Computer Software

It's been 10 years since Sid Meier and Bill Stealey, a pair of computer experts, left General Instruments in Hunt Valley and started MicroProse Inc., a software company dedicated to producing computer games. The idea all along was for Sid to design the games and for Bill to sell them, and from their first offering -- a primitive flight simulation called "Hellcat Ace" -- they seemed a perfect match.Today MicroProse, headquartered in Hunt Valley, has grown to several hundred employees worldwide, and is recognized as one of the most successful and profitable software entertainment companies in the business.

The PriceWaterhouseCoopers quarterly MoneyTree report is out, and it shows who scored nice chunks of capital from investors in the Baltimore area. The report is a collaboration with the National Venture Capital Association, and uses data from Thomson Reuters. Here are the Baltimore companies -- expect to see them in the news more and more:   NameCityIndustry SectorMoneyTree StageAmountShort Business DescriptionList of All Investors in the Sequence rel-MD, Inc. Baltimore Biotech-Human Early Stage 46000 rel-MD, Inc. develops small molecule drugsfor the treatment of cancers.

Carmen M. Grago, a computer software consultant and musician who was a founder of the rock band Charlie Don't Surf, died Sunday in a hit-and-run automobile accident in Capitol Heights. The former Parkville resident was 44. Mr. Grago, who lived in Waldorf, had parked his car on the shoulder of Interstate 495 when it was struck in the rear by another automobile, state police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other driver fled on foot and was being sought yesterday. Mr. Grago was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and moved to the Parkville area with his family in the 1960s.

Maryland energy regulators have ordered Exelon Corp. to explain how the company "inadvertently" violated some conditions related to its merger with Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group. As part of Maryland Public Service Commission's approval for the deal, the companies agreed to several conditions, including selling Constellation's three coal-fired plants in Maryland to mitigate concerns over market concentration in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid. Until the plants could be sold, the companies agreed to sell power from those facilities as well as others in the region's wholesale energy market at a price it costs to operate the plants, said Exelon spokeswoman Judith Rader.

Suppose you bought a computer program that crashed and trashed your system -- and the only place you could sue for damages was in Ireland. Suppose a software giant sued you because you posted unkind comments on the Internet about a program that didn't work. Or suppose the family photos you posted on the Web turned up in a big company's advertising campaign -- and you learned the company had the right to your image simply because you used one of its programs to edit the photos. You already may have agreed to terms like these when you broke the plastic seal on a software package or clicked an "I accept" button on a program you downloaded from the Internet.

Maryland energy regulators have ordered Exelon Corp. to explain how the company "inadvertently" violated some conditions related to its merger with Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group. As part of Maryland Public Service Commission's approval for the deal, the companies agreed to several conditions, including selling Constellation's three coal-fired plants in Maryland to mitigate concerns over market concentration in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid. Until the plants could be sold, the companies agreed to sell power from those facilities as well as others in the region's wholesale energy market at a price it costs to operate the plants, said Exelon spokeswoman Judith Rader.

LOS ANGELES -- With piercing blue eyes, a computer graphic of Adolf Hitler tells players in an underground video game that they have been "promoted" for running a skillful Nazi death camp and efficiently gassing the "parasites" from the German population.In a chilling commercialization of the Holocaust and an exploitation of computer game technologies, a game centered on the killing of concentration camp prisoners is one of scores of anti-Jewish and anti-Turk games now circulating among computer software users in Austria and Germany.

The PriceWaterhouseCoopers quarterly MoneyTree report is out, and it shows who scored nice chunks of capital from investors in the Baltimore area. The report is a collaboration with the National Venture Capital Association, and uses data from Thomson Reuters. Here are the Baltimore companies -- expect to see them in the news more and more:   NameCityIndustry SectorMoneyTree StageAmountShort Business DescriptionList of All Investors in the Sequence rel-MD, Inc. Baltimore Biotech-Human Early Stage 46000 rel-MD, Inc. develops small molecule drugsfor the treatment of cancers.

Members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants are answering readers' tax questions through April 15.Q: Last year I started a personalized book business. I purchased a license agreement and agreed to purchase the raw materials )) from this firm in Texas. The cost of that was about $1,500 and the license fee is $195 every year. Can I deduct all those costs as business expenses or, since basically the main part of what I bought is software, do I have to amortize it over 15 years?

Arnold Bennett "Arnie" Cushing, co-founder of a computer software company that specializes in serving the restaurant industry, died Sunday of complications from Parkinson's disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 58. Mr. Cushing was born and raised in Norwood, Mass., where he graduated from Norwood High School in 1970. He earned a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1974 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and later earned a master's degree in computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.

Arnold Bennett "Arnie" Cushing, co-founder of a computer software company that specializes in serving the restaurant industry, died Sunday from complications of Parkinson's disease at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 58. Mr. Cushing was born and raised in Norwood, Mass., where he graduated from Norwood High School in 1970. He earned a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1974 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and later earned a master's degree in computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.

The Columbia Association has agreed to pay a local consultant $150,000 to determine whether the troubled accounting and customer service software system, under development for much of the past decade, should be saved or scrapped. KPMG, with offices in Baltimore and Washington, has eight weeks to make recommendations on what to do with the Customer Services System computer software, said Rob Goldman, CA's chief operating officer. "They're going to provide CA options," he said.

OXFORD, Miss -O. - Would you spend countless hours developing a novel business method if you knew you couldn't protect it with a patent? Most of us wouldn't. Yet before the U.S. Supreme Court is a case that could have severe consequences for the incentives that fuel such job-creating innovations. While a ruling in Bilski and Warsaw v. Kappos isn't expected until next spring, let's hope the court doesn't fall prey to the arguments of Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig and other supporters of the "open source" movement in computer software.

Bobby Jones - perhaps the greatest golfer of all time - has been dead for nearly 35 years, so it's impossible to know for certain. But it's probably safe to assume that Jones never foresaw a day when golfers from all around the world would be using missile defense technology to help them hit a golf ball farther at Augusta National. That, however, is exactly what's happening these days, yet the practice isn't limited to professional golfers seeking to gain an edge before playing in The Masters.

Carmen M. Grago, a computer software consultant and musician who was a founder of the rock band Charlie Don't Surf, died Sunday in a hit-and-run automobile accident in Capitol Heights. The former Parkville resident was 44. Mr. Grago, who lived in Waldorf, had parked his car on the shoulder of Interstate 495 when it was struck in the rear by another automobile, state police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other driver fled on foot and was being sought yesterday. Mr. Grago was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and moved to the Parkville area with his family in the 1960s.

John David Sekercan, a computer software engineer who worked in the aerospace industry, died of pancreatic cancer Monday at his sister's Glen Arm home. He was 46. Born in Malden, Mass., he moved to Towson with his parents as a 3-year-old and was a 1976 graduate of Boys' Latin School. His father, Dr. Kirkor Sekercan, an anesthesiologist on the staff of Greater Baltimore Medical Center, interested him in computers through a side business he owned, CompUmed. "He and his father loved to deconstruct and rebuild computers before a lot of people even knew what they really were," said Mark L. Lynne, a childhood friend from Monkton.

Pacific Animated Imaging Corp., an Annapolis-based firm specializing in computer software training programs for industry, said yesterday it is entering the booming consumer market for educational and entertainment-oriented software.The company has hired San Francisco software publishing and marketing expert Steve Palladino and his company, Steve Palladino & Associates, to head the new department that will spearhead the venture. The department, Pacific Animated Imaging Consumer Software, will be based in San Francisco, considered one of the prime locations for new consumer software program development in the United States.

Texas Instruments Inc. said yesterday that it would eliminate 875 jobs over the next nine months, including about 35 at its computer software center in Hunt Valley.The Hunt Valley workers would be among the first to feel the impact of the layoffs, which the company attributed to a declining Defense Department budget. Workers at the Baltimore County complex were scheduled to be notified this week, according to Leslie Price, a Texas Instruments spokeswoman.She said they would be given 60 days before losing their jobs and the company would assist them in finding new employment.

Anthony F. Rettaliata Jr., 53, software salesman A Mass of Christian burial for Anthony F. Rettaliata Jr., a computer software salesman, will be offered at 1 p.m. today at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, 100 Church Lane in Cockeysville, where he was a member. Mr. Rettaliata, who was 53 and lived in Timonium, died Monday when his car ran off Interstate 70 west of the Patapsco River bridge and overturned. Born in Baltimore and raised on Cherrydell Road in Catonsville, he was a 1969 graduate of Cardinal Gibbons High School and earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.