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From Paul Nadolny. On 2000-05-17 the Asbury Park Press published this article by David P. Willis covering the "First Annual Silicon Parkway Summit." Perhaps if I had been more timely with Siliconia updates, Willis (or the Summit's founders) would have been on notice that the name has already been claimed (see below).
From John M. Moran. His article Silicon Parkway: Cruising Connecticut's Tech Corridor appeared on 2000-02-20 in the Hartford Courant. It is no longer available at the newspaper's site, so is linked above to a copy on the site of one of the companies profiled. The next day, another Silicon Parkway company snapped up the obvious domain name and is using it as a corporate portal.
From Clifford E. Gregory <cgregory at tiac dot net>: "Here is an excerpt from Kempele's home page:
The district of Kempele is located on the Ostrobothnian coast of Northern Finland close to the university city of Oulu. Kempele nowadays houses a number of Finnish hi-tech companies operating on the international market, the highly qualified staff necessary for which have been provided by Oulu as the centre of hi-tech expertise in the region. Kempele Local Council has pursued a courageous, forward-looking economic policy which has given the district a reputation as Finland's silicon plain."
From Chuck Hildebrand <Chuck at Hildebrand dot com>: "Lincoln, Nebraska was referred to as both Silicon Prairie and the Silicon Plains when I was working for a software company there, HealthCare Communications, back in the 1980's. There have been a number of software companies located in Lincoln over the years, which I presume was the reason for the reference."
From Joshua Levy <joshua at intrinsa dot com>. This article in Israel's main English-language newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, is titled Silicon Plains. It talks about "Israel's Silicon Valley," following up an earlier story (dated 1997-02-12 and bylined Galit Lipkis Beck) that seems no longer to be online. The earlier article described Atadim Park as housing 11 buildings occupied by 85 high-tech companies that employ 3,500 people.
From Clifford E. Gregory <cgregory at tiac dot net>
This article uses the term Silicon Plantation to describe Virginia. At the time of the article Manassas had just been chosen as the site for a new IBM-Toshiba semiconductor chip plant, following Motorola, which had built a fab in Richmond.
> Known as Silicon Plateau because of its 114 export-oriented soft-
> ware companies (many of them joint ventures with global corporations),
> Bangalore has been prospering because of its large pool of low-cost
> professionals, but the city's infrastructure has not kept pace with
> the growth and is in danger of collapse. Power cuts and voltage reduc-
> tions occur every day, and the managing director of one computer com-
> pany says that one in three phone calls fails to reach the switchboard.
> (Financial Times 5 Oct 95 p25)
(See also India's Silicon Valley.)
From Coen Engelbarts <coen.engelbarts at cmg dot nl>: "There are several initiatives to boost IT companies in the Netherlands that use the name Silicon Polder. A large part of the Netherlands consists of polders, land that was reclaimed from the sea or from lakes, swamps, and rivers.
I'm afraid the following links are all in Dutch."
From Chuck Hildebrand <Chuck at Hildebrand dot com>: "Lincoln, Nebraska was referred to as both Silicon Prairie and the Silicon Plains when I was working for a software company there, HealthCare Communications, back in the 1980's. There have been a number of software companies located in Lincoln over the years, which I presume was the reason for the reference."
The Silicon Prairie Technology Association is threatening to sue another Prairie claimant, SPIN (see No. 8 immediately below). This threat is the first of its kind. What in the world makes the ninth Silicon Prairie organization think they have an exclusive right to this name? Silicon Prairie No. 2, in Iowa (see below), has been using -- and has trademarked -- this name since at least 1982.
From Sara Burns <sara at geolectica dot com>: The Silicon Prairie Interactive Network (whose logo is a tornado, get it?) was threatened with a lawsuit by the proprietors of the SPTA (see above). SPIN has posted a page linking the various legal maneuverings. The controversy seems to have tapered off; the most recent volley was fired in June 1998.
From Brian Lundgren <brianl at leonardo dot lmt dot com>: "I don't have an official citation for these, but often over the past 5-10 years I've heard the Twin Cities metro area (home to 3M, Honeywell, Control Data, and 10,000 tech startups) referred to, depending on the season, as Silicon Snowbank and Silicon Prairie -- the latter more specifically in reference to the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, which has steadily been replacing cows with cell phones."
From M M Rasenick <rasenick at aol dot com>: "I know that this is not the one you need more of, but I have read, in various Chicago newspapers (Tribune, Sun-Times, Crain's Chicago Business), part of the Chicago area referred to as Silicon Prarie. Chicago's North Suburbs (commonly called the "North Shore") and its Northwest suburbs are home to companies such as Motorola, USRobotics, and Zenith Data Systems... Also tech start-ups like Spyglass Inc., and [other resources such as] Argonne and Fermi National Labaratories, and Northwestern University." There is some indication that Chicago now prefers to call itself the Silicon City.
A story of armed robberies of computer chips was prefaced by the anchorperson introducing Silicon Prairie as descriptive of an area north of Dallas. Among the companies in this area that had recently been robbed at gunpoint are Computrend, JM Systems, and Cyrix.
From Bill Bush <bill at bush dot com>: "I first heard it in 1985 from a then-student at U of I, Dirk Grunwald; I gathered he didn't make it up, and that it was in fairly common use."
From Jeannine Mosely <j9 at concentra dot com>: "It was also the birthplace of the HAL 9000, a fact that never failed to raise a cheer from the audience when '2001' played there."
A Gateway 2000 advertisement on U.S. network television in passing dropped a reference to Silicon Prairie, meaning South Dakota where Gateway has its headquarters. Sioux City, Iowa (and South Sioux City, SD) also contend for the Siliconium, as this is where Gateway 2000 got its start.
From Brett Lorenzen <alchemy at avalon dot net>: "We had a student bulletin board at the U[niversity] of Iowa dating as far back as the early 80s (I remember it being active when I started in 82) called The Silicon Prairie. The same people are still using the name for a ... software venture out of Fairfield, Iowa ... They still maintain some formal rights to the name and domain name -- they made a big stink when we tried to re-use it last summer."
The Web page for Silicon Prairie / InfoPlex claims the following as service marks or trademarks: "IowaNet, Iowa.Net, Iowanet, Iowa.net, iowanet, iowa.net, IOWAnet, iowaNET, Iowa Online, Alternative Iowa, and Silicon Prairie." However, the Chicago Tribune now owns the domain names silicon-prairie.com and siliconprairie.com. -- kd
From A. Padgett Peterson <PADGETT at hobbes dot orl dot mmc dot com>: "The southern part of Ed Bluestein Blvd in Austin, Texas was often referred to as the Silicon Prairie. "
From Tom Asbury <tasbury at mail dot well dot com>: "Also heard Seattle referred to as The Silicon Rain Forest when I lived there back in the 80's."
From Phil Fraundorf <philf at newton dot umsl dot edu>: "One regional information technology consortium not on your list is the silicon river consortium in Missouri. Work on catalyzing state incentives has been underway for about a year now, but its roots go way back. I have been collecting some informal links related thereto, and am working to outline, fill-in, and maintain them."
It's been a while since I updated this page, and several people sent me this Siliconium, which is the invention of the Cape Cod Technology Council. In order they are:
The Silicon Sandbar coalition looks to be a thriving institution with nearly 250 member companies. They sponsor activities year-round, including a golf tournament -- quite appropriate for the Cape. They seem to have gotten the word out to the media effectively. One of my correspondents mentioned seeing the Siliconium in a newspaper story and another heard it broadcast over a Boston public radio station.
TBTF Irregular Chuck Bury pointed out this 1998 Time Magazine article reporting on the use of Silicon Saxony to describe this most prosperous of the eastern German states. This 1999 AP story about the former East Germany said, "There's talk of Silicon Saxony, a nub of biotech, electronics and software firms that have clustered around the state capital of Dresden in the decade since the Berlin Wall fell." The Economist gave perspective on the magnitude of Dresden's turnaround: "The low-lying area around Dresden was known in East German times as the 'valley of the clueless,' because locals could not tune into western television."
From Brian Lundgren <brianl at leonardo dot lmt dot com>: "I don't have an official citation for these, but often over the past 5-10 years I've heard the Twin Cities metro area (home to 3M, Honeywell, Control Data, and 10,000 tech startups) referred to, depending on the season, as Silicon Snowbank and Silicon Prairie -- the latter more specifically in reference to the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, which has steadily been replacing cows with cell phones."
Richard Mervyn Leveridge wrote that the term Silicon Spires is gaining currency to denote the high-tech software and biotech companies establishing on the edge of Oxford, often as university spin-offs. The term derives from 19th century poet Matthew Arnold's description of Oxford as the City of Dreaming Spires.
A note from the Cambridge Network describing the second running of Oxford's Venturefest uses the term Silicon Spires in the context of the perennial Cambridge-Oxford rivalry. And this 1999 article on developments in Scotland's Silicon Glen says, "Scotland's ambition... is to build centers of high-technology innovation challenging rivals like Cambridge (Silicon Fen) or Oxford (Silicon Spires), both set up explicitly to tap academia's knowledge for industrial purposes."
From A. Padgett Peterson <PADGETT at hobbes dot orl dot mmc dot com>: "The Pratt & Whitney Government Products Division out rt. 710 near Indiantown, Florida was known as the Silicon Swamp. "
From Janie Sites <janie at asksam dot com>: "The president of the company I work for [Phil Schnyder <phil at askSam dot com> -- kd] is credited with naming our area the Silicon Swamp. It caught on very quickly. We operate a software company in a very small southern town in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. We have distributors all over the world and a large site on the Web. A subsidiary of our company is also the local Internet service provider. We live in a very rural community which seems to be surrounded by swamp-land -- especially during the rainy season."
From David Taffs <dat at ebt dot com>: "Isn't the research triangle in North Carolina somewhere called the Silicon Triangle? I'm not sure about this one."
From Robert Porter <robert at oissvr dot ricommunity dot com>: "I've never heard of the Research Triangle (Raleigh - Durham - Chapel Hill), home of Research Triangle Park, called the Silicon Triangle. As a matter of fact, I don't think they'd like that too much. It's usually called 'RTP,' 'The Research Triangle,' or just 'The Triangle.' "
From Clifford E. Gregory <cgregory at tiac dot net>:
"I associate the term Silicon Tundra with the Minneapolis/ Note that the above-cited URL reinforces Ottawa's claim to Silicon Tundra,
as the city (actually its suburb, Kanata) was once home to
Tundra Semiconductor, since
acquired by Newbridge.
From Jos Geluk <jgeluk at inter dot nl dot net>:
"Have you taken a look at Silicon
Valais? Valais is a region in Switzerland with the advantage that its
name is pronounced exactly like Valley, but with a Swiss accent."
From Clifford E. Gregory <cgregory at tiac dot net>: "You can find
evidence of this usage
here."
From Kevin Lee <kevinjb at pl dot jaring dot my>:
"Lots of high-tech companies have their manufacturing facilities
here, including Intel, AMD, Seagate, etc. Dell has its Asia-Pacific
Customer Centre located in Penang. The term Silicon Valley of the
East has been used repeatedly in the local press and also a few
times in Asiaweek. Universiti Sains Malaysia (University of Science
Malaysia) is located in Penang."
From Greg Aaron <grega at crosscommerce dot com>:
"...the home of a growing number of high-tech entities, including
VerticalNet, CDNow, Safeguard Scientifics, Comcast, WorldGate, and
the University of Pennsylvania. This new Siliconium is used and
discussed in detail in a Forbes Digital Tool
article."
The article quotes the CEO of a regional technology council (who prefers
to call the region E-Valley Forge -- unanimity is hard to come by)
"There is a higher return on investment on money invested in the
Eastern corridor than in Silicon Valley."
The article claims that the alternate Siliconium
Philicon Valley is also in use.
Both Silicon Valley Forge and Philicon Valley are exceedingly
clever names. Whichever one the region settles on, the Philadelphia suburbs
appear to have many of the ingredients in place for successful regional branding.
There is still evidently some dissention over what name to use. And the
region has not mounted a PR campaign the likes of those put on by, for example,
the Dot Commonwealth or
the Silicon Sandbar.
From Will Roberts. The Boston Globe ran an article (not
online) on December 26, 1999 profiling the area around North Adams,
which had spawned Geocities and Tripod and is now home to a double
handful of tech startups.
From Art Milburn <artm at sequoia-dev dot com>: "The Scotts Valley
Chamber of Commerce
likes to refer to Scotts Valley as The Silicon Village.
Scotts Valley has Borland, Seagate, and Novell..."
Sigrid Otto sent word of Canada's Silicon Vineyard. The
Okanagan High Technology Council has claimed the domain name
silicon-vineyard.com and
is encouraging the growth of the small high-tech sector in this wine-growing
region.
From Todd Kiehn <tkiehn at khhte dot com>: "The Petaluma /
Santa Rosa / Napa Valley area just north of San Francisco,
home to DSC Communications and
a bunch of other telecom equipment
companies, refers to itself as the Silicon Vineyard. Or at least DSC
does in its internal company history document." [A search
on DSC's public Web site turns up no mention of this appelation. -- kad]
From John Muller <jmuller at brobeck dot com>.
The September Wired features an
article on Fairfield, Iowa, titled Welcome to Silicorn Valley.
Here began the quiet revolution that exported US long-distance dialtone,
at US rates, to the rest of the world.
From Gary Stock <gstock at ingetech dot com>.
The Jerusalem Post ran an
article (on Internet World 97 coming to Jerusalem) titled "The
world is coming to Silicon Wadi." The article seems to propose that
all of Israel, not just a localized area, deserves this moniker. It
begins, "Just call it Silicon ... Wadi. Young Israeli entrepreneurs
have done so well initiating and carrying out bright ideas related to
computers that one of the world's biggest Internet conferences is
coming to town this week."
From Kevin Lee <kevinjb at pl dot jaring dot my>:
"The Technopolis is an area
that radiates from Malaysia's premier technological university --
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (University of Technology Malaysia),
Johor Technology Park, and the Technovation Park. It includes the
suburbs of Skudai, Senai, and Kulai down to the city centre of Johor
Bahru in the south. This area is now being promoted by the state
government for IT-related companies and the term Teknopolis
is now official. It has been used several times in the press too.
Teknopolis hosts the Asia-Pacific region's largest new town
development -- Nusajaya, which involves a total land area of more
than 10,000 hectares with advanced telecommunication infrastructure
installed. It is expected to become an 'intelligent city.' The state
government has also installed a system called the Johor Information Infrastructure
that made the state government the first 'paperless' government in
the country."
From Bob Wardrop <wardrop at macconnect dot com>: "San Diego
is referred to as Telecom Beach in this
article."
From Ed Dufner <edufner at dallasnews dot com>: The
Dallas Morning News ran a story on the
Telecom Corridor, which
contains approximately 70,000 daytime workers, nearly 25M square feet
of high-tech work space, and 1,500 acres of land available for future
development.
From Gerson Machado <gmachado at netcomuk dot co dot uk>
forwards a piece from Gazeta Mercantil, Brazil, from 1998-04-27, titled
Telecom Valley Thrives on Privatization.
"Brazil's so-called Telecom Valley, located in Minas Gerais state close
to the border with Sao Paulo, is thriving since the privatization of
Brazil's telecommunications sector began. The town of Santa Rita do
Sapucai, with a population of 35,000, is home to some 60
telecommunications-related companies, which turn over in excess of
US $87M per year." Read more about Minas Gerais
here.
From Dan Stewart <Dan_Stewart at w3link dot com>:
"This term is used by the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce in
Hickory, NC due to the high concentration of fiber optic companies.
They want to expand the local reputation from only furniture and hosiery."
From Bob Wardrop <wardrop at macconnect dot com> first found
a reference to Telecom Valley, but the article is no longer online.
"While searching, I found an area
in France called Telecom Valley." The article states that the
moniker has been in use there since 1991.
<rrholden at mail dot hac dot com> adds
two
more
URLs that discuss the area around Nice and its previous designation,
The Silicon Valley of France -- now abandoned in favor of
Telecom Valley.
From Will Kreth <wkreth at twmaine dot com>.
"The Old Port area of Portland has set up as the
WebPort, both recognizing a
concentration of Net businesses and striving to attract more. The
area was written up in the Wall Street Journal in November 1997."
western suburbs centered around Valley Forge and Wayne.
Internet firms inject hope for brighter days in North Adams area
By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff
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