High-technology manufacturers in the Spokane area are aggressively seeking to expand revenue through the introduction of new products and sales strategies, yet much of their focus is beyond next year.


Telect Inc., of Liberty Lake, which makes gear for many telecommunications uses, is introducing two products, a new telecom cabinet and a fiber-optic platform for cable management, that should increase sales in 2007, says Wayne Williams, president and CEO. Looking to the future, though, it also is broadening its sales approach by targeting individual consumers, instead of selling only to installers and suppliers in larger volumes, he says.


Telects goal is to make its products available to an increasingly knowledgeable public thats putting a priority on telecommunications speed, security, and entertainment, says Williams.


Itron Inc., of Spokane Valley, which primarily sells meter-reading equipment to utilities, expects its revenues to grow about 8 percent next year, but that would be well down from this years gain, which is projected to end up at 16 percent, says Deloris Duquette, vice president of investor relations. She says this years revenue growth has been due mostly to a $120 million contract Itron had with one customer. Itron also, though, is positioning itself for future growth.


The company has a pilot project for a concept called advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) under way at two North American utilities, Duquette says. She says Itron will introduce the concept next year, and expects it to become a significant revenue producer for the company by 2008.


AMI is designed, among other things, to give utilities more control over consumers who exceed energy limits theyve agreed to meet, she says.


Liberty Lake-based ISR Inc., the maker of technology to cool electronics, is positioning itself to become a major player in the commercial sector and thereby augment its sales to the U.S. military, which currently comprise 95 percent of its revenue, says Jeff Severs, president and CEO.


He says ISRs revenue projections for next year are flat, partially because the company wont receive its first revenue from sales to the commercial sector until then. Still, he expects that part of the business to be self-supporting within two and a half years and eventually exceed military revenue for the company.


Part of ISRs commercial sales strategy this year was to buy 10 large server racks at a cost of about $500,000 each, install them with ISR cooling technology, and deploy them for use by businesses Severs hopes will become customers.


Once it enters the commercial market for servers and data centers, ISR plans to expand its SprayCool technology in the future into the automotive and telecommunications industries, Severs says.