By PAUL WALKE
When a person thinks of computer and software technology, often 'silicon' valley in California comes to mind. But Utah is rapidly becoming the next center of information technology and software development.
There are 1,700 information technology industries in Utah, employing nearly 35,000 Utahns, making Utah one of the top 10 centers of technological activity. This number has grown tremendously in the last 10 years, partly because of the information technology boom and partly because of the intelligent work force along the Wasatch Front.
Many of these companies are spin-offs from BYU and the University of Utah. WordPerfect was begun by a BYU student and a BYU professor under contract from the city of Orem. Orem city government asked Bruce Bastian, a student, to write a word processing program for its use. When he finished, he retained the rights to the code and asked Alan Ashton, a BYU professor, to be his partner and to oversee the business end of the company. It is now one of the premier word processors in the world.
Evans & Sutherland in Salt Lake City began in the 1960s producing archaic flight simulators. Today, it creates computer-generated images for military and NASA flight simulators. They also create virtual reality systems.
Novell Inc. was a dying company in California 12 years ago when Ray Noorda made the decision to bring the company to Utah. Since then it has grown into the top network software developer in the industry. Novell purchased WordPerfect in 1994, then sold it to Corel Corp. last month.
While not all the information technology companies in Utah are global powers, they still flourish. PowerQuest Corp. of Orem developed a product called PartitionMagic which lets users modify hard-disk partitions and resize hard-disk storage units without destroying data. The product began shipping in March and reached $1 million in sales six months later. PowerQuest received the Outstanding Business of the Year by the Provo-Orem Chamber of Commerce and the best utility at the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas.
'There is a good support for entrepreneurs in Utah,' said Candace Steelman, marketing director for PowerQuest Corp. 'Other areas of the country are more leery of start-up businesses.'
Many of the information technology companies that are in Utah have less than five employees, said Mike Dial, Orem City Manager. 'Each of these companies comes into town and finds a niche,' he said, 'and there's a market for each one of them.'
The key for each company is to do something different than what everyone else is doing. Even if a new product is in high demand, the technology industry is growing so rapidly that a simple idea can turn into a million dollars in record time.
The UK/US Partners in Technology Conference on March 6 and 7 in Salt Lake City is a good indication of the power of the technology industry in Utah. Information technology companies from all over the West and from the British Isles will share ideas and show off new products