Vancouver's Fireswirl Technologies, which is trying to switch from a mobile gaming company to one with telecom interests in China, has a new chief executive officer. Tony Lau, a co-founder and a director, is now the CEO following the resignation of president and chief exec Dale Peterson. Ji Yoon, an existing director, has also been appointed interim chief financial officer.
Lau has been the CTO of TradeUnit Limited, a Pan-Asia business-to-business company specializing in electronic components and the CTO of Paystone Technologies, a Canadian payment solutions provider.
Fireswirl, traded on the Toronto Venture Exchange, has been trying to shift its business model. Last year it bought a 3G Platform that allows mobile carriers to use interactive video content. An early customer was Hutchison Telephone Company in Macau. It also began developing a suite of games like poker that can be used on 3G phones. This year it struck a deal with an online retailer of mobile phones in China, iMobile, investing $487,000 in the firm. In addition to sharing profit, Fireswirl gets access to iMobile's customer database for selling value-added services. Last month Fireswirl's, Chinese division paid $1.25 million for a 21 per cent interest in Beijing Tysen Xieli Technology Co., which supplies push e-mail software to China Unicom Shanghai. The deal gives the Canadian company the option of buying another 30 per cent.
For the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2007, Fireswirl lost just over $2 million on revenue of $40,382. At that time it had $4 million in working capital. It October it said it had about $2.5 million in cash.