ORBITZ

Acquiring Minds Want To Know… AMERICOM Government Services (AGS) has signed an agreement to acquire AOS, Inc., engineers of secure telecommunications technologies and global network mobility. Upon completing this transaction, AOS, Inc. will be integrated as a division of AGS. Founded in Dallas, Texas in 1988, AOS, Inc. is a provider of highly secure, customized, turnkey network mobility and communications solutions, and engineering, program management, IT consulting, and managed network services. As an SES AMERICOM company, AGS leverages 38 global satellites in creating custom satellite communications solutions to meet the mission requirements of the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, FAA, and other U.S. government organizations around the world. AOS, Inc. will continue most operations from its Dallas, Texas headquarters with the incorporation of a few staff members in the AGS offices in McLean, Virginia.

Inquiring Minds Have To Know… SATCON — the Satellite and Content Delivery Conference & Expo, will be held from October 15th through the 16th, 2008, at the Javits Convention Center in New York. At SATCON, you’ll learn how to develop strategies to manage your communications infrastructure including all of the hot environments — video, data, voice, and Internet — using hybrid networks including satellite, fiber, mobile, and wireless. There are dozens of conference sessions, forums, and workshops from which to select and hundreds of exhibits! Select the show graphic below for additional exposition details and registration information.

Financially Speaking… Iridium Satellite LLC has announced financial results for the second quarter which ended June 30, 2008. “Our strong second quarter solidifies our position as the fastest-growing voice and data mobile satellite services (MSS) company,” said Matt Desch, Iridium chairman and CEO. “For our fifth consecutive quarter, we posted double-digit increases for all the important metrics — revenue, earnings and subscriber gains.” Total revenue in the second quarter 2008 was $81.7 million versus $66.7 million in the same quarter last year, a 22 percent increase. For the six-month period that ended June 30, 2008, Iridium posted $156 million in revenue, a 31 percent increase over the first half of 2007. As of June 30, 2008, Iridium had more than 280,000 subscribers worldwide, a 38 percent increase over the June 30, 2007 total of 203,000. For the complete report, select this link…

Financially Speaking… NDS Group plc (NASDAQ: NNDS), a majority-owned subsidiary of News Corporation has announced the results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008. Revenues for fiscal 2008 were up 20 percent to $850.1 million. Operating income for fiscal 2008 was up 21.8 percent, to $195.4 million. Diluted net income per share up 16.7 percent to $2.72 per share and there are 90.3 million active devices protected by NDS conditional access technology at end of period. At end of period, there were 92.5 million middleware clients and 13.1 million deployed DVR clients. For a .pdf of the financial report, select this link….
NDS Group plc also announced that the independent committee of its board of directors has reached an agreement in principle with News Corporation and two subsidiaries of funds advised by Permira Advisers LLP on a price at which News Corporation and the Permira entities would acquire all issued and outstanding NDS Series A ordinary shares, including those represented by American Depositary Shares traded on NASDAQ, for per share consideration of $63 in cash. The consummation of the transaction would result in NDS ceasing to be a public company, and the Permira entities and News Corporation owning approximately 51 percent and 49 percent of NDS, respectively.

New Center Built… Paradise Datacom has created a maintenance and repair center in India. Services will be performed by Eltel Systems in their facility located in Bangalore. This comes on the heels of a recent announcement by Paradise Datacom regarding the establishment of a sales and service facility in Bangkok, Thailand.

Financially Speaking… SpaceX has received a $20 million equity investment from Founders Fund, a leading technology venture capital firm, headquartered in San Francisco. SpaceX joins Founders Fund‘s existing portfolio, which includes Facebook, Powerset, Slide, and Quantcast. Managing Partner Luke Nosek will join the SpaceX board as part of the financing. Luke added, “We believe SpaceX will become the world leader in space transport and we want our investors to be part of that future. Having reviewed their technology, outstanding engineering and business talent and the infrastructure they have built, we are highly confident in the future of the company.”

Financially Speaking… ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) has announced financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009 which include record net new contract awards of $205.9 million, record revenues of $153.0 million, and non-GAAP diluted net income per share of $0.29 or $0.20 per share on a diluted GAAP basis. “Our results for the first quarter were consistent with our plans, and new orders exceeded our expectations,” said Mark Dankberg, CEO and chairman of ViaSat. “While GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share increased 54 percent and 38 percent respectively, compared to last year, our first quarter earnings were adversely impacted by several cents per share due to a higher tax rate resulting from the expiration of the federal R&D tax credit, which we anticipate will be retroactively extended sometime this year. We are especially pleased with growth in new orders and the corresponding strength of our core businesses. We also see opportunities for continued favorable order flow in our second quarter which would, combined with the strong first quarter awards, position us quite well for the current fiscal year.” For the complete financial report, select this link…

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