Software group looks to boost Vt.'s tech image
Published: Thursday, March 22, 2007
By: Leslie Wright, Free Press Staff Writer
SOUTH BURLINGTON -- Amid the Ben & Jerry's, maple syrup and Holstein cows, Vermont's burgeoning software industry is looking to carve out an image of its own.
The group wants the state to step up and do more to help with the effort.
That was the message state officials heard at a luncheon meeting of the Vermont Software Developers Alliance at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center on Wednesday. About 100 attended the event that included an appearance by Gov. Jim Douglas, who presented the group with $25,000 to help pay a salary for its first executive director.
Another $50,000 has been included in the governor's proposed budget for fiscal year 2008, which begins July 1.
Several in the audience focused on the state's gaps in broadband service and spotty cell phone coverage as impediments to building a brand for the state like Silicon Valley has done for California or the Route 128 corridor has done for Massachusetts.
During his comments to the group, Douglas noted that broadband is available in 87 percent of the state and that number should be 90 percent by the end of the year. One of the governor's goals is to make broadband, which allows high-speed access to the Internet, available throughout the state in three years.
The governor in his third term has made high-tech business a focal point of economic development for the state.
Several attendees were skeptical. Pat Robins, co-founder of SymQuest Group Inc. of South Burlington, cast doubt on whether the state could hit 90 percent broadband coverage by the end of the year because he suspects coverage is less than claimed. He also noted that there is stiff competition from across Lake Champlain, where New York state officials have dubbed the stretch from New York City to Plattsburgh as the Tech Valley. SymQuest recently opened an office in Plattsburgh.
"It's a bigger problem than you guys think," Robins said.
Economic Development Commissioner Mike Quinn responded that New York does represent a formidable challenge because of its size and ability to offer economic incentives that Vermont, because of its size, can't match.
"We continue to reach into the same wallets more deeply. We need more wallets," Quinn said.
Jim Tobin, a software consultant from Lyndonville, said his cell phone is virtually useless in the Northeast Kingdom. He wondered why, if he could get cell coverage on a canyon floor in Zion National Park in Utah, he couldn't get coverage at his home. He, too, gauges the number without broadband to be higher, especially on the eastern side of the state.
"That 87 percent number, I can't believe it. Maybe in the Burlington corridor but not in my half of the state," Tobin said.
To David Parker, operations analyst with Dealer.com in Burlington and co-chairman of the software trade group, Vermont's image hinders companies, like his, trying to expand. Potential employees are reluctant to come here because they worry there won't be alternatives if they switch jobs.
"Its image is, in my opinion, one of agriculture and tourism and high-quality food products -- ice cream, maple syrup, apples. It's a pretty big impediment, both trying to recruit people from here and out of state, because people don't see Vermont as a place for software development."
In reality there were 251 software companies employing 2,759 people and with $335.9 million in sales in 2002, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics cited by the software alliance. Getting that word out is the trade group's core mission, Parker said.
Contact Leslie Wright at 660-1841 or lwright@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com