"Wanted: A new identity; State, industry leaders in effort to rebrand technology sector" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | February 19, 2009
The state technology industry is having an identity crisis.
Companies like Wang Laboratories and Digital Equipment Corp., which defined Massachusetts in its high-tech heyday, are gone. Most of the dot-coms that once promised new life have fizzled. And a crop of start-ups in emerging fields like robotics, computer games, and mobile communications, have yet to attract widespread attention.
And these are the future, huh?
So like a fading beauty hoping to recapture some glamour, the Massachusetts high-tech sector is preparing for a makeover. Eighteen industry captains, government officials, and academic figures gathered at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge last week to organize a public-private effort under the name Information Technology Collaborative. Their goal is to rebrand and strengthen a business sector that's historically driven the state's economy, participants said....
And destroyed it, too! Looted us dry!
Related:
The State Budget Swindle
Governor Guts State Services
Pigs at the State Trough
The desired new brand would reflect the sector's expansion into new technology niches, while also promoting its role as an enabler of cutting-edge industries such as energy and life sciences.
I'm so tired of good tax money being wasted while we cut teachers, cops, firefighters, etc.
"We're seeing the emergence of a new economic base within the technology sector," suggested Joyce Plotkin, the president of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. She cited growing fields such as cloud computing, open source software, and e-health.
Pffft!
Many of the Massachusetts firms in these niches are relatively small start-ups backed by venture capital.
They somehow manage to FIND MONEY when you can't even get a loan (or job).
Others are divisions of larger companies based out of state.
Which is where the TAXPAYER GIVEAWAYS GO!!!
Most of the biggest state-based technology companies, such as Hopkinton data storage provider EMC Corp., sell their products to other businesses and lack the cachet among consumers of Silicon Valley brands like Google Inc., eBay Inc., and Apple Inc.
EMC Corp?
"Profit declines 45% at EMC
Data storage company EMC Corp. said its fourth-quarter profit fell 45 percent as one-time restructuring expenses weighed on its results. Excluding charges, the Hopkinton company's results beat Wall Street estimates, but EMC said it would not issue any financial guidance due to the uncertain economy. EMC said its earnings for the quarter fell to $288 million.... Revenue rose 5 percent to $4.02 billion... as businesses continued to buy its typically recession-proof data storage products. EMC... is laying off 2,400 people (AP)."
Some Massachusetts technology leaders privately grumbled that Governor Deval L. Patrick neglected the industry early in his term while pressing initiatives to grow the smaller biotechnology and clean energy sectors.
Yup, DEVAL the GLOBALIST AGENDA-PUSHER!
In the past two weeks, however, the governor met with dozens of high-tech executives at the State House and toured the Cambridge Innovation Center, a start-up incubator, before departing with Greg Bialecki, who was recently named Massachusetts secretary of housing and economic development, for a tour of West Coast technology centers.
What was the CARBON FOOTPRINT on that, guv, and you gonna PAY BY the MILE?
While it didn't result in immediate commitments by outside technology companies to expand here, their weeklong trip to Seattle, Portland, Ore., and the San Francisco Bay Area was "about building relationships," Patrick said in an interview. "This is about tomorrow. It's not just about today."
Yeah, well, WE NEED HELP NOW!!!
The new state technology collaborative, which the Patrick administration is working to form, will be similarly future-oriented. "They got off the plane and immediately reached out to Massachusetts companies," said Mark Horan, executive director of the Massachusetts Network Communications Council, a trade group for telecommunications and networking businesses. "The governor seems to be on a mission to help bolster this part of the tech economy."
Yeah, so he can GIVE TAXPAYER DOUGH to GOING CONCRENS and FAVORED INTERESTS -- no matter HOW MUCH is WASTED!
Beyond the broad agreement on the need to update the Massachusetts technology image, however, few concrete ideas emerged at the session to organize the collaborative. The only participant to offer a specific proposal for a new brand was Mohamad Ali, vice president and senior state executive for IBM Corp., who suggested "the Innovation Hub" as a starting point for discussion on how to reposition the Massachusetts technology sector's identity.
IBM, huh?
"$5m in tax breaks going to IBM for Littleton project
The Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council approved $5 million in state and local tax breaks for IBM Corp., which recently began a $63 million expansion in Littleton. IBM vice president Bob McDonald said the company plans to create 42 jobs at the site over the next decade. McDonald said the computer giant, based in Armonk, N.Y., has already begun renovating a building and hopes to move into it next month. McDonald said the tax incentives were important, but the company would have gone forward with the expansion without them. IBM has 4,000 employees in Massachusetts, including about 2,000 in Littleton (Boston Globe October 30 2008)."
Excuse me?
A $5 MILLION TAXPAYER GIVEAWAY that IBM DIDN'T EVEN WANT?
That the kind of repositioning he was thinking of?
Ali, whose company develops chips for supercomputers and computer games, said, "The kind of processors we're developing here rival anything that's built on the planet. Massachusetts is one of the few places with that kind of talent."
Participants haven't determined whether to hire an outside marketing firm to work on the rebranding, how much to spend on the effort, or how to pay for it.
TAXPAYERS BEWARE!
They even debated whether the name Information Technology Collaborative - which conjures up computer servers in data centers - was appropriate for the group that will oversee the rebranding....
So they ALL GOT TOGETHER, ate a meal, and farted around all day -- on the TAXPAYER DIME, no doubt!!
Some doubt the effectiveness of a marketing slogan, as opposed to a name arising organically, the way Route 128 or Silicon Valley seemed to do. And they question whether a campaign to come up with a catch phrase that captures today's amorphous industry will distract from the more important work of building new technology businesses.
Yeah, save the CONCERNS about this WASTEFUL PROJECT until the END. Obviously, the agenda-pushing paper is in favor of the council.
"It's not what you call it, it's where it goes from here," said Howard Anderson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management in Cambridge and a former venture capitalist. "They can call it anything they want, and it doesn't matter. . . . The one and only real asset we still have here is the Yankee brain."
I wouldn't be too proud just yet. That's not the part the state is offering.
