High technology in high demand

High technology in high demand

Written by Christi Covington Tuesday, 07 August 2007

The 78759 ZIP code has at least 47 of the city’s innovative tech companies, more than double any other ZIP code in Austin — and the tech force keeps coming.

Dave Porter, senior vice president of economic development with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, knows the secret to the area’s appeal.

“First and foremost is the availability of a skilled workforce,” he said.

He points to the recent developments with PayPal Data Services, Inc. and Borland Software Corp., both California companies that decided to expand to Austin, whose representatives praise the large selection of potential employees the city offers.

Talent base

“The main attraction was the pool of people we could dip into,” PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires said. “There was a well-educated workforce of technology people.”

PayPal made the announcement July 11 that it would open a technology development center, which would focus on research, engineering and Web development.

An online payment program owned by e-Bay, PayPal will hire around 300 local technical professionals using 37,500 sq. ft. of the Freescale Seminconductor Inc. building on Parmer Lane with plans to eventually fill 75,000 sq. ft.

Pete Morowski, senior vice president for products at Borland Software, said a three-fold blend of local talent, ease of doing business in Austin and cheaper cost of living drew the company to move its headquarters to Steck Avenue and MoPac. However, Morowski said the people were the greatest incentive to specifically go into Northwest Austin.

“We were clearly looking at the talent pool,” he said. “We didn’t want to go too far north or too far south.”

Borland Software has 1,100 employees worldwide with 200 in Austin. That number will grow as the headquarter transition continues. Although a research and design center was already located in the city, it will expand and be joined by the finance, human resources, facilities, IT and sales operations departments.

As for high tech, Northwest Austin has not always been a hub for the industry, Porter said. Before the 1970s, Austin focused on state government, a trend that was reflected at the educational level.

“Then IBM came and changed that.”

IBM ignition

In December 1966, the Austin American-Statesman headlined the story “New Manufacturing Plant North of Austin to Employ 500.” International Business Machines Corp. executives had announced their decision to build “a mammoth plant” that would manufacture the innovative Selectric typewriter.

Former IBM Vice President Gordon Moodie said at the time that the expansion into Central Texas happened because of Austin’s “fine living and working environment, outstanding educational advantages and impressive recreational and cultural features,” adding that “the kinds of people we need are here.”

Around two-thirds of the employees were to be hired locally to work at the open space of farmland on the outside edge of town. It was IBM’s entrance that initiated the local presence of a significant technology workforce, Porter said.

When UT student Michael Dell began PC’s Limited from his dorm room in 1984, it only spurred tech growth. Almost a decade later, the company, now known as Dell Inc., had moved farther north to Round Rock, but a multitude of other technology ventures began to cluster in the region around IBM and Dell.

“Austin became known as a mini-hub, and now it has become pretty much a major hub,” Porter said.

California factor

The growth will likely continue, he added. Already, the chamber has traveled to California for seven recruiting trips this year to attract more tech business. He has discovered West Coast companies like Northwest Austin for several reasons, including the topography of the land, which reminds them of their home state, a lower cost of living and the availability of higher end homes – and as always, primarily the cluster of talent already living there. The migration-to-Texas trend is important to the City of Austin as a whole, Porter said.

“We need to be where the next idea and the next generation of technology comes from,” he said. “It is the livelihood of the community. Everything is tech now.”

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