By Mike Benbow
Herald Writer
MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Datamarine International Inc. has abandoned its long struggle to develop a land radio business based on new technology, opting instead to focus on its popular marine radio equipment.
"We just didn’t have the horsepower to keep going," David Thompson, Datamarine president, said Thursday.
Thompson said the board of the publicly traded company has agreed to license its SEA land mobile 220 MHz technology to a Florida company, Bizcom USA, Inc., for an undisclosed sum.
The company purchased the rights to make use of or sell all of the land mobile products of SEA, a Datamarine subsidiary. Datamarine itself will get out of the business, although it may do some work on contract for Bizcom, Thompson said.
"We’re gonna concentrate on marine," Thompson said. "It’s no secret that we’ve had a big working capital problem. This gives us a chance to at least improve that and make investments in marine.
"We have big back orders and potential back orders in marine products."
SEA developed a successful system based on the new 220 MHz technology that could be used for everything from data transmission to dispatching taxis. But its finances were drained when the government unexpectedly delayed plans to auction off territory licenses for the new service.
Thompson had to borrow money to keep the company going, which had some 135 employees at its high point. Efforts to borrow more money to develop the business after the licenses were granted weren’t successful, and the company has only about 12 employees today.
"We just used too much of our balance sheet to keep going," Thompson said.
The company will get some working capital from the licensing agreement but will need to raise more to intensify its focus on the marine radio side of the business, which it has operated for more than 30 years, he added.
"The board decided to focus on what has been really successful for a long time," Thompson said. "A company of this size just didn’t have the capitalization to do both."
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