By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is an iPod mix, current song “Jerry Springer” by Weird Al Yankovic:
This came out last Friday afternoon, so maybe you missed it
(too), but customer support outsourcer Sitel Corp., has announced that it’s completed a $145 million refinancing
package, consisting of a senior revolving credit facility of $90 million
and two term loans totaling $55 million.
Proceeds from the new financing will be used “to retire the
Company’s 9 ¼ percent senior subordinated notes, due March 2006, replace the
existing credit facility due December 2005, and provide funds for working
capital and other general corporate purposes,” according to company officials.
The senior subordinated notes will be redeemed in September
2005 at the face value of $83.8 million, plus interest. The refinancing will
result in an estimated non-cash charge in the third quarter of 2005 of
approximately $0.4 million to write-off remaining debt issuance costs.
A couple weeks ago the Omaha, Nebraska-based announced Q2
net income of $3.2 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $2.5 million,
or 3 cents per share, for Q2 2004.
…
LoJack for Laptops – does it work? According
to an evaluation by David
Andelman, yes it does. If you don’t mind the way the system works,
it might be a good idea for you.
Absolute Software's
LoJack for Laptops used to be called CompuTrace, Andelman says. He installed it
from a disk, registered it with the office in Vancouver, did a test call to
“report” it stolen and “lo and behold, they told me just where my laptop was
located. It worked perfectly.”
It costs $49.95 for year or $99 for three years. When it’s
stolen and you report it the service locates it, notifies its “recovery team,”
all ex-cops, who call local law enforcement and give them to the location of
the stolen laptop. Yes, the thief has to go online for it to be located.
“At the beginning, we wondered whether law enforcement
would really care about laptops,” John Livingston, Aboslute’s CEO told
Andelman. “But they were very supportive. Property theft is a situation where
they don’t get a lot of success. But this is stolen property with a built-in
electronic tip where it’s located. They also realized that, in 5 per cent of
the cases, the location they go to other criminal activity is taking
place.”
For instance, Andelman says, “a distress call came from a
laptop in McKinney, Texas. The local police stumbled onto a big chop-shop
location with drugs and weapons. They also got the stolen computer back.”
The software remains in place even on a laptop which has
been stripped and the hard disk reformatted. Which is Andelman’s concern – do
you really want a third-party, basically ineradicable set of eyes in your
computer? Absolute can wipe your entire hard drive – on your say-so, of course,
if you have sensitive information that’s been stolen along with the laptop, and
wouldn’t that be a nifty challenge for hackers, breaking into that command?
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