Teradata Acquires Aster Data Systems, Mad Catz Picks Up V Max Technology, & More San Diego Area BizTech News

San Diego’s analytics software cluster pulled another company into its orbit with Teradata’s acquisition of Silicon Valley’s Aster Data Systems. We have that and the rest of San Diego’s biztech news wrapped up here.

—Teradata, based in Dayton, OH, acquired San Carlos, CA-based Aster Data Systems for $263 million. The deal combines Teradata’s expertise in relational data mining with Aster Data’s non-relational data mining technology. Teradata plans to fold Aster Data into its San Diego-based engineering development organization.

—San Diego scientific software developer Accelrys introduced several new products last week, which are intended to build on its $175 million merger last year with Santa Clara, CA-based Symyx Technologies. Accelrys CEO Max Carnecchia told me “a series of individual islands of capabilities have now been brought together into a true platform.”

—San Diego’s Bump.com is headed to Austin, TX, at the end of the week for the SXSW (South by Southwest) Interactive Festival, where the startup plans to officially launch the Bump social network. Founding CEO Mitch Thrower told me he started Bump.com with a vision of creating a communications platform that can send voice, text, and e-mail messages to motorists in the Bump network—by simply scanning an image of their license plates.

—EcoATM, the San Diego startup developing an automated kiosk for recycling electronic device, was one of six startups that received “Demo-god” awards at last week’s Demo Spring 2011 conference in Palm Desert. EcoATM is ready to launch production of its “eCycling Station,” which uses advanced machine vision technology to identify and value devices and includes an ATM-like cash dispenser for immediate payment of recycled devices.

—San Diego’s EDSA, which specializes in software analytics for complex electrical power systems, changed its name to Power Analytics Corp.

—Mad Catz Interactive (AMEX: [[ticker:MCZ]]), a San Diego maker of video game accessories and related equipment, acquired flight simulation software and related assets from privately owned V Max Simulation. The deal was valued at a total of $638,000 in cash and shares of Mad Catz stock, not including incentive payments to V Max president David Kinney.

—Rockstar San Diego, the Carlsbad, CA-based subsidiary of Rockstar Games, won the Game of the Year award at the Game Developer’s Choice Awards for “Red Dead Redemption,” about a one-time Wild West outlaw who is forced to return to his outlaw life. Nearly 300 games released in 2010 were nominated for the award.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.