UKNM: Silicon Valley In Trouble?

[Sajid Mohammed]

If you've had any exposure to the VC culture in the UK, chances are

that you may have looked to Silicon Valley as a utopia where your idea

is more likely to get funding. Indeed, Keith Teare went over there to

set up Centraal who are behind RealNames.


However there is an article at News.com

(http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,27295,00.html) which outlines

a slowdown in the fortunes of the Valley, precipitated mainly (it

seems) by the South-East Asia downturn as well as other prevailing

economic factors such as the constant that computers and components

get cheaper and better/faster/smaller as times goes on as well as the

lack of skilled labour.


EETimes (http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990105S0010) reported today

that there are 180,000 programming jobs waiting to be filled, but it

is proving to be problematic. This is no doubt due in part to the

permeation of IT into every sphere of commerce as well as Y2K/Euro -

Somerfield are having to go all the way to *Australia* to recruit Y2K

programers.


Dark clouds ahead? I hope not as the Valley has been the engine room

of the new Internet revolution. I suspect that the hardware

manufacturers are going to come off worst initially, but I suspect

that we all may feel the chill. But if companies in the area are

losing their competitive edge, does this open up opportunities for us

this side of the Atlantic? Just a thought...



Sajid Mohammed

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