SCIENCE / TECHNOLOGY : To Match Silicon Valley, County Needs Spinoff Spawners, Executive Says

For Orange County to develop a computer industry that is comparable in size and reputation to Silicon Valley, it needs one or two large companies that will spin off new business ventures.

So said Regis McKenna, a high-technology marketing and public relations executive, during a local visit last week.

“You need some large core companies that will spin out technology,” said McKenna, who heads a Palo Alto-based high-tech consulting firm. “What you need is successful big companies to get new companies.”

Silicon Valley’s growth as the nation’s center for the semiconductor industry was largely the result of the many companies that were formed by Fairchild Semiconductor engineers and executives who decided to venture out on their own, McKenna said.

Although Orange County has some large computer companies, such as Western Digital and AST Research, both of Irvine, they have not produced a lot of spinoff companies.

McKenna cited Silicon Valley’s relatively small geographical size as one difference between that area and Orange County. “People in Silicon Valley go to the same restaurants, theaters and churches,” he said. “Orange County is very spread out and that’s tougher to do.”

However, he said organizations such as UC Irvine and the Newport Beach-based Southern California Technology Executives Network are attempting to bring together high-tech executives to discuss their businesses in informal settings.

“They are trying to be a catalyst for pulling these companies together,” McKenna said. “Unless you get a cross-fertilization of ideas, you don’t create new companies.”