WASHINGTON, D.C. – SRA International, a tech services and consulting concern in Fairfax, Va., has twice graced our annual list of America’s Best Mid-Caps. But making that elite cut hasn’t protected the company’s stock price, down 21% over a one-year period.

The dip may be an investment opportunity.

What’s bothering SRA International’s stock? Among other factors, explains A.G. Edwards analyst Mark C. Jordan, the high cost of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan has created uncertainty and delay, which is affecting spending on the information technology services that SRA provides: designing, managing and protecting networks for government agencies. The company does just under three-fifths of its business with national security customers, 32% with civilian government agencies and 9% in health care, along with a smattering of commercial work.

Full story at Forbes.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Christopher Gettings, chief executive of Chantilly, Va.’s, VideoNext, has his full share of an entrepreneur’s most important asset: pluck.

“My confidence in what we’re doing is phenomenal,” says Gettings, 43.

VideoNext’s 28 employees develop software that displays the images and stores data drawn from video cameras (analog and digital), sensors and the like. The company’s product turns a PC into a command center, complete with virtual joystick, allowing the user to track multiple views from multiple security cameras on a Web-browser-type application. On the back end, the company asserts, the software can analyze the images and data to help the user to distinguish animals from people, track vehicle speed and measure crowd density, among other functions.

The software looks timely, given public and private sector fixation on security, as well as large-scale and data-rich government initiatives in physical access and radio frequency identification. Indeed, VideoNext’s customers hail mostly from big government agencies and the U.S. military. Gettings is mum on his top line, allowing only that the company broke even on sales somewhere between $1 million and $10 million.

Full story at Forbes.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Just prior to Congress’s August recess exit, the Business Software Alliance notched a few legislative victories. One was the Senate’s ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. The other was the introduction of a patent reform bill similar to House legislation meeting with BSA approval.

But for BSA–a technology trade group representing the likes of Apple Computer, Microsoft and SAP–a truly noteworthy moment came a year ago last summer. Then, BSA chief Robert Holleyman had one of the more pleasant encounters that a Beltway lobbyist can hope for.

Full story at Forbes.com

WASHINGTON D.C. – A new study from the National Association of Manufacturers describes the “substantial collateral benefits” realized by a handful of companies in their efforts to harden their supply chains against the threats of terrorism, natural disaster and energy shortages.

“This does seem to suggest that we ought not look at investments in global security on one hand as separate from investments in business performance,” said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the Manufacturing Institute, NAM’s research arm, at a press event on Tuesday at the association’s Washington headquarters. Flanking Jasinowski were executives from Dow Chemical, a participant in the study, and IBM, its sponsor.

That message will delight certain government officials. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, regulators at U.S. Customs and Border Protection and elsewhere have strained to convince the business community that security measures can coexist with, even enhance, the free flow of commerce. “This is really an outstanding piece of work,” said Michael C. Mullen, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Policy and Planning, of the study.

Another group that will cheer the survey: technology hardware and services outfits such as IBM, Motorola and Unisys. As the government has pushed its post-9/11 trade security initiatives–among them the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and the Container Security Initiative–these companies have moved in to pick up related business.

Full story at Forbes.com