Vegas loses tech firm’s headquarters to New York; technical operations to stay

Kevin Ferguson

Thursday, May 31, 2001 | 11:01 a.m.

A Las Vegas-grown technology firm with a staff of 150 people has shifted its headquarters to New York -- saying that's a city more receptive to financing high-tech companies, an official said.

helloNetwork's technical operations will remain in Las Vegas. But the corporate move for the three-year-old streaming media firm follows a major face lift in management in the past few months.

The company has brought on a more seasoned executive staff, which includes former executives from Yahoo! and Silicon Valley-based networking firm 3Com.

"(Founder and former chief executive) Craig Ellins did a wonderful job to get the company off the ground," said CEO Joe Bianco, while noting it was "critical" to bring in a more seasoned executive team to become more competitive.

Bianco replaced Ellins as CEO in January. Prior to launching helloNetwork, the entrepreneurial Ellins dabbled in infomercials and launched a 24-hour shopping network in the 1980s. He remains chairman of the board.

Colin McQuade, a former executive of Yahoo! Europe, and former 3Com executive Klaus Schulz, have also been brought on to focus on products for the mobile arena. Lance Horn, another former Yahoo! executive, was named president in February.

"The company was a real first class technology shop, but not a business," Bianco said, noting that McQuade and Schulz have experience in making streaming media products compatible with the commercial market.

helloNetwork is gearing up to showcase its new software, which brings streaming video to Nextel cell phones. It will be on display at the 2001 JavaOne Conference in San Francisco June 4-8.

Bianco said the company has closed some deals with Japanese mobile phone carriers to bring video streaming technology to cell phones, but said it was premature to release names. He said these types of deals could lead to more tech jobs in Las Vegas. He would not say how many.

The bulk of the company's revenues come from software sales to corporations, which use the streaming video technology for conference calls on company Intranet systems.

The software is also used to broadcast live entertainment on the web. Rock star Joe Walsh has used the company's software to broadcast some of his concerts. KEEN-TV Channel 17 in North Las Vegas has also tapped into the company's technology.

The privately held company does not disclose its revenue. Shareholders in the company include individuals as well as institutional investors, such as Circle T Partners and venture capital firm Gerard Klauer Mattison, both of New York.

Horn, Schulz and Bianco run the company from New York, but Bianco said there are no plans to relocate the Las Vegas staff of 100, which includes about 60 computer programmers.

Why operate from New York?

"It's where the money (venture capital) is, and exposure to the markets," said Bianco, who has been a company director since June 2000, and the founder and former CEO of Alliance Entertainment Corp.

During its three-year stint in Las Vegas, helloNetwork has routinely made references to Las Vegas's lack of enough bandwidth for tech businesses to thrive.

Despite those public remarks in the past, Bianco said the company's techies are not going anywhere.

"It won't have any impact on where the tech team is, meaning they will stay in Vegas," Bianco said.