BELTWAY BIZ

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Landmark IPO:
Landmark Systems Corp. in Vienna, Va., has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

The company, whose CEO is Katherine Clark, develops performance management software products. The filing price is $10 per share, with a total of 3.2 million shares offered. Lead underwriters on the deal are Unterberg Harris and Wheat First Butcher Singer.

Torrent Hopes to Deluge Market:
Area techies and money people are saying that a tiny local company, Torrent Networking Technologies Corp., is about to give router giant Cisco some much-needed competition.

The Landover, Md.-based company is about to launch its "Gigabit Router" product, which claims to guarantee data service at the price level of local area network switching. The result, say Torrent executives, is that traffic flow is ensured and the bandwidth problem is eliminated.

Torrent was founded by CEO Hemant Kanakia, a former AT&T Bell Labs switching expert. Alexandria, Va.-based Columbia Capital Corp. is financing the company.

Virginia's Foreign Exchange:
Executives from 10 Scottish software firms were set to meet with their Virginia counterparts here this week. The Virginia Scotland Partnership is sponsoring a three-day software showcase, which is designed to introduce the business leaders to each other and encourage partnerships and strategic alliances.

According to the partnership, the Scottish software industry is currently worth $1 billion and includes 550 companies that employ 5,000 people. The partnership was founded in 1996 by Scottish Trade International, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology. It has offices in Herndon, Va., and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Teligent Hooks In:
Wireless local exchange company Teligent Corp., Alexandria, Va., has signed interconnection deals with Bell Atlantic here in Washington, D.C., and Pacific Bell in California. Teligent can now connect its networks to those of the two Bells. In addition, Teligent can install microwave antennas that would carry communications on the Bell networks on the tops of the Bell offices.

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