2 (水城百事)

by Waterloo Tech Digest, Tuesday, February 09, 2010, 12:12 @ Waterloo Tech Digest

[6]---------------------------------------------------------------
Dalsa ends challenging year with small profit
January 28, 2020

An optimistic end to a rough fiscal year for Dalsa, with the company
reporting earnings of $156,000 on sales of $43.4 million in the quarter
ended December 31 (Q4 09). Sales were up 6% from the previous quarter and
down 6% from a year ago and were the highest of all four quarters in the
year.

Operations lost $1.3 million in Q4, with all of that loss coming from a
restructuring charge in Dalsa's Semiconductor business. A $1.2 million
recovery of earlier charges related to Dalsa's discontinued digital cinema
business put it back into the black. The company said it was able to
negotiate settlements on some obligations of the digital cinema business
for less than the contracted amounts.

Operations generated $633,000 in cash and Dalsa spent $3.2 million on
property and equipment, mostly relating to its 200mm MEMS production in
Quebec. It ended the quarter with $8.5 million in cash.

For the year, Dalsa earned $1.7 million on sales of $162.5 million, down
21% from 2008. Operational loss for the year was $633,000, and in addition
to the digital cinema gains in Q4, the company's bottom line was aided by
gains from the sale of land to RIM earlier in the year.

Backlog at year-end was $79.5 million, with more of the total booked for
delivery in the short-term than was the case a year ago.

[7]---------------------------------------------------------------
RDM reports quarterly loss
February 5, 2010

RDM lost $489,000 on sales of $5.7 million in the quarter ended December
31 (Q1 10). Sales were flat from the previous quarter and down 20% from a
year ago.

The company shipped 5,800 scanner units in the quarter, a big drop from a
year ago but enough to make digital imaging products RDM's largest
business segment, contributing 53% of revenue. After growing steadily over
the last few years, transaction volumes on RDM's ITMS system showed a
small sequential decline for the second straight quarter. Sales from RDM's
long-standing quality assurance segment fell to just $251,000 or 4% of
sales.

Operations generated $558,000 in cash, boosting RDM's cash levels to $16.2
million.

Doug Fisher, who has been with RDM since 2001, was made acting sales VP,
following the departure of John Mamalakis, who had held that position for
nearly nine years.

[8]---------------------------------------------------------------
Com Dev sales up 14% in 2009; Ainsworth steps down from board
January 11, 2010

The full results for Com Dev in the quarter ended October 31 (Q4 09) were
in line with the preliminary results announced at the end of November (see
December 7 digest). The company earned $858,000 on sales of $58.3 million.
Sales were down 5% from the previous quarter and 2% from a year ago.

For the year, Com Dev earned $15.3 million on sales of $240.4 million, up
14% from 2008. Of the 29 satellite programs announced in 2009, Com Dev won
work on 20 and could end up with contracts for up to seven more. In 2008,
of the 35 satellite programs, Com Dev worked on 26 and is still in the
running for two others.

It ended the year with $21.4 million in cash.

Com Dev also announced that Keith Ainsworth has stepped down from its
board. Ainsworth joined Com Dev in 1975, became president in 1990, and was
CEO from 1999 to 2002. He also served as chairman from 2005 to 2009.

Claude Séguin, SVP at Montreal's CGI Group (which has an office in
Waterloo) and a former Quebec Deputy Finance Minister, has joined Com
Dev's board.

[9]---------------------------------------------------------------
STOCK REPORT: Dalsa, Biorem shares bounce back to 2008 levels
January 2010

Not much movement in stock prices in the month, but there was something
notable about the few that did move. Investors seem to be optimistic that
the worst for Dalsa is behind the company, as they pushed the company's
shares to their highest level in the last year. Dalsa stock finished
January with its highest month-end price since August 2008.

A similar story with Biorem shares, which have already passed their high
point of 2009 and ended the month with their best month-end price since
September 2008.

For the month of January:

Biorem [TSXV: BRM] +19%
Dalsa [TSX: DSA] +5%
RDM [TSX: RC] +1%
Com Dev [TSX: CDV] +1%
Sandvine [TSX: SVC] +1%
Descartes [TSX: DSG] 0%
===============================
Open Text [TSX: OTC] -1%
--S&P TSX VENTURE INDEX -2%
ATS [TSX: ATA] -3%
MKS [TSX: MKX] -4%
RIM [TSX: RIM] -5%
--S&P TSX COMPOSITE INDEX -6%
Arise [TSX: APV] -15%
TurboSonic [OTCBB: TSTA] -17%

At the bottom of the list, TurboSonic shares gave back all the gains made
in December that had allowed them to snatch the title of best performer of
2009. And Arise shares ended the month at 23 cents -- their lowest
month-end price in four-and-a-half years.

Companies with headquarters outside the area:

Agfa-Gevaert [Brussels: AGFA] +16%
NCR [NYSE: NCR] +8%
===================================
Ansys [Nasdaq: ANSS] -4%
Intel [Nasdaq: INTC] -5%
Oracle [Nasdaq: ORCL] -6%
Sybase [NYSE: SY] -6%
McAfee [NYSE: MFE] -7%
Electronic Arts [Nasdaq: ERTS] -8%
T-Ray Science [TSXV: THZ] -10%
Blue Coat [Nasdaq: BCSI] -14%
Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] -15%
Acorn Energy [Nasdaq: ACFN] -15%
ON Semiconductor [Nasdaq: ONNN] -18%

[10]---------------------------------------------------------------
Startup Notes

* The Husky A100 unmanned vehicle from Clearpath Robotics will be used by
the Institute for Aerospace Studies at the University of Toronto to test
3D mapping algorithms to be used on the lunar surface.

* T-Ray Science is keeping its Waterloo connection and has hired Tom
Walker as SVP of business development. Walker was formerly CEO of
RapidLabs and was previously with Agfa/Mitra. At the same time, T-Ray
announced the departure of CTO Daryoosh Saeedkia, who is part of UW's
Microwave and Terahertz Photonics Integrated System Lab. Technical
development at the company will be led by Abdorreza Heidari and Mohammad
Esmaeili-Rad, who both received their doctoral degrees at UW.

* PostRank announced its Top Blogs of 2009 award winners, listing
thousands of blogs in hundreds of categories, ranked by "social
engagement" -- the level of discussion and commentary across the Web
generated by blog posts.

* Tungle added Lotus Notes integration to its scheduling/calendar sharing
application. It made the announcement at IBM's Lotusphere 2010 in Orlando,
Fla.

[11]---------------------------------------------------------------
Miscellaneous Tidbits

* Kitchener agribusiness software developer dbc SMARTsoftware has been
acquired by Open Link Financial of Long Island, New York. dbc president
Maurice Boughton will continue to manage the business, now called
SMARTsoft, with Andy Joakim remaining CTO. No financial details were
disclosed. Open Link, a software company founded in 1992, had filed in
2008 to raise US$200 million through an IPO but cancelled those plans last
summer. It reported revenue of US$139 million in 2007 and US$90 million in
the first half of 2008.

* Restaurantica, one of the sites that Geosign founder Tim Nye took with
him when he founded eMedia Interactive, has been acquired by Yellow Pages
Group. Restaurantica staff have joined YPG, including Lance Mohring, who
had been with Geosign and eMedia since 2006. He becomes director of
digital products at YPG. According to the release, Restaurantica gets
540,000 visits and over 1.7 million page views each month.

* Desire2Learn announced that it will be moving to The Tannery later this
year. It will be a short move for the company, which is already based in
downtown Kitchener.

* Christie won the NRC-IRAP Canadian Innovation Award for New Technology
at the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters awards in Ottawa. It received
the award for its Matrix StIM simulation projection system.

* Athena Software has been selected by Relationships Australia to provide
web based, integrated case management software for its family counseling
centers.