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The Heartland's Digital Revolution
The impact of the digital revolution has rippled across the United States, affecting not just the well-known tech hot beds of San Francisco, New York and Boston, but transforming areas such as Baltimore and Dayton, OH, according to a new Milken Institute study.
Cities in Silicon Valley and other tech regions are plagued with traffic congestion, skyrocketing rent prices, high business costs and other problems. Many entrepreneurs are escaping those negatives by building their businesses in the heartland.
Cities with populations of less than 500,000 have benefited from the technology explosion, the report says. Reno, NV, Albuquerque, NM, Tulsa, OK, Omaha, NE, and Boise, ID, were among those cited as "emerging technology" regions that provide the "hard" support — manufacturing, services and supplies — for technology and do so with fewer of the drawbacks that trouble major high-tech communities.
"As growing companies in the Bay area and other companies face these problems, they look to other areas," said Harry York, CEO of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce. There are "just a whole lot of things people are looking for ... to get out of the rat race."
Nevada is attractive to techies because they can be close to Silicon Valley yet take refuge in a state with no corporate or personal income taxes, lower housing costs and light traffic congestion. They also have a mountain view and sprawling land — a stark contrast from the metal buildings and office windows crowding areas like San Jose, CA.
"When people get here, they find we have good schools. It's a great place to live. ... They get here and fall in love with us," York said. Reno's longstanding reputation as a gaming town and as part of "the wild west" is changing, York said.
Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Intuit have opened licensing divisions or Internet distribution centers in Reno. IGo and Solntech moved from Silicon Valley to Reno. Employment in the computer and data-processing fields in the area rose 63 percent from 1995 to 1999, data shows, and 36 percent more people now hold jobs related to communications equipment.
Boise, meanwhile, is a huge semiconductor hotbed, and Omaha has been cited by publications like Forbes as one of the top 10 cities for nurturing tech companies, particularly those in telecommunications. Forlorn warehouse districts in areas such as New York's Hudson Square and Santa Monica in Los Angeles also have become new homes for Internet and related businesses, the study shows.
"As the information revolution spreads, and with it the ethos of work styles developed in the first-tier cities [like Silicon Valley and Austin, TX], the prospects are excellent that similar phenomenon may take place in a whole host of other locations," the report states. "Other cities have the advantage of newness."
Upton Tours Michigan
Michigan Republican Fred Upton, head of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, is touring his home state this week to tout the benefits of technology to his constituents.
He kicked off the education portion of his tour earlier this week, and on Friday, he will begin the health care portion. His focus will be on how technology can be used to improve health care for citizens, particularly through tele-health partnerships between urban and rural hospitals. "Right here in our own backyard, we have some of the most cutting-edge technology," Upton said in a statement.
Upton also will visit the Kalamazoo library Friday to discuss ways to protect children online. He will discuss the findings of his first subcommittee hearing this session, which focused on protecting children on the Net through changes to existing domain names.
Tech Happens — In Utah
Salt Lake City hosted big technology officials last Friday at the Sixth Annual Financial Services and Technology Conference spearheaded by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-UT.
Venture capitalists Floyd Kvamme — one of five founding members of Silicon Valley giant National Semiconductor — gave the keynote address and mused on the impact technology will have on everything from education to personal and corporate privacy, reports The Deseret News. In the address, he stumped for better and more school choice, more school accountability and a balanced government role in navigating the future path of technology.
In other Utah news, The Deseret News reports that Gov. Michael Leavitt, R, said last week that the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, which soon will locate in Salt Lake City, is an "icon of the technology industry" and a major cornerstone in legitimizing Utah's place among the hottest high-tech regions in the nation.
The firm, the largest in California, announced plans to put an office in Salt Lake City to help high-tech firms located there grow from entrepreneurial startups to multimillion-dollar global enterprises. Leavitt said the office is a vital component as the state tries to lure Silicon Valley high-tech firms to expand their operations into Utah and help existing state companies grow.
Communications Tops Washington Complaints
For the third year in a row, the communications industry — which includes telecommunications and online services — accounted for the most complaints received by the Washington attorney general's office this year, according to the office.
"Once again, growth in the communications industry was a double-edge sword for consumers in the year 2000," Attorney General Christine Gregoire said in a statement.
The office last year received more than 2,000 communications-related complaints, many involving billing and service problems or failure to provide paid-for services. The top 10 complaint categories involved communications, travel, auto sales, retail sales, electronic shopping, contractors, auto repairs, credit-card issuers, collections, and book and magazine sales.
Minnesota Tracks Child Porn
The workload for Minnesota's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is increasing. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reports that although the group was launched last June and has only made a handful of arrests, the unit added six cases last week alone.
The task force targets people who sexually exploit children in cyberspace and operates with grant money from the Justice Department. It consists of five officers from Minneapolis and St. Paul, and liaisons from the FBI and Postal Inspection Service.
In the past three years, 29 task forces in other states have arrested almost 500 people for related crimes involving the Internet. With industry experts estimating that about 10 million children go online daily, the FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have received more than 37,000 reports about Internet child porn or victims of computer sex crimes since 1996, and officials estimate that less than 1 percent of the offenders have been caught.
Arizona Funds Pour In
A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers Money Tree survey found that Arizona had its best year ever in attracting venture capital last year. Six Arizona companies received a combined $103.3 million in funding during the fourth quarter.
The investments, heavy in technology and Internet-related firms, went to microprocessor parts developer Primarion, e-commerce company Vcommerce, telecom fiber-optics manufacturer NP Photonics, wireless application developer Apriva, health care videoconferencing company iPhysicianNet and online procurement company International Crossing.
When Tech Meets Mentoring ...
A mentoring program created by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, R, is partnering with Intermedia Communications to provide Tampa Bay mentoring programs with more than 250 computers.
The donations are part of Tampa-based Intermedia's effort to support NetDay, a grassroots volunteer program to wire the nation's schools and nonprofit youth organizations to the Internet, and provide them with the equipment to put the technology to use. For NetDay, Intermedia will donate the computers, Microsoft will donate the software and Compaq will provide volunteers.
- by Liza Porteus
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