Our past NLT picks: Where are they now?

HyperActive Technologies provides productivity software for quick-service restaurants. Its four-year-old software product, HyperActive Bob, helps drive-thru managers predict what type of food customers will order based on a restaurant's prior sales during certain time periods. Video cameras communicate information about the volume of traffic to Bob to help forecast the amount of food customers will order. The software also helps manage labor costs by tracking which shifts require fewer or additional staff.

Bob is used in Zaxby's restaurants throughout the southeast, and HyperActive plans to roll it out into national fast-food chains in 2008, tripling the company's customer base.

HyperActive also has two new products that it picked up when it acquired QTime Solutions in May 2007. The Qtimer allows managers to monitor drive-thru performance by recording the average amount of time it takes for a car to move from order board to pick-up window.

The HyperView is a digital confirmation board that displays a customer's order and allows the restaurant to flash advertisements for other products the customer may want. For instance, a patron may decide to add a milkshake to his or her order after seeing a photo of one flash across the board. Both products are already in 2,000 drive-thrus.