Massachusetts High Tech Sinks to New Low

Recently I came across a Massachusetts state government bureaucracy called the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative dedicated, according to its web site to fostering 

"a more favorable environment for the formation, retention, and expansion of technology-related enterprises in Massachusetts."

Is such a government bureaucracy really needed in the state that spawned the following businesses without any government intervention (thanks to the web site, route128history.org, for help filling in the blanks from back before my time):

• Alliant
• Analog Devices
• Apollo
• Applix
• Baird Atomic
• Banyan
• Compugraphic
• Computervision/Prime
• Cullinane
• Datamatic (which eventually became Honeywell Information Systems, first employer of Paul Allen before he went back to Seattle to form an obscure startup with a fellow nerd from high school)
• Data General 
• Digital Equipment
• Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier (EG&G)
• EMC
• Groove Networks (later purchased by Paul Allen's little Seattle-based startup)
• High Voltage Engineering
• Lotus
• Netezza
• Polaroid 
• Radio Shack
• Raytheon (got a lot of government contracts though)
• Thermo Electron
• Thinking Machines
• Transitron
• Tyco
• Visicalc (Software Arts)
• Wang Laboratories

I am sure there are a lot of other Massachusetts-based entrepreneurs outside the information technology market, with which I'm familiar, that should make such a list. I am leaving out companies like Bolt-Beranek, Itek and Mitre that received a lot of federal government funding. I am also leaving out companies such as Sylvania and Novell that had/have a large presence in Massachusetts but did not demonstrably have their "formation" here.

It's a sad reflection of the state of high-technology affairs on Route 128, which the state doesn't even call 128 any more. 

Or it's a sad reflection on Massachusetts state government. 

Note 1: To be honest, I shouldn't say all of these companies succeeded without government intervention.  In the 1970s Governor Michael Dukakis tried to get involved in multiple ways, large and small. On the large side, I don't believe any of the companies listed above received the funding described in the linked 1988 Fortune article about private/public partnerships. On the small, 'do-you-carry-a-grudge-a-long-time-Byron' side, the Dukakis administration allegedly gave Ken Olson of Digital Equipment all kinds of infrastructure improvements in that one-horse town Maynard, MA -- near the famous "mill" -- while he wouldn't give Ed deCasto a traffic light on busy Route 9 in Southboro in front of Data General headquarters. 

Note 2: The state bureaucracy to which I object above should not be confused with the more than 30-year-old Massachusetts High Tech Council or the Mass. Technology Leadership Council, which are not government affiliated. The latter was at one time called the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council and before and after that -- I think -- just the Mass. Software Council. It was formed in 2005 by a merger of the Software Council with the New England Business and Technology Association.

-- Dennis Byron

(No financial interest in companies mentioned except a few hundred shares in EMC as I'm waiting for lightning to strike South St. twice)

Comments

[Carla Howell]

If the Massachusetts High Tech Council is "not government affiliated", then why did they oppose 2010 Ballot Question 3 to Roll Back the Sales Tax to 3%?

[dennis]

Carla --

Thanks for the comment.

Sorry if I was unclear but by "not government affiliated" I was constrasting Software Council with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, which is apparently funded by the state and resides on state property, and whose employees -- I believe -- are considered state employees.

That being said, I don't think the fact that a group takes a position one way or another on a ballot question makes it "government affiliated." The Council's employees are not state employees and I do not believe it gets any state-government funding. I recall that the Boston archidiocese has taken a position on different ballot questions but no one would call it "government affiliated."

Thanks again