Echelon Corp, Palo Alto, California inventor of the Local Operating Network of cheap control nodes, says annual sales are running at between $15m and $25m and that it doesn’t expect to be operating profitably until early next year: according to the Wall Street Journal, Echelon will this week announce a new round of funding with financier George Soros’s Quantum Fund putting up $10m for a 5.4% stake and Motorola Inc, which has already invested $20m, coming back for more, putting up $10m to take its stake to 21%; the Neuron chip is currently made by Motorola and Toshiba Corp, and a third licensee is now being sought.
