"I thought Newisys was staffed with ex-Dell and ex-IBM execs?"
It is. But IBM isn't footing the bill - AMD is.
"Newisys raised nearly $28 million in investment last year.
One early investor was AMD. "
August 12, 2002 12:56
Austin American-Statesman, Texas, Plugged In Column Jump to first matched term Austin American-Statesman, Texas
Aug. 12--ESOTERIX GAINS $5 MILLION FROM ITS SOLE INVESTOR: Austin-based laboratory services company Esoterix Inc. has landed another $5 million from its only investor, New York-based Behrman Capital. JP Morgan Chase & Co. has also expanded the company's line of credit from $8 million to $14 million.
Esoterix, which does specialty lab work in areas such as infectious disease and services for clinical trials, has about 600 employees worldwide, including 150 in Austin. The company has raised more than $55 million since its founding in 1995.
The company is opening new facilities in New Jersey and the Netherlands later this year. Esoterix said it had 2001 sales of $68.7 million and is profitable, but didn't provide specific numbers.
NEWISYS COULD HELP PUSH AMD INTO THE BUSINESS: Newisys Inc., a 2-year-old Austin startup, might be the ice breaker that launches Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s latest processor family into the enterprise server business.
On Tuesday, Newisys is expected to show off its first prototype server, a skinny rack-mounted Web server that has two AMD Opteron processors under the hood.
Newisys will demonstrate the server at a Linux trade show in San Francisco.
Chief executive Phil Hester, a longtime IBM engineering manager, says Newisys is developing a family of advanced Opteron-based servers. But Newisys won't be making any of those new boxes. Instead, it plans to sell the blueprints to established systems makers such as IBM Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and Fujitsu Ltd.
Those companies could use Newisys to create Hammer-based products in a few months, saving themselves time and money.
AMD's chips have never made much of a dent in the market for mission-critical corporate servers, but analysts say Hester's team has the necessary credentials in the server business to pull off the strategy.
Newisys raised nearly $28 million in investment last year.
One early investor was AMD.
CIRRUS LAUNCHES ITS FIRST OVERSEAS-BASED DIVISION: Go East, young man.
Austin-based Cirrus Logic Inc. created its first overseas-based engineering division last week in Shenzhen, China, which Cirrus reckons is a budding center for the manufacturing of cutting-edge consumer entertainment devices.
The new engineering design center will include 10 sales representatives and 55 applications engineers, who will do the software and hardware design required to incorporate Cirrus chips into new consumer products.
Craig Ensley, the company's engineering vice president, predicts that China, Taiwan and South Korea, among other Asian countries, will become the dominant makers of consumer electronics products during the next several years. China already accounts for about 10 percent of Cirrus' chip sales, he said.
SILICON LABS CO-FOUNDERS INTEND TO SELL SHARES: The three Silicon Laboratories Inc. co-founders last week signaled their intention to sell $13.6 million worth of stock in the company, a communications chip maker.
In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, CEO Nav Sooch said he intended to sell $6.3 million worth of stock, and vice presidents Dave Welland and Jeff Scott filed to sell $4.5 million and $2.8 million in stock, respectively.
Unlike a lot of tech executives selling shares in ailing companies, however, Silicon Labs is profitable and growing rapidly. Shares closed at $23.06 on Friday.
They're up 15 percent during the past year.
-----
To see more of the Austin American-Statesman, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.austin360.com
(c) 2002, Austin American-Statesman, Texas. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. JPM, AMD, IBM, HIT, FJTSY, FJTSF, CRUS, SLAB,
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