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Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Ex-workers from Cisco upgrade idea
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Monday, Dec 24, 2007
Perhaps they enjoy the view more than most, because when it comes to business, their world is confined to a two-inch piece of computer hardware.
The two-year-old company was started by five guys who left Cisco Systems' Richfield office, with the blessing of their former employer, to fill a tiny but critical need in a niche market.
They make radio cards that slip into mobile devices — hand-held bar-code readers, wireless cash registers, portable ultrasound machines — and allow the devices to communicate with home base in challenging environments.
It's a component that costs less than $100, but one that must work without fail or equipment that costs thousands of dollars is rendered useless.
Cisco once made the radio cards, albeit reluctantly, said Summit Data's president, Ron Seide.
The wireless giant was far more interested in the fast-growing field of wireless infrastructure but was stuck making the radio cards to support its wireless service because there weren't many reliable sources for them.
So Seide and four colleagues — Chris Bolinger, Andy Winson, Jarrod Rafferty and Jim O'Riordan — offered to take the radio cards off Cisco's hands, improve them and market them as fully Cisco-compatible.
And that was fortunate for many European customers, who were about to lose their sole American supplier. New regulations forbid the sale of any lead-bearing product handled by human hands, and Cisco's radios contained lead.
Where it would be costly for Cisco to re-engineer a product for European customers, that wasn't much of a challenge for a startup with no set process in place.
In addition to eliminating the lead (and inheriting a European market that was thankful to be able to continue using its devices), Summit Data techs improved the radios in other ways.
Unlike a wireless connection on your home computer — where your laptop may never be more than 30 feet from home base — Summit Data's cards are used in devices that might be hundreds of feet away from an access point, increasing the opportunity for obstacles in the airwaves to interrupt reception.
So Summit Data's techs improved the roaming capability of the transmitters, increased the operating temperature range (because some devices are used in hot factories or warehouse freezers), and found ways to extend battery life.
Bolinger noted that while companies expect to replace their laptops every three or four years, they want radio devices to last a decade or more. After all, they can cost $3,000 or more apiece.
''Every device our radio goes into is going to be used for a long, long time, so
performance is critical. We need to build a reliable product,'' Bolinger said.
Summit Data sells its products to companies that make the devices. Those companies sell the devices to the people who actually use them. As a result, Summit Data doesn't always know where its cards end up.
Through support calls, however, the company has learned its radios are being used by clerks ringing up sales at Wal-Mart and Macy's, in portable cash registers at Disney World and in Toyota factories, Hershey Foods warehouses and several airports.
This year, Summit Data shipped to 46 customers, mostly device manufacturers outside the country. In 2008, the company expects to ship 300,000 units.
Plans call for expanding the radio cards to serve PAN and WAN networks. While LAN refers to ''local'' networks (typically a single building), PAN refers to ''personal'' space, such as Bluetooth technology, and WAN stands for ''wide'' area, referring to long distances, such as cell phones.
Ideally, Bolinger said, customers would like the ''killer device'' — one that uses all three networks.
Summit Data will bring on its 14th employee in January. The company had its first profitable month in October 2006 and now is seeing annual revenue ''in the high seven figures,'' Seide offered.
While all basic hardware and software for radio cards come from Taiwan, Summit Data uses Circle Prime Manufacturing in Cuyahoga Falls for antenna components, and employees of Akron's United Disability Services apply the labels.
Seide said the company's founders are proud to contribute to the region's economy by providing ''good jobs with good salaries.''
''All of us have had one chance or other through Cisco to leave this area, and we either stayed or we left and came back,'' said Seide, a Cleveland native who returned after years in California, citing what he called Northeast Ohio's better quality of life and cost of living.
Bolinger, born and raised in Akron, spent several years in Washington, D.C., before deciding to come back home. Now his office is in the former B.F. Goodrich building where his grandfather once worked.
''I came home in more ways than one,'' Bolinger said.
The men also lauded the Akron incubator, where rent is cheap and incubator staff and resources are available to help guide startups through a steep learning curve.
''It's a community,'' Seide said of his fellow incubator tenants. ''There's a lot of stress with starting a new company, and if you're in a place where everyone is going through that, it's kind of comforting.''
Seide and Bolinger added that Summit Data's birth in Akron is appropriate.
It was a now-defunct Akron company — Telxon Corp. — that pioneered wireless LAN technology. Telxon spun off a company that became part of Cisco, which bred Summit Data's five founders.
''This is the birthplace of this technology,'' Seide said, ''so it's kind of full circle for us.''
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
Perhaps they enjoy the view more than most, because when it comes to business, their world is confined to a two-inch piece of computer hardware.
The two-year-old company was started by five guys who left Cisco Systems' Richfield office, with the blessing of their former employer, to fill a tiny but critical need in a niche market.
They make radio cards that slip into mobile devices — hand-held bar-code readers, wireless cash registers, portable ultrasound machines — and allow the devices to communicate with home base in challenging environments.
It's a component that costs less than $100, but one that must work without fail or equipment that costs thousands of dollars is rendered useless.
Cisco once made the radio cards, albeit reluctantly, said Summit Data's president, Ron Seide.
The wireless giant was far more interested in the fast-growing field of wireless infrastructure but was stuck making the radio cards to support its wireless service because there weren't many reliable sources for them.
So Seide and four colleagues — Chris Bolinger, Andy Winson, Jarrod Rafferty and Jim O'Riordan — offered to take the radio cards off Cisco's hands, improve them and market them as fully Cisco-compatible.
And that was fortunate for many European customers, who were about to lose their sole American supplier. New regulations forbid the sale of any lead-bearing product handled by human hands, and Cisco's radios contained lead.
Where it would be costly for Cisco to re-engineer a product for European customers, that wasn't much of a challenge for a startup with no set process in place.
In addition to eliminating the lead (and inheriting a European market that was thankful to be able to continue using its devices), Summit Data techs improved the radios in other ways.
Unlike a wireless connection on your home computer — where your laptop may never be more than 30 feet from home base — Summit Data's cards are used in devices that might be hundreds of feet away from an access point, increasing the opportunity for obstacles in the airwaves to interrupt reception.
So Summit Data's techs improved the roaming capability of the transmitters, increased the operating temperature range (because some devices are used in hot factories or warehouse freezers), and found ways to extend battery life.
Bolinger noted that while companies expect to replace their laptops every three or four years, they want radio devices to last a decade or more. After all, they can cost $3,000 or more apiece.
''Every device our radio goes into is going to be used for a long, long time, so
performance is critical. We need to build a reliable product,'' Bolinger said.
Summit Data sells its products to companies that make the devices. Those companies sell the devices to the people who actually use them. As a result, Summit Data doesn't always know where its cards end up.
Through support calls, however, the company has learned its radios are being used by clerks ringing up sales at Wal-Mart and Macy's, in portable cash registers at Disney World and in Toyota factories, Hershey Foods warehouses and several airports.
This year, Summit Data shipped to 46 customers, mostly device manufacturers outside the country. In 2008, the company expects to ship 300,000 units.
Plans call for expanding the radio cards to serve PAN and WAN networks. While LAN refers to ''local'' networks (typically a single building), PAN refers to ''personal'' space, such as Bluetooth technology, and WAN stands for ''wide'' area, referring to long distances, such as cell phones.
Ideally, Bolinger said, customers would like the ''killer device'' — one that uses all three networks.
Summit Data will bring on its 14th employee in January. The company had its first profitable month in October 2006 and now is seeing annual revenue ''in the high seven figures,'' Seide offered.
While all basic hardware and software for radio cards come from Taiwan, Summit Data uses Circle Prime Manufacturing in Cuyahoga Falls for antenna components, and employees of Akron's United Disability Services apply the labels.
Seide said the company's founders are proud to contribute to the region's economy by providing ''good jobs with good salaries.''
''All of us have had one chance or other through Cisco to leave this area, and we either stayed or we left and came back,'' said Seide, a Cleveland native who returned after years in California, citing what he called Northeast Ohio's better quality of life and cost of living.
Bolinger, born and raised in Akron, spent several years in Washington, D.C., before deciding to come back home. Now his office is in the former B.F. Goodrich building where his grandfather once worked.
''I came home in more ways than one,'' Bolinger said.
The men also lauded the Akron incubator, where rent is cheap and incubator staff and resources are available to help guide startups through a steep learning curve.
''It's a community,'' Seide said of his fellow incubator tenants. ''There's a lot of stress with starting a new company, and if you're in a place where everyone is going through that, it's kind of comforting.''
Seide and Bolinger added that Summit Data's birth in Akron is appropriate.
It was a now-defunct Akron company — Telxon Corp. — that pioneered wireless LAN technology. Telxon spun off a company that became part of Cisco, which bred Summit Data's five founders.
''This is the birthplace of this technology,'' Seide said, ''so it's kind of full circle for us.''
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
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