GSA Technology Council

ScanSource, Inc. has announced complete financial results for its first quarter ended September 30, 2007.

“The first quarter record sales results reflect excellent execution, year over year, in all AIDC/POS, Security and Communications business units,” said Mike Baur, CEO of ScanSource. “Key highlights for the quarter include the continued growth from our International POS and barcoding team during a seasonally slow quarter and better than expected results from our Catalyst communications team.”

For the quarter ended September 30, 2007, net sales increased 12% to $553.7 million compared to $496.2 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2006. Quarterly operating income increased 18% to $25.4 million from $21.5 million for the comparable quarter in September 2006. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 38.0% compared to 38.4% for the prior year. Net income increased 18% to $14.7 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2007 versus $12.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2006. Diluted earnings per share increased 17% to $0.56 per share compared to $0.48 in the prior year quarter. When adjusted to exclude legal and accounting costs of third party providers relating to our Special Committee’s review of the Company’s stock option grant practices, net income for the September 2007 quarter increased 21% versus the prior year quarter.

Forecast for Next Quarter

The Company announced its revenue forecast for the second quarter of fiscal 2008. ScanSource expects net revenues for the December 2007 quarter could range from $550 million to $570 million.

Denny’s Corporation (NASDAQ: DENN) expects to announce financial and operating results for its third quarter ended September 26, 2007 on Thursday, November 1, 2007 after the markets close. Senior management will hold a conference call on the same day at 5:00 p.m. (EST) to discuss these results and answer questions.

Investors and interested parties are invited to listen to a live webcast of the conference call. The webcast may be accessed from the Denny’s website at www.dennys.com. From the main page select the “Investor Relations” link and then select the link under “Upcoming Events”. A replay of the call may be accessed at the same location later in the day and will remain available for 30 days.

Denny’s is America’s largest full-service family restaurant chain, consisting of 468 company-owned units and 1,071 franchised and licensed units, with operations in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Guam, Mexico, New Zealand and Puerto Rico.

Upstate-based Rosenfeld Einstein, one of South Carolina’s largest and fastest-growing insurance organizations, has added Jay Terry as Commercial Account Executive at the regional brokerage and consulting firm.

A native of Greenville and a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a B.S. in business management and marketing, Mr. Terry joins Rosenfeld Einstein after running his own insurance firm in Charleston, South Carolina, where he previously worked with Palmer & Cay Insurance.

Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Bowater Incorporated today announced that they have reached an agreement with the United States Department of Justice that will allow the completion of the proposed combination of the two companies. Under the terms of the agreement, which was signed and filed today in the U.S. Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., the companies have agreed to divest one newsprint mill, Abitibi-Consolidated’s mill in Snowflake, Arizona. The Snowflake mill has an annual capacity of approximately 375,000 tonnes. Scotia Capital Inc. will be engaged as exclusive financial advisor for the sale of the Snowflake mill and related assets, and all inquiries or expression of interest should be forwarded directly to their attention.

The proposed combination has now received all necessary regulatory approvals, including those from the Canadian Competition Bureau, the Federal Minister of Industry under the Investment Canada Act, the Quebec Superior Court and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the necessary approvals from shareholders of both Abitibi-Consolidated and Bowater. The combination is expected to close by the end of the month, following the completion of certain administrative formalities.

Due to a scheduling conflict, the Greenville Area Security Professionals have canceled their October 25, 2007 meeting. Watch here for any announcements of meetings next year. (GASP normally takes November and December off.)

NuVox Communications, an integrated communications company, today announced it has earned the Cisco Powered Program Multiservice – IPVPN (Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network) service designation for its VoxNET Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) service. NuVox offers IP-based communications solutions including VoIP, MPLS VPN, and managed security services based on a Cisco network to business customers across the Southeast and Midwest.

NuVox’s VoxNET service provides a wide area network solution with QoS levels to support a full range of business networking applications. VoxNET incorporates a private, secure network solution built on the company’s core MPLS network, with comprehensive service level performance guarantees for latency, jitter, and packet loss. NuVox extends the MPLS network to the customer premise by deploying Cisco’s 2400 series Integrated access devices (IADs) and their 2800 and 3800 series Integrated Services Routers (ISRs), enabling the application of QoS policies at the customer edge. With VoxNET service, NuVox controls the quality of service all the way from the lowest speed customer link to the core.

“Cisco shares our vision that a robust IP network is the foundation for delivering business solutions that will provide our customers with the performance, flexibility, and financial benefits that these new services deliver,” said Keith Coker, Chief Technology Officer for NuVox Communications. “By deploying Cisco’s market leading technology, we are able to bring greater value to our customers and help them achieve their business goals.”

For NuVox customers, VoxNET allows them to combine their local voice connection over the same bandwidth carrying private network connects. Further, with VoxNET, business customers receive detailed management reports on how their network is functioning, allowing them to proactively make adjustments as necessary.

“The Cisco Powered Program is designed to help participant managed service providers, like NuVox, envision, build and market new services and build revenue streams for a rapidly changing marketplace,” said Al Safarikas, Senior Director of Managed Services Marketing, Cisco Systems. “Cisco is committed to being the leading enabler of integrated, innovative, scalable, high value managed services offerings. We are pleased to work with companies like NuVox that are implementing market leading services.”

NuVox’s participation in the Cisco Powered Program demonstrates to businesses NuVox’s ability to provide industry-leading services based on Cisco solutions. NuVox also benefits from its Cisco Powered Program designation through joint marketing initiatives and technology sharing with Cisco.

Lovemypets, LLC, will demo their recently-launched revolutionary pet safety solution as a part of their participation in the Critter Connection’s 3rd Annual “Paws at the Falls” event on Saturday, November 3rd, at Cleveland Park in Greenville, SC. The annual event unites animal advocacy organizations and rescue groups for a day of interactive and informative activities, contests, and demonstrations, with a goal to educate attendees on the plight of animals in the Upstate community. The event will include an adoption showcase.

Selah Technologies, a nanomaterials innovator and manufacturer, has been named a 2007 finalist in the annual InnoVision Technology Awards Program. “This recognition provides further validation of our company as it enters the commercialization phase. It’s truly an honor to be recognized by the InnoVision judging committee. We are actively bringing Selah Tubes to the marketplace and this honor serves as a gauge for our marketplace acceptance of this nanotechnology innovation,” said Michael Bolick, President and CEO of Selah Technologies.

Selah Technologies (www.selahtechnologies) obtained a worldwide exclusive license to develop and commercialize the patent-pending platform nanotechnology Selah Tubesâ„¢ in 2006. Selah Tubesâ„¢ are an innovative product made possible by a breakthrough technology invented at Clemson University and further developed by Selah. The innovative technology will be used to replace traditional transparent electrode coatings in electronic applications.

Palmetto Consulting, a Greer-based IT Consulting firm will focus on acquiring small to medium sized clients in the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson corridor. Paul Savitz, the Founder and Senior Network Engineer is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE). The firm will seek to service local businesses that either have no onsite IT staff or those with a limited staff who need supplemental IT resources for special projects.

For additional information on Palmetto Consulting or to reach Savitz, call (864) 382-9543 or visit their website at www.PalmettoConsultingSC.com.

The department of bioengineering at Clemson University has received $2 million in grants to study radiation-induced bone loss.

Both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a branch of NASA, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), are primary contributors of funds to the study as a result of its two-dimensional application.

The mechanical testing of mouse bones allows for the examination of changes in bone strength after irradiation, modeling both clinical and space exposure.The study addresses bone loss that occurs as the result of radiation therapy for cancer treatment and from solar and cosmic radiation during space exploration.

NIH is contributing nearly $400,000 in grant money for Clemson researchers to develop an animal model that will enable them to study bone loss caused by radiation therapy. The research could result in the kind of knowledge necessary to develop bone-loss therapies to aid a large and increasing community of cancer survivors.

Concurrently, NASA and NSBRI are funding a $1.6 million grant to support research that will examine the effect of space radiation on bone loss for astronauts.

The two dimensions of the bone-loss study are similar in that both involve testing mouse and rat bones after exposure to radiation, but the two studies vary in the type and amount of radiation. Clinical doses of radiation treatment for pelvic cancers come largely from high-dose X-rays compared to lower doses of proton and heavy ion radiation to which astronauts will be exposed in future spaceflight missions.

Solar particle events can expose astronauts to damaging levels of proton radiation.Ted Bateman, professor and director of the Osteoporosis Biomechanics Laboratory (www.batemanlab.com), is conducting the research to understand the molecular and cellular basis for bone loss caused by radiation. The knowledge that his lab develops will assist in the development of countermeasures applicable to both cancer treatment and spaceflight.

“These grants are a tremendous endorsement of our bone-loss research,” said Bateman.

“This is an untreated problem in cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy and also a problem we will see as space travel expands to the moon and Mars. Currently, astronauts on the International Space Station lose bone mass at five times the rate that women lose bone mass following menopause. Past studies confirm that patients who are undergoing radiation treatment for cancer experience more fractures, and hip fractures are particularly damaging to long-term health. We hope to provide data that contributes to prevention of these fractures, and ultimately to improve quality of life for cancer survivors.”

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported a 60 to 200 percent increase in hip-fracture rates following radiation treatment for pelvic cancers in women. Breaking a hip often causes a large decline in quality of life and leads to death in approximately 20 percent of people with fractures.

Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals also is supporting the clinical application of this research to examine prevention of fractures.

In the space application of the research, rapid bone loss occurs as a result of the weightless environment and may be made worse by the radiation astronauts will experience on extended missions to the moon and Mars.

Related grant support includes a fellowship from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for graduate student Eric Bandstra to study space radiation and bone loss. Senior graduate student Jeff Willey has received a post-doctoral fellowship from NSBRI to support his continued research with radiation-induced bone loss at Clemson and Wake Forest universities.

Collaborators on the NIH grant include Wake Forest University Medical Center. The NIH project is Grant Number R21AR054889 from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Collaborators on the NSBRI grant include NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Loma Linda University Medical Center.