Technology Briefing

In Inc. magazine's annual ranking of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies, 16 Washington state companies made the list. That's up from the previous four years, but not enough to crack the top 10 states in terms of companies.

The top performer from the state was The Insitu Group in Bingen, Klickitat County. The maker of unmanned aircraft ranked 34th, with a three-year sales growth of 1,506 percent. That got it a full-page photo in the magazine and a short profile, with Chief Executive Steven Sliwa saying that the company is a "miniature Boeing."

Others making the top 100: Bellevue-based thePlatform, 65th, online media delivery, recently sold to Comcast; Bellevue-based TechLink Northwest, 68th, temporary employment agency; and Mercer Island-based Global Market Insite, 93rd, online polling company.

Lawsuit dropped against company now called Zango

Zango, an online advertising company formerly known as 180solutions, said that a class-action lawsuit filed against the company has been dropped. The company, which was accused of distributing nefarious advertising programs known as spyware, said that the case was dismissed without settlement. The suit, Logan Simios, et al. v. 180solutions, was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois last September.

"We have maintained from its inception that this case had no merit. The dismissal vindicates that position," said Ken McGraw, Zango's executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer.

Big Fish Games giving customers a commission

Big Fish Games, a Seattle casual game publisher and distributor, Wednesday introduced a new online service that will allow customers to make money by referring their favorite games to friends.

Dubbed My Big Fish Games, the free service allows people to get cash rewards every time their friends make a purchase.

According to the company's news release, when a friend makes a purchase, the player who referred the friend receives 25 percent of the purchase price. And if their friends also join and create their own Game Spaces, the initial referrer will receive 25 percent of their friends' purchases plus 25 percent of the commissions their friends earn from their own game spaces.

Ken Wells, vice president of marketing at Big Fish Games, said the program was started to reward the company's customers and could turn into a substantial moneymaker for some people. He added that there are "no costs, no risk, no pressure."

Customers also can redeem their rewards to buy games at Big Fish or, beginning in October, donate their proceeds to select charities.

WORLD NEWS

Problems may mean fewer PlayStation 3 units at launch

TOKYO -- The release of Sony's PlayStation 3 will be delayed in Europe until March because of problems with producing a key component, the executive in charge of the project said Wednesday. The much-awaited update to the popular game console will go on sale in November in the United States and Japan as planned, but fewer units will be available for the launch dates.

The company is still sticking to its initial global target of shipping 6 million PlayStation 3 machines by March 2007.

The sales delay is caused by a problem in mass producing a key component in the Blu-ray disc laser part of the machine, the next-generation successor to Sony Corp.'s hit PlayStation 2, Sony Computer Entertainment Chief Ken Kutaragi told reporters.

Technology Briefing is written by P-I staff and includes information from The Associated Press and Bloomberg News. Send comments to johncook@seattlepi.com.

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