A few days ago I got an email from the Sr. Editor of ComputerWorld who was interested to learn what had become of the group of Vermont software companies that had banded together a few years ago. He was referring to the Vermont Software Developer Alliance an organization who’s board I have served on since it began over three years ago.
I passed him on to our new Executive Director, Patrick Martell and only days later, this story appeared in Computerworld. Cool!
I’m on the board of the Vermont Software Developer Alliance and therefore saw the email which came in from Rick Chapman asking if we’d be interested in having him present at one of our monthly meetings.
It was a few days before I realized that this was Merrill Chapman, who wrote (and then revised) the fabulously entertaining and educational “In Search of Stupidity: In Search of Stupidity:
Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters”. Joel Spolsky wrote the forward for the first edition and Eric Sink wrote the forward for the 2nd.
Rick will be presenting at the November 14th VTSDA meeting about his company’s findings from an extensive survey on developments in the SaaS market.
Inc’s 5000 list was recently released and among the 9 Vermont companies on the list there are two software companies, both based in South Burlington.
iTechUS ranked 113 on the whole list and #11 in IT companies. In New England it is ranked #1 in the IT Services companies. www.itechus.com
Dealer.com ranked 578 in the full list. While they are a software company, their industry is listed as advertising and marketing. In that category they are #55. www.dealer.com
Once again, we could not have asked for better weather for an evening cruise out on the lake! This was VTSDA‘s 2nd annual sunset cruise aboard the Spirit of the Ethan Allen from the Burlington waterfront. We had twice as many attendees as last year (60 this time). It was great to see our friends from the state there also, including some of our favorite Vermont Dept of Economic Development reps, James Candido and Mike Quinn as well Christine Werneke (Chief Marketing Officer for Vermont). These folks and others from the state have all become great supporters of VTSDA and it’s definitely fun to have them at our social events, as well! A new face for us was Ted Brady, who is Sen. Leahy’s field rep in Vermont. Though I’ve never personally met Sen. Leahy, Ted seems to represent him so well. He has a great presence, is quite affable and laid back, and can probably make sure things happen when push comes to shove.
Another special part of this event was that we got to introduce our new Executive Director, Patrick Martell, who started on Monday. It is a huge step for our organization to have gotten to this point. Read the press release here.
I was happy to have my pal Dave Burke there who I had emailed and said "hey, you are a software business, now, Dave. So you should come to this event!".
The weather forecast looked iffy during the day but we had a beautiful night, a gorgeous sunset and spectacular views of the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains and the lake.
I didn’t see anyone swimming away from the boat, so I think everyone had a great time.
Look for pictures on the VTSDA website coming soon.
IBM is definitely the largest employer in Vermont. I think when I moved here in 1999 they had something like 8000 or 9000 employees.
This news just appeared on the Burlington Free Press website:
IBM announced job cuts today at its Essex Junction facility. A total of 90 workers were notified starting this morning that their jobs will end.
The action is part of 450 job cuts, most of them at IBM’s East Fishkill, N.Y. and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., facilities.
IBM employs 5,700 at Essex Junction. The cuts are related to a reorganization of manufacturing and development within the Systems and Technology Group, which includes Essex Junction, said Glen Thomas, company spokesman at IBM’s offices in Somers, N.Y.
After reading this in the Free Press, I had a great idea what we can do with any funds coming to Vermont – support the high tech industry here! How fitting.
Vermont shares in $90 million settlement with Samsung
Published: Wednesday, February 7, 2007
MONTPELIER – Vermont is one of 40 states to settle with electronics manufacturer Samsung in an antitrust lawsuit, Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell announced this week.
The $90 million nationwide settlement with Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. arose from a claim of a price-fixing scheme among Samsung and several other of the world’s largest computer memory chip manufacturers that began in the 1990s.
The settlement, which is still subject to a court review, does not yet detail how the money will be meted out among the suit’s participating states and consumers.
Here’s a recent opinion piece in the local paper about the importance of Green businesses in Vermont. I keep harping about how green the software industry is at VTSDA meetings and want to get the state to include us in all of their efforts around promoting green industry here. It’s so good for Vermont. I will eventually get my message through! 🙂
From the Feb 23 Legislative Report of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce
David Winslow, CEO and President of EpikOne, Inc. was recruited by the Chamber and GBIC to testify from a businessperson’s perspective about what business expects from our educational and workforce development systems. David’s story of being an underachieving high school student to becoming an entrepreneur who owns a knowledge-based technology business employing 15 people fascinated both the House Commerce and Education committees. The Committee members peppered him with questions about his experiences and what can be done to foster other entrepreneurial-minded young people. The essence of his testimony was that the education system should expose students to business during high school, encourage skills-based training and internships and better align the curriculum with the business needs and technology of today. He also spoke of the need for businesspersons to become more involved in the educational system to provide these opportunities.
From the Burlington Free Press an interesting look at Vermont’s “lopsided” economic evolution:
Vermont is the most entrepreneurial state in the country, according to the study. However, Vermont is last in creating high-wage service jobs; the service industry includes restaurant positions, financial and legal services, publishing and advertising. Connecticut, Delaware and New York lead this category.
“The majority of states with sales tax and the businesses who sell into most of these states developed an agreement to simplify sales tax administration for states and to reduce the burden of tax compliance for businesses. The Agreement primarily focuses on businesses with limited or no connection that sell to the states’ citizens through mail order, catalogs and the Internet.”
and…
Will canned software become taxable even when delivered electronically?
Yes, effective January 1, 2007 canned software delivered electronically is subject to the sales tax in the same
manner as software purchased in tangible form (CD-ROM, disk).