EDO Corp CEO , President and Chairman James Smith announced Thursday a major review of all its business units starting next week, to decide on future strategy of the company which he said was not performing as expected and had produced disappointing results this quarter. In a routine phone in Q&A with investors available on the EDO Corp website, Smith revealed that it had already been decided that the company would pull out of the EDO rugged computer business, which includes EDO MBM RUGGED SYSTEMS in Brighton.
http://www.edombmrugged.co.uk/. Rugged computers are used to help in targeting for infantry missile launchers as well as coordinating with air strikes, but EDO have decided the further investment required to keep the business afloat is not worth the risk as there have not been enough orders.
Three months ago EDO Corp sacked 400 workers at one of its Californian factories after losing orders for its flagship Warlock countermeasures sytems to rival companies that do not have such problems with 'externalities' (anti-war protest campaigns, corruption scandals etc). It is not known how many jobs at EDO MBM will be axed as yet. EDO MBM also produce other equipment such as aircraft armament and release units, which form the mainstay of its business, but production of this equipment could be moved to the US where other units of EDO are already producing the equipment. Meanwhile EDO chief James Smith was named as one of the biggest corporate executive profiteers of the 'War on Terror' this summer after it was revealed he had doubled his own
wages since 2002.
Meanwhile EDO lost one of its most distinguished directors this summer when former military commander and CIA man Dennis Blair was forced to resign from the company, and a govt think tank, IDA ,over a 'conflict of interest' scandal concerning a huge multi year contract for the F22 Raptor program. EDO still managed to win a govt contract despite the scandal, and the F22 program was approved by Congress despite opposition from two heads of US Govt procurement committees as well as Donald Rumsfeld and even President Bush. The influnce of Lockheed Martin and insiders within the US military were seen to override even this high level political opposition, and the scandal of the EDO Corp director corruption was quickly forgotten. Many US pundits have described this as evidence to the overwelming power of the military industrial complex in the US.
EDO President James Smith told investors on the Q&A phone in today that he could not talk about the F22 program.
See Wikipedia 'EDO Corporation' for more details on Dennis Blair and the F22 scandal.
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