psionteklogix.comTHE COMPANY that tracks cattle in slaughterhouses, Psion Teklogix,provides mobile workers with anytime, anywhere access to enterpriseIT systems in demanding, rugged environments, says John Streppone,regional vice president.”Rugged” as in the Port of Newark and other facilities withmore than 1 million square feet of warehouse space, including L’Oreal,Cosmair, and Volkswagen at Exit 8A, McCormick spice company inBaltimore, and several college campuses.Rugged as in refrigerated warehouses. In May the headquarters officein Kentucky announced that the U.S. Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA)would buy one of its wireless systems. DeCA is the federal agencythat provides groceries and household goods to military personnelthrough a worldwide chain of nearly 280 commissaries.”We started with warehouse applications, but wireless is becomingmuch bigger than it used to be. Even at the Port Authority it wasalways contained,” says Streppone. Now everybody is using wirelessmobile devices, even on-the-road repair technicians. “We do securityaudits, needs assessments, installation — everything but billingfor the air time.” The company’s systems are installed in morethan 15,000 sites worldwide.Proximities LLC, 501 Forrestal Road, Suite 202,Princeton 08540. John W. Lerch, CEO. 609-951-9595; fax, 646-514-5877.Home page: www.proximities.comANOTHER COMPANY that uses radio frequency identification technologyis Proximities on Forrestal Road.This young company wants to use RFID bracelets to speed up serviceat sports venues and bars (E-Z Pass for All Reasons, U.S. 1, May 14).”Proximities could use Psion Teklogix terminals to read the tags,”says Streppone.Aereon Solutions, 116 Village Boulevard, Suite201, Princeton Forrestal Village, Princeton 08540. Nigel Gardner,CEO. 609-524-4030; fax, 609-524-4031. Home page: www.aereonsolutions.com.AEREON OFFERS mobile application field service productivity solutions,primarily for HVAC companies and also for service and maintenancecompanies of any kind. In 18 months the firm has acquired 20 customersin 12 states, and it has 12 people in this office plus techniciansand engineers on the road.To eliminate telephone calls and double entry paperwork, Aereon’swireless devices offer everything at once to the repair person: directionsto the home, history of the customer, and history of the equipment.The repair person does the work, leaves the bill, and moves on tothe next stop. This solution, the company says, could save 20 to 30percent of costs for firms with about 15 trucks (U.S. 1 January 23,2002).”We provide out of the box service automation solutions for smallto mid-size companies. The solutions don’t require a high degree ofcustomization, and the company can get up and running in just a coupleof weeks,” says Jason Bleistein, director of sales. “Weare unique because we are leveraging Internet service dispatched andmobile communications. In the past, only very large companies havebeen able to do this. Now a five-truck operation can operate likea 100-truck operation, because we charge per user.One solution is an Internet-based service dispatched system, completewith a mobile platform to communicate wirelessly with techniciansin the field, is integrated with such accounting packages as QuickBooks.An average size company would pay $150 per technician per month forthis, and the hardware (hand held devices made by Intermec or SymbolTechnologies) can be purchased for $2,000 or $75 per month on a leaseto buy program.Another solution is to integrate the wireless platform into a completebusiness management system such as Microsoft Business Solutions, notjust an accounting system. That costs $15,000 for the middleware and$500 per device, one-time payments, plus yearly maintenance fees of20 percent.Broadbeam Corp. (former Nettech Systems), 2540Route 130, Suite 116, Cranbury 08512-3510. Janet L. Boudris, CEO.609-655-3737; fax, 609-655-1282. Home page: www.broadbeam.comANOTHER PRINCETON area company in the wireless space is BroadbeamCorp., founded by Boris Fridman. With application software forwireless and mobility applications, Broadbeam is a wide area middlewareprovider, says John Streppone of Psion Teklogix: “We workwith companies like Broadbeam to enable ERP (enterprise resource planning)systems to communicate wirelessly in the warehouses.”Broadbeam supports large enterprise mobile deployments for 300 worldwideclients including BellSouth, Emery Forwarding, FedEx Ground, Hertz,SBC Communications, and Telia. Such mission critical solutions representBroadbeam’s traditional customer base, says Linda Everk, spokesmanfor Broadbeam. The most recent version of this product, ExpressQ WirelessPlatform 4.0, was released on June 30.In January Broadbeam introduced another product line for not-so-mission-criticalsolutions. Mobile Solution Systems allows for alerts to be receivedthroughout the day, data to be cached and synchronized at the endof the day, and Internet browsing.Broadbeam moved in January from 100 College Road to less expensivespace on Route 130. It recently hired Hugh Sheridan, 46, asthe vice president of technology. A graduate of the City College ofNew York, he has a master’s in computer science from the Stevens Institute.Most recently he was chief technologist at Lucent Technologies wherehe led the development of a wireless middleware platform targetedto service providers.PowerTech Services, 7A South Gold Drive, Hamilton08691. Daniel Kulik, owner. 609-890-7200; fax, 609-890-7255. E-mail:powertech@lha-llc.com. Home page: www.lha-llc.comAFTER A ROLLER coaster ride, the owner of this company bought it back.Daniel Kulik founded a company known as KC Electro-Mechanical Inc.It installs and services generators for wireless telecommunications.At its peak the company had nearly 150 employees in New Jersey, NorthCarolina, Florida, and Atlanta, says Bob Graff, contract developmentsupervisor at PowerTech. Now there are 22.What happened in between: KC was sold to NextGen Power Systems, basedin Colorado, for a reported $12 million in cash and assets in a contractover time. “NextGen drove it into the ground, and Dan bought itback,” says Graff. By using a liquidation company, NextGen soldthe assets of its New Jersey office and three other offices.Kulik formed another company, Light House Associates LLC, which paid$700,000 for the New Jersey piece of the business. On March 17 thetransaction closed and Kulik renamed this division of LHA-LLC as PowerTechServices. His employees, all based at South Gold Drive, service generatorsin indoor and outdoor locations in the northeastern United States.Using turbines, natural gas, diesel, and liquid propane, these generatorsprovides emergency power for both wired data centers and wirelesscommunications systems for big financial companies and telcoms.Tellshare, 22 Wall Street, Princeton 08540. JayH. Paszamant, president. 609-924-4224; fax, 609-924-4465. Homepage: www.tellshare.comTHE PRIVATELY held company, formerly known as Digi Technologies, aimsto use wireless technology to build customer relationships, particularlyin the youth market. It has a turnkey solution, txtMaster Mobile Marketer,that includes a customized web application to facilitate registrationand a web interface to design and track text messaging campaigns.Tellshare uses this product so that resorts can offer real-time informationon snow conditions via cell phone or PDA. Skiers who sign up for theservice also get targeted promotional offers.Wellspring International, 830 Bear Tavern Road,Suite 301, Ewing 08628. Wade Smith, CEO. 609-530-1990; fax, 609-530-1991.Home page: www.wellspringwireless.comFORMERLY KNOWN as Water Management Services, this company offers awireless, point-of-use, water submetering system for multifamily housing.The performance contracting device is known as the Aqura system.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
