Symbol Technologies, Inc.
BOSTON—LOCATION, location, location" is no longer a truism limited to real estate agents: it has become the mantra of a growing number of wireless companies as they seek new ways to track people and things.
Inside stores, hospitals, warehouses and factories, where Global Positioning System [GPS] devices generally do not work, systems are being developed that keep tabs on where people and objects are. They can help users navigate the building, picking up information at useful points.
Indoor positioning systems based on Wi-Fi, the popular wireless technology that is proliferating in cafes, on college campuses and in homes, are helping people use hand-held or tablet PC's to navigate supermarkets, libraries and museums. Other systems built on infrared and radio frequency technologies are being used in hospitals to quickly pinpoint the location of patients, doctors and equipment.
A typical indoor positioning system, or I.P.S., tracks people wearing badges or carrying devices that transmit wireless signals to receivers in ceilings or on walls. The receivers, connected to a local network, send the data to servers that calculate location and make the information available in various ways.
One place where indoor positioning has taken hold is the Operating Room of the Future, a state-of-the art suite created by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to evaluate new surgical devices and information systems technologies. The system enables the hospital to track surgeons, nurses, patients and equipment during 20 or so surgical operations every week and to store the information in databases. The data helps researchers analyze whether the devices and processes being tested are more efficient than those used in conventional operating rooms.
Massachusetts General officials say the advantages of the indoor positioning system have already persuaded them to deploy it throughout the hospital's 50 conventional operating rooms, which span four buildings.
Doctors say that by making it easy to see exactly where surgeons, staff members and equipment are at any given moment, the system will enable them to plan more efficiently. "That is where its real potential lies," said Dr. Warren Sandberg, director of anesthesia for the Operating Room of the Future. "Just knowing what the capacity of things are upstream and downstream will help me make decisions that are good for my patients."
Knowing where people and things are also makes it possible to react more quickly to emergencies. The badges worn by patients, for example, have panic buttons that can alert doctors and nurses. Quick access to tools also helps, Dr. Sandberg added. "To be able to walk to a workstation and type in 'find me the nearest defibrillator' and have it give you a map with the location of the nearest one would be a godsend," he said.
The system in use at Massachusetts General was developed by Radianse, a start-up company based in Lawrence, Mass. The battery-powered badges worn by doctors and patients give off both infrared and radio frequency signals that are picked up by receivers connected to the hospital's computer network. Web browsers can be used to search for items with tags or for people with the badges and to view diagrams of floors showing real-time locations of doctors, patients and equipment.
Another indoor system, developed by Versus Technology of Traverse City, Mich., was introduced in July in the busy emergency department at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. Based on infrared signals, it helps the staff manage traffic more efficiently and quickly shift resources as bottlenecks or problems develop, hospital officials said. "To know where staff is at any given time, at the blink of an eye, is huge for emergency medicine," said Dr. Carl R. Chudnofsky, chairman of the hospital's department of emergency medicine.
Cost can be a significant hurdle in deploying indoor positioning systems based on infrared or radio-frequency technology. Generating accurate information on location often requires large numbers of receivers, which can be expensive. Developers of Wi-Fi-based positioning systems say this could translate into an opportunity for them because Wi-Fi hot spots are inexpensive and often already in place, and their range can be significantly wider.
At the Metro Group Future Store, a futuristic supermarket in Rheinberg, Germany, a Wi-Fi-based "personal shopping assistant" was developed with software from Ekahau, a California company. Using tablet PC's affixed to the front of shopping carts, shoppers can find their way to groceries they need, learn about sale items and obtain product information. A similar system based on the software but developed for museums was demonstrated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this year during private showings of the "Manet-Velázquez'' exhibition. That system, developed by the technology services company Accenture using Ekahau software, provided and displayed images and information about paintings as users carrying tablet PC's approached the artworks, company officials said.
Another Ekahau-based system, in use at the University of Oulu in Finland, allows students with palmtops to locate over 250,000 books at the main library.
Ekahau officials say they have begun testing their software for use in other industries as well, including health care. Medical personnel could be tracked if they toted Wi-Fi-enabled palmtops, for example, and patients would wear Wi-Fi transmitters that are expected to become available early next year, said Tuomo Rutanen, vice president for business development at Ekahau.
Among the other developers of location technology is Wheels of Zeus, a company run by an Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, that is working on portable hot spots that can be moved around to track people, pets and things. That system, which is expected to become available in 2004, can cover a range of one to two miles using radio frequency technology, the company says. Symbol Technologies [See company information below] and Cuesol have begun testing "shopping buddies'' mounted in shopping cart handles at three Stop & Shop stores in the Boston area, and mobile phone locators like mapAmobile in Britain enable users to pinpoint the location of a cellphone.
Privacy issues remain to be resolved, but people who are at the forefront of putting such tools to work, like Dr. Sandberg at Massachusetts General, are optimistic. "In the future, we will be applying a sort of continuous quality improvement effort to all operating rooms using Radianse technology and things like it," Dr. Sandberg said. "It's the wave of the future."
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/technology/circuits/30room.html?tntemail0=&pagewanted=print&position= 30oct03
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Symbol Technologies, Inc.
SBL (NYSE) $ 12.50 $ 0.29 2.38% Close 10/29/2003
Open $ 12.19
High $ 12.50
Low $ 12.18
52-Wk Low $ 7.66
52-Wk High $ 14.93
P/E Ratio 208.33
Volume 785,100
Market Cap $ 3.0 B
Shares Outstanding 239.5650 M
FINANCIAL SNAPSHOT
2002 2001
Revenue $ 1.3 B $ 1.5 B
Total Net Income $ 10.5 M $ -53.9 M
Earnings Per Share $ 0.05 $ -0.24
EBITDA N/A $ 18.3 M
Long Term Debt N/A $ 310.2 M
PER-SHARE ESTIMATES
This Qtr Next Qtr
Mean Estimate 0.06 0.09
High Estimates 0.11 0.12
Low Estimates 0.04 0.06
# of Estimates 9 9
CURRENT ANALYST RATINGS
Strong Buy 1
Moderate Buy 0
Hold 7
Moderate Hold 2
Sell 0
Mean HOLD
SEC FILINGS
05/02/2003
8-K , Symbol Technologies, Inc.
04/11/2003
8-K , Symbol Technologies, Inc.
11/14/2002
10-Q , Symbol Technologies, Inc.
For 11/14/03 See: http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-secfilingsfull.asp?symb=SBL&sid=4737&guid={2BBEE9C7-8E48-45D5-A073-E71F99180FDF}
COMPANY INFORMATION
Symbol Technologies, Inc. The Group's principal activities are the design, manufacture and marketing of scanner integrated mobile and wireless information management systems, and the servicing of, customer support for and professional services related to these systems. The Group operates in two segments: Products and Services. The Products segment sells bar code capture and verification equipment, mobile computing devices and other peripheral products. The Services segment provides wireless communication solutions that connect the Company's bar code reading equipment and mobile computing devices to wireless networks. The Group operates in North and South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, including Japan, the Far East and Australia. In 2002, it acquired @pos.com Inc.On 27-Feb-2003, the Group acquired software and technology assets of ImageWare Technologies Inc & on 30-Jul-2003, Covigo Inc. Product revenues accounted for 79% of 2001 revenues and service revenues, 21%.
SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC
One Symbol Plaza Holtsville NEW YORK 11742
Phone: +1 631-738-2400
Fax:
Website: http://www.symbol.com
source: http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp?userID=gottlich&h=k9zcIoVFfpbBZSaWUKwCbw&symb=SBL
30oct03
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INSIDER TRADING
NMS SERVICES CAYMAN INC
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source: http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-insidertrading.asp?symb=SBL&sid=4737&pid=14048122
30oct03
********************
ROSTER
Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
Name / Relationship / Direct and Indirect / Date
JOHN W ALEXANDER Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
AUTO GENERATED Indirect Shareholder 0 05/21/2001
BRIAN E BECKER Officer 28,380 05/05/2003
THOMAS PAUL BENSON Officer 0 08/21/2000
BRIAN BECKER ISSUE TRUST Trustee 0 08/21/2002
CATHERINE HICKS TRUST Director 0 11/12/2002
TIMOTHY J DONMOYER Officer 3 12/04/1997
KARL ELLER Chief Executive Officer 0 05/17/2001
F PHILIP HANDY Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
ALAN D FELD Director 9,000 12/27/2002
ANNE S FELD Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
BRUCE HALLE Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
HANDY FAMILY PRTSHP Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
THOMAS O HICKS Director 37,805,300 09/03/2003
HERBERT W HILL Chief Financial Officer 97,434 05/01/2003
JULIANA F HILL Officer 0 07/30/2003
JOHN E HOGAN Officer 29,946 03/17/2003
BENJAMIN L HOMEL Officer 441,806 06/14/2002
MARK O HUBBARD Chief Financial Officer 1,000 09/10/1998
JOHN A HICKS TRUST Director 0 11/12/2002
SAM HOUSTON LANE Officer 358 04/01/1998
ROBERT LAWRENCE President 0 08/04/2000
ROBERT L LAWRENCE President 0 05/06/1999
MICHAEL J LEVITT Director 72,104 05/18/2001
MICHAEL J LEVITT Director 72,104 05/18/2001
HERBERT J LOUIS Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
L LOWRY MAYS Chief Executive Officer 22,961,500 02/19/2003
LESTER LOWRY MAYS Chief Executive Officer 9,322,480 12/15/1999
MARK P MAYS President 262,521 03/17/2003
RANDALL THOMAS MAYS Chief Financial Officer 431,091 02/19/2003
BILLY JOE MCCOMBS Director 8,196,070 08/15/2003
MCCOMBS FOUNDATION Affiliated Person 115,000 03/20/1997
JOSH MCGRAW Vice President 3,500 02/13/1996
PAUL J MEYER Officer 19,748 03/07/2002
WILLIAM G MOLL Officer 13,424 07/08/2002
NMS SERVICES CAYMAN INC Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
ROGER PARRY Officer 3,992 07/02/2002
JACK PECK Vice President 1,000 02/13/1996
WILLIAM AA RIORDAN Chief Operating Officer 34,465 11/29/2000
ROBERT B HICKS TRUST Director 0 11/12/2002
DAVE ROSS Vice President 3,000 02/13/1996
SALOMON SMITH BARNEY INC Unknown 0 08/04/2000
BENNETT S SMITH Officer 0 06/30/1998
THEODORE H STRAUSS Director 164,727 01/27/2003
TOH JR VENTURES LTD Director 0 11/12/2002
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA FOUNDATION Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
WAIN NORMAN TRUST Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
STANLEY J WEBB Vice President 91,850 01/23/1997
ROBERT C WEISS Shareholder 0 08/04/2000
JOHN H WILLIAMS Director 18,089 05/16/2002
JOHN HAMSHIRE WILLIAMS Director 9,300 11/12/2002
KENNETH E WYKER Shareholder 13,626 11/12/2002
source: http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-insidertrading.asp?searchType=3&symb=CCU&sid=1251 30oct03
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