As a chief executive, Marten Mickos took MySQL, the open-source database firm whose technology powers Facebook and other Web sites, from a startup to its $1 billion sale to Sun Microsystems in 2008. On March 19, Mickos became CEO of Santa Barbara-based Eucalyptus Systems, an open-source software firm whose code forms private cloud computing networks and [...]
In the past few weeks, private-sector and public-sector visions have unfolded for the United States’ 21st-century information infrastructure. The business version has drawn rallies with hundreds of enthusiastic supporters in the Tri-Counties while the broader government plan has generated reserved optimism. Google announced in February that it will install for fiber a city of 50,000 [...]
Health care reform may be the hottest topic in the United States, but one Goleta medical equipment firm is focusing its attention on developing low-cost medical imaging technology for overseas markets. Pointe Conception Medical is launching what it says is the first integrated and networked endoscopic camera system in the world. The new medical video [...]
The first time I asked Fess Parker to keynote the Business Times’ Spirit of Small Business Awards, his office had a polite reply: “Thanks, but no thanks.” A year later, I tried again. I called his office around noontime and got no farther than an assistant who said she was going to lunch. “Try back [...]
Inland and coastal California might as well be two different worlds — at least that’s the view of California Lutheran University real estate economist Kirk Lesh. Lesh and the rest of CLU’s forecasting team presented their first economic prophecies for the new year at a March 24 event at the Thousand Oaks campus. Lesh [...]
Some $100 million in new capital has poured into tri-county banks in recent weeks, providing a potential new flow of credit to businesses. But how fast that new cash translates into loans depends on the remaining fallout from the recession and what regulators are willing to allow as commercial real estate bottoms. While economists called [...]
Fine dining is a tough business in downtown Santa Barbara. Even a helping hand from a Hollywood star sometimes isn’t enough to pull a family business through. Consider Epiphany Restaurant & Bar. After eight and a half years in business and backing from onetime co-owner Kevin Costner, the Academy Award-winning actor who maintains a villa [...]
Santa Paula-based Limoneira is ready to put a sour year behind it as it gears up to become a fully publicly traded company in coming months. In mid-February, the citrus and avocado giant filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to begin trading its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The move to Wall [...]
With speed that seemed amazing for a Congress that never seems in a hurry to do anything, nearly $1 trillion in new spending on health care has become the law of the land. While most pundits are focused on the upcoming political season and what it might mean for the Democrats and control of Congress, [...]
The green economy holds great promise for the tri-county region. With thousands of jobs at stake, some interesting new players are emerging on the economic development scene. Sen. Tony Strickland, the Republican who won the narrowest of victories in a contested district, scored points when he backed a bill to exempt green manufacturing equipment from [...]
It’s all smiles and sauvignon in Happy Canyon’s vineyards
Towbes Group grabs Goleta with Groupon-like deals at retailers
Social-media IPOs could launch Golden State sustainability fund
Ventura County brokers hold out ’til 2013 for real recovery
Name changes and new faces at SLO and Oxnard law firms
From apartments to industrial spaces, deals close in the region