County’s High-Tech Industry Sees Threat in Slow Growth
Orange County’s high-technology industry is among the healthiest in the nation, but those who have had an important hand in the industry’s success said Tuesday that they fear that increasing slow-growth sentiment in the county could hamper progress.
“Does Orange County want to become the business center of Southern California, or possibly even a world-class gateway to the Pacific Rim? If the answer is yes, we must re-examine our attempts at slow-growth development and either give in to the physical inconveniences identified with growth or work to eliminate them,” said Safi U. Qureshey, president of AST Research, the Irvine-based microcomputer manufacturer.
Qureshey and others spoke to about 900 members of the county’s high-technology community at a luncheon marking the publication of a new trade journal, “Special Resource Magazine-High Technology,” published in Irvine. In its premiere issue, the magazine lists 10 county companies that it calls the “rising stars” of the local high-tech scene.
Among the speakers at the Irvine Hilton luncheon was Vice President George Bush who, on the last day of the primary campaign, congratulated Orange County’s high-tech businesses for their accomplishments and implored them to find new breakthroughs. “Our future . . . will depend on our ability to keep up in an increasingly competitive global economy, and the high-tech industry is going to have to lead the way,” said Bush, who left immediately after delivering his speech.
Diversification Needed
While high technology business is booming, with high-tech firms accounting for about 40% of all publicly traded companies in the county, AST’s Qureshey warned that the local economy should strive for greater diversification and should never become overly dependent on the technology industry alone.
“As experienced by Houston, Detroit . . . and even Silicon Valley, economic dependence on a single industry can bring about cyclic or catastrophic market fluctuations. Orange County must continue to encourage industry diversification. . . .” Qureshey said.
William P. Conlin, president of Calcomp, a Lockheed subsidiary that designs and manufactures computer-aided design systems, said the successful high-tech company of the future will be the one that works closest with suppliers, distributors and other partners in an increasingly interdependent market.
“ ‘No man is an island’ was never more true than it is today in our industry,” Conlin said. “No company, from IBM to the smallest start-up, can go it alone.” He said Calcomp collaborates with outside firms on everything from pure research to payroll and public relations. The company, as do most in the industry, relies heavily on suppliers for most parts and sells 80% of its products through other companies’ sales forces.
“How these partners understand our business . . . will determine how successful we are. We must cultivate them, not treat them as adversaries. In the global high-tech market this cooperation is even more critical,” Conlin said.
