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High-Tech Intuit sees peak use of TurboTax Web site



Axesstel Jumps Through Wireless Local Loop for Large Brazilian Contract

These are the times that try one’s servers.

Particularly if you are Mountain View-based Intuit Inc., whose Turbo Tax product is in high demand. Turbo Tax grew out of San Diego-based ChipSoft Inc., which Intuit acquired in 1993.

As this paper was rolling off the press, Intuit was preparing for what has historically been the biggest yearly demand spike for its Web-based income tax preparation product.

Bob Meighan, the San Diego-based vice president and general manager of Intuit’s consumer tax division, shared a graph of the phenomenon. More precisely, it was a three-month snapshot of demand for the Web-based tax-preparation product, ending April 19, 2000.

The numbers on the Y-axis were edited off, but the graph told a story nevertheless.

The weekend peaks made the Matterhorn look short and plump. Sundays are the most popular days for the service, Meighan said.

Predictably, the weekend of April 15-16, 2000 saw the most demand. It was three times the peak of April 1-2, and twice the peak of April 8-9.

2000 was the fourth year Intuit offered a Web-based version of TurboTax, and this is the fifth. The company owns all the servers that run it, Meighan said.

Those servers must run at their highest capacity for two or three hours on one day of the year, he said.

Intuit does try to get people to crunch numbers early.

As an incentive, the company offers a lower price for Web-based TurboTax. The price went up April 1.

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Curtain Call For Copper?

Imagine a desk phone but no wiring inside your walls. Just an antenna connecting the phone to the rest of the network.

The technology is called wireless local loop, and San Diego-based Axesstel Inc., founded in July 2000, makes phones that use that method of communicating.

By Axesstel’s estimation, copper wire’s heyday is near its end. Wireless local loop’s star is rising. And as a low-cost, quickly deployed technology, wireless local loop is particularly well suited for developing countries, say company promotional materials.

Axesstel announced last week some 50,000 of its units are on their way to Vesper, the largest wireless local loop carrier in Brazil. In addition to a handset , the only thing that’s tethered to the phone base , the units have a serial data port for computer connections.

Axesstel also makes modem cards and network optimization products that work on the code division multiple access (CDMA) standard licensed by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. , which owns a share of privately held Axesstel.

In addition to Sorrento Mesa, Axesstel has operations in Seoul, South Korea.


Math Muddle:

A copyright infringement case against MP3.com, Inc. took a strange turn last week when jurors told a judge they made a mistake in calculating the damages the San Diego company must pay.

According to published reports, members of the New York City jury told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff damages of $296,873 awarded to Tee Vee Tunes, Inc. should have been 10 times that amount.

They said they made a mathematical error.

The judge is now deciding what to do with the case.

New York-based Tee Vee Tunes operates a record label and an Internet music service. MP3.com operates a Web site that allows people to listen to music. The court earlier ruled MP3.com willfully infringed Tee Vee Tunes’ copyrights, though MP3.com issued a statement April 9 disputing that.

The case is separate from the one in which the five major music labels sued MP3.com, alleging copyright infringement. MP3.com resolved the litigation in November by paying out $53.4 million to Universal Music Group. It paid out tens of millions to the other four labels.

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Columnar Components:

Orincon Corp., the San Diego-based high-tech defense contractor, is opening its first international office. Paul Willmott will lead the new operating company, Orincon (UK) Ltd. in Manchester, England. Willmott is a former executive with Thompson Marconi Sonar Ltd. Orincon plans to add 30 employees , mostly engineers and computer scientists , to its Manchester payroll over the next three years. Think west. Far west. San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. is opening a branch office in Lihue, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. It will house seven people in the reconnaissance and surveillance operation of SAIC’s Technology Research Group. Staff will work with the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility , also on the island , and with the Maui Supercomputer Center. Mobile Telesys Inc. has relocated its Rancho Bernardo headquarters, going from about 6,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet. The cell phone retailer operates in malls throughout California as well as new territory in Michigan and Ohio. Mobile Telesys now employs more than 1,000 people. In addition to its new home base at 17075 Camino San Bernardo, the company has a service and distribution center in Vista. Similar bases are in Livermore, Wixom, Mich., and Akron, Ohio.

Send high-tech news to Graves via e-mail at bgraves@sdbj.com

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