Available For Immediate Release
Helping to send a clear signal
N.H. firm's software aims to ensure clarity and accuracy of satellite transmissions
KINGSTON, N.H. - By Colles Stowell, Globe Correspondent, 09/16/98 - In the business of satellite-signal technology, time is indeed money. When a signal is lost, even for a few minutes, it could mean a loss of millions of dollars for both suppliers and users of pagers and cellular phones.
A small New Hampshire company is working to make sure that never happens.
Newpoint Technologies Inc., based in Kingston and formerly known as C-Grams Unlimited, manufactures software that monitors and controls the equipment at satellite earth stations and on satellites that transmit signals used for everything from wireless communications to satellite television.
Newpoint's software aims to ensure the clarity and accuracy of the signal transmitted by the satellite earth station up to the satellite and back down again.
``All of our customers require 99.8 percent up time of their equipment,'' said Paul Houle, Newpoint's president. ``Our software essentially assures 99.8 percent up time. Everything is cost per minute. If a customer loses signal, and he's selling services, and his equipment is down, it's a revenues loss.''
Houle says there are three critical components to the successful operations of satellite-signal technology.
First, there are the satellite earth stations, which operate satellite dishes nationwide in conjunction with various space satellites. These stations administer voice, video, and data signals for any variety of clients, including telecommunications firms such as AT&T, news organizations such as Dow Jones, or satellite TV companies such as PrimeStar.
The signal is sent up to a satellite, where it is processed, and sent back down and distributed to the end users - the stock broker on his cell phone or HBO for its video services.
Then there are the original equipment manufacturers, which make the hardware and the control units for those systems used by satellite earth stations.
Third are the systems integrators, who develop the programs that run the entire satellite signal operation. It is the systems integrator who ensures the technology from the OEMs is properly aligned with the satellite earth station systems.
Newpoint's aim, says Houle, is to become the standardized software of choice for satellite earth stations, OEMs, and systems integrators to ensure the signals are accurate and clear and the equipment sending and processing those signals does not fail.
``Our software is much like an insurance policy ... a preventative software where it allows you to sit there [monitoring the system]. And if anything goes wrong with the equipment, our software will immediately detect that.''
Houle and the company's five other principals project climbing sales. Newpoint's revenues for fiscal 1998 (ended May 31) were $4 million. Houle says sales are expected to reach $6 million to $7 million for fiscal 1999 and should double each of the following three years.
He counts on rapid growth because of the long-term contracts Newpoint is pursuing with big players in the telecommunications and broadcast media industries.
That, coupled with the fact Newpoint has expanded its focus from its core satellite earth stations market to include systems integrators and OEMs, should fuel growth, he said. One of the software's key selling points is its adaptability, he said, largely because of a tool kit that allows everyone from systems integrators to OEMs to write their own interface programs.
``Over the past 10 years one of the problems in the industry was every time they had to build a new earth station or upgrade one, it was very expensive for the customer. Because technology changed, you were constantly having to reinvent the software,'' Houle said.
``We have created an out-of-box solution for monitor, control, and management systems that will meet the needs of OEMs, systems integrators, and end users.''
Historically, Newpoint's core market had focused on producing software and offering customized software engineering for satellite earth stations. Now, Houle says, the company is branching out to include not only licensing and engineering consulting work, but also technical support and maintenance contracts for each of the three tiers involved in satellite communications systems.
That's a far cry from the one-man software engineering firm Robert Hill incorporated as C-Grams in 1985. In 1991, he met Dan Ostrouch, an independent sales agent who had his own company selling industrial controls for manufacturing plants.
The two forged an alliance geared toward providing custom software programming for process control in the natural gas industry. But in 1992, Hill and Ostrouch altered the company's path when they designed and shipped their first software package for a satellite earth station operated by GTE.
Houle was hired in 1994 to help grow the company. Houle, 48, came to C-Grams after holding senior management positions at Wang Laboratories, Honeywell, and Sanders-Lockheed. When Houle arrived, revenues hovered around $1 million and there were 10 employees. By 1996, revenues had climbed to $3 million.
Because Houle's growth projections anticipate employment rising from 35 to 100 in the next three years and because Newpoint has outgrown its current space, it is scheduled to move to a new 19,000-square-foot facility in Salem, N.H., in October. Houle plans more expansion over the next three years, and uses that time frame for plans to take the company public.
Newpoint's success comes as no surprise to Chris Morris, vice president of marketing for IDB Systems in Carrolton, Texas. IDB is a systems integrator for satellite earth stations that chose Newpoint's software over a half-dozen other companies.
``No one made what we wanted to see,'' Morris said. ``We could have bought something similar, but not something so close to our ideas and our technology.''
Newpoint's software is also being incorporated in some government defense contracts. Ken Young, Army satellite communications business manager for Raytheon, said Newpoint's engineers are helping develop software for a portable satellite communications terminal that can be deployed on a Humvee.
That project, expected to be completed during the first quarter of next year, will enable military commanders to communicate from the field using secure satellite links. Young said it will solve a problem that arose during the Gulf War, when tanks were often moving so fast they would outrun the communications networks.
Newpoint is also writing software to allow each of these new terminals to manage a network of up to 300 telephones, and will provide self-testing systems to ensure everything is operational.
Cliff Lewis, a systems analyst with NDTC Inc., says his firm, which operates satellite earth stations in Denver, has been using Newpoint software for about four years. NDTC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Telecommunications Inc., uses the software to monitor and control the Titan earth station, one of the world's largest satellite uplinks.
The software also monitors nearly every piece of equipment NDTC uses for day-to-day satellite operations, and tracks how different devices perform during given periods of time. That information can pinpoint growing problems within the system.
Cofounder Ostrouch said Newpoint has met the goals he and Robert Hill set for themselves seven years ago. ``We're about right on target. I see the company growing to $20 million to $30 million in sales, fueled on the growth of wireless communications.''
This story ran on page F04 of the Boston Globe on 09/16/98.