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December 1, 1999 Frederic Bien, the CEO and founder of Flirt.com, is selling an undisclosed equity share in his company to New York's BigStar Entertainment and will join the company as v.p. of communities and marketing technology. BigStar operates what it bills as the leading online movie superstore. No value has been placed on the transaction. In San Diego, Bien is best known for founding Bien Logic, one of the earliest providers of Internet solutions and, from 1993 to 1997, the largest Web design company in town. Bien Logic's clients included Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Apple Computer, Netscape, Oracle and the Smithsonian Institute. Bien Logic's software development business, known for its Web traffic analyzers SurfReport and ProxyReport, was sold in 1997 to Netrics Inc. Prior to founding Bien Logic, Bien was a professor of mathematics at both UCSD and Princeton. In addition to his business duties, Bien will tutor BigStar employees in quantum mechanics and string theory. Flirt.com will operate as a separate entity to BigStar and will continue to produce proprietary content. The completion of BigStar's acquisition of Flirt.com is conditional on satisfactory due diligence and complete documentation. Founded in 1995, Flirt.com is an e-commerce company offering a way for people to pursue personal relationships on the Web. A three-month membership is about $17 for women, $19 for men. The company bills itself as "the premier online romance portal." It has alliance agreements with ELLE.com, Match.com, seeUthere.com, Electric Communities, ApparelNews.Net and others. *** Just in time for the Dec. 1-10 property tax rush, scaffolding for interior renovation work is engulfing the offices of County Treasurer/Tax Collector Bart Hartman. To accommodate the traditional rush of taxpayers, a temporary tax payment office has been erected beneath a 3,000-square-foot tent on the south lawn of the County Administration Center. From 11 a.m. to noon today, Hartman will be serving up both property tax advice and popcorn. The popcorn comes from a machine donated by Classic Party Rentals. Funds raised from the sale of popcorn during the 10 days will be donate to the Polinsky Children's Center. *** Qualcomm, DSP Communications and Intel have entered into an agreement for the continuation, following the acquisition of DSP by Intel, of a CDMA ASIC patent license signed by Qualcomm and DSP in 1995. The 1995 agreement granted DSP a royalty-bearing license under certain of Qualcomm's patents to make and sell CDMA chips to Qualcomm's subscriber terminal licensees and granted Qualcomm a cross-license for CDMA chips under DSP's patents. Under the new agreement, DSP would continue to hold the royalty-bearing license as a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and Qualcomm would be extended licenses under certain of Intel's patents. In addition, Qualcomm and Intel have agreed to cooperate to explore opportunities to expand the market for CDMA through the promotion and adoption of CDMA wireless connectivity for use in data and multimedia communication services. *** Speaking of Qualcomm, the CDMA Development Group yesterday highlighted a decade of CDMA milestones and exciting opportunities for operators and manufacturers in the new millennium at the 1999 CDMA Americas Congress, which is being held this week in San Francisco. Used by more than 16 million subscribers in the Americas and nearly 42 million worldwide, CDMA is the predominant global technology of choice for third generation (3G) services and devices. Executives from Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo! and Cisco Systems are delivering presentations discussing the convergence of the Internet and wireless industries, which correspond with the theme of this year’s Americas Congress — "Moving Beyond Voice." "CDMA has enjoyed tremendous success. Ten years ago I would have never predicted the number of accomplishments that we have achieved," says Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG. "We expect to see this record- breaking pattern to continue in the new century. As advanced wireless Internet and multi-media applications are offered, CDMA will again grow at a phenomenal rate in the next year. The CDG and its members will continue to evolve CDMA into the next generation with the first phase of 3G services to be available on CDMA networks in 2000." CDMA technology milestones include:
The Americas Congress is holding panel discussions about issues impacting wireless communications industry in the next millennium such as wireless information and Internet services, and the evolution toward 3G. Additional topics include CDMA as a capacity solution for the urban core, and the benefits of CDMA for Latin America. The development group is a non-profit trade association formed to foster the worldwide development, implementation and use of CDMA. More than 500 individuals are working within CDG subcommittees on second and third generation CDMA matters. |
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