Avid Technology firing 200, cutting spending TEWKSBURY – Avid Technology, Inc., manufacturer of digital editing software used by broadcasters and film producers announced it is firing 200 employees and cutting spending to focus on the Internet. The employees to be fired work in the company’s headquarters here and in its U.S. and European sales and marketing staffs. The company also said it would take a $9 million to $10 million restructuring charge in the fourth quarter. The company is restructuring to focus on Internet tools while improving products for customers who use Microsoft’s Windows NT and Apple Computer’s Macintosh operating systems. Microsoft is among Avid’s investors. Avid also announced that Robert Halperin, a director since 1991 had been named chairman, replacing William Miller who resigned last month after third-quarter results were below expectations.
BEA Systems to buy Theory Center
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BOSTON – BEA Systems, Inc., reputedly the largest developer of middleware software, has agreed to buy Theory Center of Boston for $100 million in stock and cash to gain e-commerce software. Theory Center’s 42 person staff will be absorbed by BEA. The acquisition complements its purchase last year of Web Logic, Inc. of San Jose, Calif., BEA said.
Law firm joins Belgium technology center
BOSTON – The law firm Brown Rudnick Freed & Gesmer last week became the first New England law firm to open an office in Belgium, when it began operations in Ieper, Belgium, where high-technology companies are creating a worldwide center of artificial intelligence, speech and language technologies. The office is an extension of the company’s other European office in London, which opened in 1997, and which the firm says positions it to help create a European technology center similar to Route 128 and the Silicon Valley. The office is in futuristic 65-acre business campus called the Flanders Language Valley. Thirty-three high-tech companies opened offices in the park last week, with Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products of Burlington, Mass. and Ieper as its anchor. Brown & Rudnick has been U.S. counsel to L&H since 1991. Besides its two European offices and Boston headquarters, Brown Rudnick Freed & Gesmer have offices in Hartford, Conn. and Providence.
Stoneham company among rising high-tech. firms
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 16, 1999–Percussion Software Inc., of Stoneham, Mass., is one of the 20 fastest-growing technology companies in the nation, according to the Deloitte & Touche Fifth Annual Technology Fast 500 listing.
Ranked number 16, Percussion Software had a five-year growth rate of 15,599 percent, moving from revenues of $50,000 in 1994 to $7,880,000 in 1998. Announced last week by the High Technology Group of Deloitte & Touche, the Fast 500 ranks the 500 fastest-growing technology companies in the United States, based on percentage growth in revenue over a five-year period (1994 to 1998). In New England, Massachusetts placed 53 companies on the list, Connecticut placed 17, and New Hampshire placed five. There were no companies from Rhode Island, Maine or Vermont on the list. Three other Massachusetts-based companies placed within the top 50 of the Fast 500: NetGuru, Inc. of Waltham, Mass. (No. 24), Abacus Software Group of Burlington, Mass. (No. 39), and DynaGen Inc., of Cambridge, Mass. (No. 45). NTP Software, of Manchester, N.H., placed 38th. Three Connecticut companies were among the top 50: Open Solutions, Inc. of Glastonbury, 19th; FitLinxx, Inc. of Stamford, 20th; and ChiRex, Inc. of Stamford, 42nd.
The first four companies on the list are from California, with the number one company, Siebel Systems, Inc. of San Mateo, a software company which grew from $50,000 revenue in 1994 to $391,539,000, growth of 782,988 percent.
The Fast 500 list is compiled from three sources: winners of Deloitte Touche’s 19 regional U.S. Fast 50 programs; nominations submitted directly to the Technology Fast 500, and public company database research. To qualify for the Fast 500, entrants must have had revenues of at least $50,000 in 1994. Entrants are public or private companies headquartered in the United States; and must be a “technology company.”
Teachers propose on-line charter school
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A small group of longtime public-school teachers and administrators is proposing a new charter school that would offer all of its classes online. High schoolers at the proposed Contact Charter School would be able to log on at their convenience to get their assignments. They would ask questions by e-mail and turn in their homework electronically. For class discussion, there would be chat rooms with access restricted to class members. The school would lease computers with modems and Internet access for all of its students to make sure even the poorest Philadelphians would be able to go to the new high school. Although it is designed for Philadelphia students, it would be open to students from outside the city if their districts are willing to pay the $5,100 cost per student.
Y2K fears include guns and money
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — While many in Delaware will reaching for the champagne when the clock strikes midnight Dec. 31, others will be reaching for a gun. A survey by the University of Delaware found that 31 percent of state residents will stash away $2,000 or more in cash and 12 percent are ready to grab their guns. The survey found 93 percent of state residents expect the computer time-tracking flaw known as the year 2000 bug to cause few, if any, personal problems. But worries about disruptions in utility, banking and other systems are common. About 28 percent of state residents surveyed said they planned to withdraw large amounts of cash, with about 10 percent saying they would empty their accounts. More than 35 percent surveyed said they expected looting and rioting in some parts of the United States, but only 7.3 percent expect major problems in Delaware. However, 61 percent said they will check their financial accounts before the new year, and more than 28 percent said they planned to buy extra supplies of prescription drugs.
