[Tfug] Open Source solutions

[Jim Secan]

At 12:47 PM 8/22/2007 -0700, Rich wrote:
>> Does anyone who is subscribed to this list feel that the time is  
>> right  (or is about to be right) to try and get an open source- 
>> based network  consulting company off the ground?
>Yes. But here? Probably the last place it would work within these  
>borders.
>
>Doesn't anyone remember two or three years ago, when Tucson was going  
>to be "The Next Silicon Valley"? Today, we're still pottering about  
>with PCC, the UofA, a bunch of hosting companies and the shining  
>light of the Attack Industry.
>
>What scared the IT execs off? It was a lack of something, but was it  
>water, culture, a skilled workforce, public transport, or locality  
>(meaning a lack of a lack of sprawl)? Or did the potential high costs  
>of cooling present an insurmountable burden? Whatever happened,  
>Tucson has been passed over by the IT industry. That says something  
>about the potential success of a forward thinking IT consulting  
>company: maybe it would be easier to get established as a backward  
>thinking Microsoft support company. (I know, acid reflux.)

A few years back I was watching all this very closely, and I came away with
the following observations and opinions:

1.  The people trying to do economic growth in this town don't understand
serious computer high tech.  To many of these people, call centers are IT
high tech.  They don't understand what it takes to get another Silicon
Valley going.  This is one of many reasons Tucson is now on it's third, or
maybe forth, attempt at a high tech incubator since 1999.

2.  The focus is on what these folks call "gazelle" companies.  Companies
that start small and grow enormously in 3-5 years (max).  Big-time ROI for
the initial investors.  While there are companies like this in the IT high
tech world, they don't grow in places like Tucson (reasons to follow).  So,
these movers-and-shakers are trying to grow banana trees on a glacier (not
real productive).  Starting small and growing a community within which
these gazelles might be able to grow is not politically acceptable (takes
too long).

3.  Serious high-tech growth needs lots of little-to-middle sized companies
that use techies, and I do NOT mean call centers.  A serious geek with
software chops worth his/her pay knows that a good job lasts 3-4 years.
They may only WANT the job to last that long.  Knowing this, and probably
not wanting to move from town to town every four years, they want to live
in a place that has lots of opportunities for jobs.  Again, not call
centers and not Raytheon.  Tucson does not have this.

4.  The people doing economic growth seem to spend an inordinate amount of
time keeping themselves employed, doing economic growth stuff.  Every now
and then one of them is run off (I think the last GTEC fellow, the guy from
San Diego, is in this category) or leaves in disgust (or maybe in this
one).  The others just tend to change job titles, or their employer changes
names (GTEC becomes TREO), every few years.  Heck, THEY'RE employed -
what's your problem?  (There are some exceptions to this, but mostly these
are guys who are retired and are doing the work for free or really cheap.)
The fact that the EG leadership in this town let Google open a new facility
in Phoenix last year without anyone in the Tucson EG groups having their
heads handed to them says a lot.

5.  The UofA can be a major help to all this, and they do try, but a
university can do only so much.  In addition, university people really do
not understand business.  Silicon Valley didn't grow because of Stanford,
you could probably make a good case that it grew despite Stanford (everyone
had to leave the university to make things happen).  As it is here in
Tucson, the UofA is one leg of what needs to be at least a three-legged
stool, and there aren't any other legs working.

Lots of other little niggling things, but these are the biggies.  I'm not
optimistic that Tucson will ever get this going in the right direction, and
I'm not sure it even can.  It will take what Hunter Thompson referred to as
a "Great White Shark" to come in, kick ass and take names, and get things
moving.  Barring that, Tucson will remain a call center tech haven, and
little else.

But hey - it's a dry heat (pass me another margarita!).

Jim
*---------------------*-------------------------------*
| Jim Secan           | Northwest Research Assoc, Inc |
| (jim at nwra.com)      | 2455 E. Speedway, Suite 204   |
| (520) 319-7773      | Tucson, Arizona 85719         |
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