Long Island Technology Briefs April 25, 2003

Long Island Business News, Apr 25, 2003 by Ken Schachter

Symbol is BTOC

(big tech on campus)

Symbol Technologies Inc., which has set its sights on education as a major new market, is about to become the big technology on some regional campuses.

The Holtsville company has cut a deal (no numbers released) with New York Institute of Technology that will let the school's roughly 11,000 students, plus staff and faculty, tap new Symbol wireless data networks.

Symbol will be rolling out the Wi-Fi network at the institute's three campuses in Old Westbury, Central Islip and Manhattan. In the first phase, scheduled to be completed by September, Symbol will install six wireless local area network switches and 162 access ports in and around the 11 buildings on the Old Westbury campus.

In a more modest deal, the company also is in the midst of installing a Wi-Fi network at SUNY Stony Brook's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

NYIT already has deployed Symbol wireless access points in several dormitories to replace wired Internet connections.

In one application of the technology, students at NYIT's New York College of Osteopathic Medicine will be able to receive streaming video wirelessly anywhere on campus, said to Dr. Chellappa Kumar, director of NYCOM's New Technologies Initiative.

In a statement, Brian Maroldo, technical director, NYIT Office of Information Technology said the installation can be installed quickly, upgraded to the next-generation version of Wi-Fi known as 802.11a and offers security features.

No, NYIT isn't the only wireless campus on LI

Symbol wireless networks also can be found at Polytechnic University's Farmingdale campus, St. John's University's School of Law and Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus.

And, the LISA winners are ... Don't tell me!

Who won the Long Island Software Awards?

Don't ask Peter Goldsmith, president of the Long Island Software and Technology Network, because he doesn't know.

Goldsmith, whose organization will host the LISAs on May 6 at the Long Island Business & Technology Center in Great River, said he is making it a point of not learning the names of the winners before the event for fear of inadvertently spilling the beans.

"I don't even want to know," he said.

Honorees at the event, judged by Penton Media Inc.'s Windows and .Net magazines, will be Rich Bravman, Symbol CEO, and Peter Paul, interim director at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Hi-Tech Pharmacal on top innovator list

Amityville-based Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. Inc. (Nasdaq: HITK) was named No. 1 on a recent list of 100 Nation's Top Innovators by Investors Business Daily.

The weekly ranking is based on a combination of financial metrics, including return on equity, sales growth, profit margins and relative price performance over 12 months.

Hi-Tech, a maker of over-the-counter and prescription medicines, ranked No. 1 based on growth in earnings per share as well as improvement in sales and profit margins.

In March, Hi-Tech posted an 89 percent increase in net income to $1.9 million on a 70 percent rise in sales to $15.9 million for the third quarter ended Jan. 31.

SUNY Stony Brook top LI R&D spender

In 2001, SUNY Stony Brook led all Long Island colleges and universities in research and development expenditures, according to figures from the National Science Foundation.

Stony Brook's spending edged up to $168.5 million from $163.3 million in 2000, placing the school No. 67 in the nation and in second place among SUNY schools behind No. 58 SUNY Buffalo with $186.8 million.

Leading the nation was Johns Hopkins University with $999.2 million. The top New York State school was Columbia University, in 26th place with spending of $354.5 million.

Other schools with Long Island campuses included: No. 262 Polytechnic University, $8.3 million; No. 412 SUNY Old Westbury, $1.3 million (estimated); No. 428 Long Island University, $1.2 million; No. 497 Hofstra University, $661,000; No. 507 New York Institute of Technology, $571,000, and No. 573 Adelphi University, $137,000.

Verizon propels IM, text messaging

Verizon's Airfone unit has installed jacks on all narrow-body jets in the Continental Airlines fleet that allow passengers to send instant messages (IM), text messages, play online games, get news, weather, sports and stock information.

Rollout of the JetConnect service, priced at $5.99 per flight, began in November 2002.

To connect, passengers plug their laptops or personal digital assistants into the jacks.

Airfone's other customers include Air Wisconsin Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Midwest Express Airlines, United Airlines, USAirways, AeroMexico, Alitalia, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Southern Airlines, Thai Airways International, and Turkish Airlines.

About 1 in 5 'Net users do online banking--study

Roughly 20 percent of U.S. Internet users in the fourth quarter of 2002 were online banking customers and about 12 percent of that group paid at least one bill through their bank's online bill payment service during the period, a study found.

The research by comScore Networks found a 42 percent increase in the number of online bill payment customers since the first quarter of 2002.