The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
A couple of San Diego companies are gaining headlines today: SAIC and Qualcomm.
SAIC, for one, went public today, making it the talk of the New York Stock Exchange. You can look at some photos of company execs ringing the opening bell here.
This is what I’m talking about when I say San Diego has some big-deal companies. With more than 43,000 employees worldwide, SAIC is considered the largest employee-owned research and engineering company in the United States. Revenues for fiscal 2006 were $7.8 billion. The government contractor has technical expertise in several in-demand markets: homeland security, energy, space, telecom, health care, the environment, you name it.
SAIC’s stock, traded with the ticker symbol “SAI,” is having a fine debut. Shares have been traded at about $18, up from an $15 price tag, in volume so far of about 47 million shares.
Qualcomm, meanwhile, requires little introduction. They’re the wireless chip guys, right? But today San Diego’s Qualcomm is getting some attention for an FCC decision that lets the company move forward with its plan to put higher quality TV programming on your mobile device. With new federal regulatory guidance on interference standard, Qualcomm’s MediaFLO subsidiary is getting closer to establishing a nationwide network for broadcasting video and audio clips in a model more akin TV programming than has ever been available on mobile devices – think live-feeds of news, stock quotes, sports.