Recently in NJ Tech: Mformation, Single Touch, Synchronoss and More
- Mformation, the Edison mobile device management company that had seemingly bested Research in Motion (RIM) in a patent dispute, received some bad news on August 9, 2012. A California judge vacated the July jury decision in that case, which would have awarded the company $147 million in damages. Mformation had claimed RIM (Waterloo, Ontario) took details of its technology that Mformation had disclosed during licensing discussions and included the tech in RIM’s products.
- Jersey City-based Single Touch Systems, a mobile media solutions provider that allows retailers, advertisers and brands to connect to customers, said in the fiscal third quarter revenue had increased about 37 percent to $1.59 million. “The increase in revenue … was directly attributable to continuing adoption of [the] Single Touch mobile platform, new programs to support existing client relationships and additional programs,” the company said in a release. In particular, the company struck an agreement to create a white-label SaaS solution around its messaging platform,” James Orsini, CEO, said. The company added that its efforts to defend, protect and monetize its patent portfolio “continue to gain positive momentum.”
- Sychronoss Technologies (Bridgewater) had a very good quarter. Stephen Waldis, founder and CEO, reported the company’s non-generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) revenues were $67.2 million above its guidance, representing a 22 percent growth on a year-over-year basis. Waldis said his company is poised to profit from consumers looking to carriers for cloud-based content management solutions. “Consumers will look for choices … and will need an independent cloud service that is interoperable across OS platforms,” he said. A company statement noted, “We have a new, more comprehensive agreement with Verizon that expands and consolidates their mobile cloud strategy,” adding social, video, photos, messaging and all other forms of content management to the company’s cloud-based management content offering. Waldis added that the company is continuing its expansion overseas, with a major win at Telefonica. NJTechWeeky.com recently spoke with Waldis about the company’s expansion in New Jersey.
- Cognizant, the giant IT consulting company located in Teaneck, once again released excellent Q2 results. Revenue grew to $1.795 billion, a 5 percent sequential increase and a 21 percent increase over the same quarter last year. “We achieved these results in spite of headwinds and significant depreciation in European currencies …,” Francisco D’Souza, CEO and director, said. The company touted its relationship with ING U.S., which has enabled it to hire 1,000 U.S. employees and establish two U.S. operations centers. “We will create a world-class, U.S.-based Center of Excellence,” said D’Souza,that will provide services to financial services clients. D’Souza called this an important piece of Cognizant’s “onshore delivery backbone,” which already has centers in Arizona, Florida and New Jersey.
- Reporting record results for the second and the first half of 2012, Universal Display (Ewing) CEO Steve Abramson announced revenues had doubled over last year. For Q2, the company reported net income of $11.0 million on revenues of $30 million. During Universal’s earnings conference call, Abramson elaborated on the importance of its recent Fujifilm (Japan) 1,200-patent portfolio acquisition. “Fujifilm has had a strong research team working on OLEDs [organic light-emitting diodes] for more than a decade. This acquisition will expand, broaden and deepen our patent portfolio,” Abramson said, noting that 90 percent of the portfolio is less than 10 years old, with about half issued and half pending. Approximately half the portfolio relates to device architecture and how OLED devices can be built to ensure high efficiency and long life, he said.
- Cloud-managed video services provider Glowpoint (Murray Hill) said it had entered into an agreement to purchase privately held Affinity VideoNet (Denver, Colo.), a supplier of public videoconferencing rooms and managed videoconferencing. The purchase price is composed of $7.75 million cash on closing; a $2.75 million, two-year seller’s note; and the issuance of 2,650,000 shares of common stock. Glowpoint said the acquisition will allow the two companies’ combined customer base to have “access to a broader suite of cloud services” via Glowpoint’s OpenVideo cloud.
