Written by: Zack Miller | July 8, 2008
Jacada (JCDA) signs another material deal — this time it’s a follow-on deal with Nationwide Insurance. According to the release, “This most recent contract extends the use of the Jacada solution to the Property and Casualty Direct Sales and Service group, to further automate and simplify access to customer, policy and billing information.”
Defense contractor Elbit Systems (ESLT) signed a $20 million deal to supply its Hermes unmanned air vehicles (UAV) to an unnamed European country. The agreement is for air vehicles and ground systems to be delivered in 2009, according to Reuters.
Motorola, a strategic partner of NICE Systems (NICE), announced the receipt of an order on behalf of Denmark’s Interior Ministry. The order is for an integration of NICE Inform, the firm’s multi-media incident information management solution in an effort to consolidate radio-over-IP content from the Danish public safety network.
Speaking of NICE, NICE’s Actimize division also announced a deal with partner Unisys in Singapore which would have Actimize’s transaction surveillance system installed at Singapore’s largest financial institution, DBS. Actimize’s system analyzes transactions and recognizes potentially suspicious patterns across a bank’s product channels. DBS is the first bank in Asia to install such a system on an end-to-end, cross-border, and bank-wide basis.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Eze Vidra, VCCafe.com: I’m originally from Argentina. My parents moved to Israel with me in 1987 when I was just a kid. I grew up in Israel and did my army service. I moved to the US about 4 years ago. I’ve now been in Northern California for over a year. In 2003 I cofounded a firm that enabled text input solutions for PDAs ad mobile devices. At the time, it was almost impossible for Israeli companies to raise money. During the fund raising process, I met a CEO with a firm that eventually offered me a position on the spot. That firm was Gerson Lehrman Group, the hedge fund research firm. I started in IT as a project manager and grew into a position where I was managing the integration of business requirements and IT products. (Continue »)
Written by: Zack Miller | April 9, 2008
Elbit Systems (ESLT) wins a multi-year contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company to supply new generation Head-Up Displays (HUDs) for the new F-16 aircraft.
Comverse (CMVT) wins Norway deal.
Amdocs (DOX) bought broadband cable solutions provider Jacobs RimellLtd. for approximately $45 million to build its operations support systems (OSS) offering.
El Al raising prices by about 9%.
Israeli firms are profiting on the Facebook phenomenon. Read the Globes story.
Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
I would be remiss if I neglect to mention that tonight is my wife’s birthday. This post is serving me as a reminder that I still need to buy her a gift. Maybe I will get her a subscription the the IOI Premium Newsletter! With gold prices surging, I can’t afford to by her actual jewelry, but I can afford to buy some shares in these 2 little-known Israeli stocks, and they are sure to be DIAMONDS in the rough.
Elbit Medical Imaging(EMITF) stock has dropped nearly 20% in the last few weeks. The real estate and bio-tech company was a big winner for investors in ‘07 and even with a slow start to ‘08, I look at ElbitMedical as a star performer this year as well. They are opening a mall in Poland( maybe I can get some cheap jewelry there) which is a continuation of their plans to continue building out the real estate holdings in Eastern European along with some new projects in India. As I have mentioned before, the real story with Elbit Medical is their very large stake in two of the most exciting private (though an IPO is definitely in the cards) companies Israel has to offer. Insightec ltd., develops a product that combines MRI technology with focused ultrasound in order to treat serious diseases such as bone, liver and brain tumors, without the invasive procedures that are currently used. The other private company is Gamida Cell. Gamida Cell is developing, along with the aforementioned Teva, a line of cell therapy products for the treatment of such diseases as leukemia and lymphoma.
Jacada(JCDA) a leading provider of unified desktop and process optimization solutions for customer service operations, has been signing deals right and left and a few weeks ago announced that they were selling their Application Modernization Business to Software AGfor $26 million. They are doing this to solely focus on high growth business, to position Jacada as a pureplay in the call center solutions business. The firm provides a single, unified workspace for customer service organizations managing lots of legacy and disparate software systems. My buddy Zack”I love the Internet” Miller had a great analysisof this deal. I really think Jacada is poised to fly, and in fact with all the current selling on Wall Street, Jacada stock has actually been inching up.
Happy birthday!
Disclosure: Author’s fund holds a position in EMITF and JCDA. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 1/9/08.
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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
