To demonstrate how his newest
product works, Xium Corp. President Greg Dockery gave an employee a
cordless phone and instructed him to walk out of the company's offices.
With the phone's base sitting
on a counter near the door, Marc Ramirez walked out and took a call from
Dockery. Ramirez's cordless phone was equipped with a new antenna
developed by Dockery.
As Ramirez walked away from the offices on the west side of Sunset Center,
his conversation remained clear, save for the wind whistling in the
background. After crossing into the Homeland parking lot several steps and
reaching the flagpoles near Plains Boulevard, Ramirez asked if he was
still heard.
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"Still clear," Dockery replied. "That's more than enough
range for what most people will need."
The antenna, Dockery explains, is based on a design that Dockery calls
"spilateral technology." Although the explanation in simple
terms may leave skeptics scratching their heads, Dockery and his
2-year-old Xium Corp. are in talks with electronics retailers for a range
of products based on wireless applications. He is waiting on a U.S. patent
on the technology, which would be his third.
The technology is based on a spiral lateral inside the antenna, which,
Dockery explains, detects analog and digital signals and concentrates the
energy at the antenna's core. The design also provides an internal
grounding for the wireless device.
Conventional antennas receive signals directionally, which require
specific
mounting for peak reception. With a conventional cordless phone, the
signal
can fade if the phone strays from that area, he said.
Dockery hopes his design will work a break-through in a variety of
wireless
technologies, including cordless and wireless telephones, television and
radio
antennas and satellite dish antennas.
Dockery, 36, began tinkering with electronics as a student at Amarillo
High
School.
A picture-in-picture method for television sets he developed at age 17
drew
interest from manufacturers, he said, but because he did not understand
the
need for a patent, the idea brought him nothing.
Instead of studying electrical engineering, he concentrated on economics
at
Amarillo College. But he always came back to electronics. |
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"I always keep coming back to the engineer," Dockery said.
But economics may be just as important to Xium's success as engineering.
The company employs four engineers in Amarillo and contracts with an
engineer in Round Rock where testing is done.
Dockery, plans to introduce 10 products using the antenna technology.
In addition to telephones and television antennas, he said it will be
marketed in
wireless speakers that overcome the spotty reception of past wireless
speaker
systems.
Through economics, Dockery became familiar with the business models of
Asian electronics firms.
Typically, he said, they will design a product; lease factory space to
assemble
the products and pay marketing companies to distribute the product.
Instead of trying to gear up a large factory to assemble telephones,
satellite
dishes, stereo speakers, computer networking devices and any other
wireless
device requiring an antenna, Dockery contracts for assembly work.
Factories in China, Taiwan and
Malaysia all have produced products for Xium, he said. The products are sold directly by Comtrad Industries and
Novus Marketing through advertisements in magazines and electronics
catalogs.
Once the waiting game for the patent is over, Xium projects selling 4.5
million
wireless items over the next four years, with $25 million in sales
occurring the
first two years, he said.
Licensing the technology to
other manufacturers is also a possibility just as
Dolby sound was licensed and became the standard sound technology for
numerous stereo brands, he said.
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