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Alvarion CEO resigned

Alvarion Logo

Tzvika Friedman, Alvarion (Nasdaq: ALVR) announced his resignation on the same day the company announced 2009 Q2 results. Coincidence?

To me, it is very surprising that a CEO and a president steps aside without the board announcing who will replace him. Market reacted to both results and resignation with a 16% plunge in the share price to $3.96, bringing Alvarion Market Capitalization to about $250M.

Israeli financial website Calcalist published their analysis and history of the company.  Main highlights:

  1. 9 years after NASDAQ IPO Alvarion fails to become profitable
  2. Failed Interwave acquisition for $56M, later sold, which resulted in a major loss.
  3. Cisco preferred to buy Navini Networks over Alvarion. (My comment: Not sure how successful was the Navini acquisition)
  4. $0 Dividends
  5. -89% Share price
  6. Since IPO, Accumulated loss of $183M

I think Alvarion has the right products for their market, but will they ever become profitable?

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Cisco certified a WiMAX USB device, or did they?

WiMAX Forum’s certification showcase features a Cisco WiMAX USB device, which made me think that Cisco is still investing into their WiMAX business unit.

However, browsing further reveals that the device looks the same as Seowon Intech’s device and GCT device. All devices were certified in Korea by TTA.

I think Cisco could at least invest some time and money in re-designing the entire look and feel of the device with Cisco colors.

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UQ WiMax MVNO – Bic Camera

Bic Camera has recently announced participation in UQ WiMAX MVNO program. However, in a recent visit to Bic Camaera in Shin-Yokohama, I couldn’t find any reference to WiMAX, which made me investigate more into Bic Camer’a WiMAX offering on their website:

Bic Camera WiMAX Banner is at the bottom of the page, under Emobile, OCN and other promotions.

bic-camera-wimax

The plan details are fairly simple as they follow UQ WiMAX price plan, the UQ Flat at 4480 Yen per month. Additional 2835 Yen are required for registration (it still kills me to pay registration fees everywhere I go in Japan):

wimax-plan

Now, this part is getting annoying. Bic Camera offer only one device (?!), the BDSS01, by Shinsei Corp, which I can just guess it is the same device used by UQ (UD01SS) with a different name and package. Device price is 12,800 Yen (!!!).

wimax-device

It doesn’t really feel like Bic Camera are pushing this device, no promotion, no benefits. I don’t see anyone interested in WiMAX getting it from Bic Camera, so why bother with the MVNO program?

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WiMAX is leading, at least in Google Trends

Following the recent LTE press releases, I decided to revisit Google Trends and see how WiMAX is doing.

WiMAX search term is still leading over LTE.  I don’t find it surprising that Pakistan and Malaysia are the leading regions for WiMAX searches as there are real deployments there, while in South Korea LTE is gaining some ground (but still only about half of “WiMAX”).

wimax-lte

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Redline receives a lifeline

redline_logo

Redline Communications, a Canadian manufacturer of Fixed and Mobile WiMAX equipment announced that it received $10 Millions (Canadian) financing loan from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development.

“This government loan will help Redline remain at the forefront of the broadband wireless industry worldwide, and allow it to further grow its design and development capability for ‘Fourth Generation’ (4G) commercial, military and government broadband wireless networks,” said Mihnea Moldoveanu, Redline’s Founder and Chief Strategy Officer.

Forefront?

I think it should be  “Keeping our heads above water”.

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Google Wave

I am lucky enough to be included in the Google wave “Sandbox” program, which means I have two Google wave account I can play/develop with.
Assuming that there are enough Google Wave related buzz and blogs, I don’t bother reporting my experience.
Nevertheless, if you are interested in my views, show your interest by writing a comment to this post.

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Altair Semiconductors announce LTE baseband

altair_logo

Israeli Startup Altair Semiconductors announced today the availability of their LTE baseband processor. Named FourGee-3100, this is the first in a series of LTE portfolio.

This is Altair’s 3rd chip following the FourGee-2150 for Mobile wiMAX and FourGee-4150 for XGP. I don’t believe the FourGee-2150 is widely deployed nor gained siginificant design wins, but as reported earlier, the FourGee-4150 XGP powers Japanese Willcom new XGP network .

Altair announced their plans for:

  • FourGee(TM)-6150 – a MIMO RF transceiver that supports LTE-TDD. This product will be available in August 2009
  • FourGee(TM)-6200 – a multi-band LTE-FDD MIMO transceiver that supports the most popular LTE bands in North America, Japan and Europe. The chip will be available in Q210

LTE-FDD will arrive in Q2, 2010, long after trials are expected to start in Japan. Will Altair gain enough market share with the LTE-TDD? We shall soon find out.

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Israeli Gilat may acquire Airspan Networks

gilat_logoairspan_logoIsraeli online business news Calcalist reports (Hebrew) that Gilat is in negotiations to acquire Airspan Networks.

The acquisition sum is rumored to be around  “few tens of Millions of Dollars” while Airspan is currently traded in the Pink Sheets after voluntarily delisting from Nasdaq and traded for about $4 Millions.

The article mentions a few problems in this rumored acquistion:

  1. Airspan’s commitments to Oak Investment Partners after their investment in 2006, which drives the price higher than the book value.
  2. Airspan HQ are in Boca Raton, Florida with development offices in England and Israel, Sales offices around the world. It is not that easy to absorb such an international company.
  3. In 2008 Airspan had revenues of $70 Millions which resulted in an operational loss of $50 Millions. Alvarion had similar revenues for Q1, 2009 alone.

Gilat is reported to be sitting on a pile of cash, but from a short analysis of the infromation above, I would recommend Gilat to negotiate harder.

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UQ Communications TV commercials

UQ WiMAX LogoUQ Communications (which is also branded as UQ WiMAX) will launch their commercial Mobile WiMAX on July 1st.

Besides signing many MVNOs, UQ has started with TV camapaigns, Train video commercials and obviously web campaigns. UQ’s TV commercials try to demonstrate how fast their network is. I think they are quite bad, without a clear message of “why should I choose UQ over Emobile or other solutions”.

As launch date approaches I can just assume it will be accompanied with campaigns at Camera, Yamada Denki and other Big electronic shops.