POOR ORANGE COUNTY. JUST WHEN IT SEEMS TO BE GAINING SOME
recognition as a world-class technology center, it reads that its days as a technology hub are numbered.
“Dreams of High-Tech Glory Passing O.C. By.” That was the front-page headline in the full run of the Sunday, July 9 Los Angeles Times. An accompanying chart was labeled, “Orange County’s Fading Tech Dream.”
You get the drift. The story, which contained some valid criticisms about OC’s business and cultural climate, including its relative lack of spontaneity, edginess and other 20-something attractions, is now filed in cyberspace, ready to be referenced by the next executive, engineer or professor who might be thinking of relocating to this neck of the woods.
Our story on the reaction to their story is reported on page 10. Here, let me say: Call off the funeral. High tech is alive and well in OC. The Times used debatable calculations to support its claim that OC was losing ground to its neighbors, LA and San Diego, and slipping away into high-tech oblivion.
The story noted LA’s dot-com boom (well, at least until now it’s been a boom) and San Diego’s strength in biotech and telecom. But the story dismissed OC’s prominence in “glamorless” biomedical devices and brushed off the county’s dominant position in the red-hot networking and broadband sectors.
The story said OC “can’t claim a single blockbuster company,” then cited San Diego’s Qualcomm as one such company. As of last week, Irvine-based Broadcom had a higher market cap than Qualcomm.
But enough of regional in-fighting. Can’t we all just get along?
As one young, single techie told me last week, if it wasn’t for the road signs, you wouldn’t know where one county begins and the other ends. Each county has its pockets of fun and boredom. He said one of the things he likes about living in Orange County is that it’s close to both LA and San Diego.
OC has its shortcomings, for sure. More needs to be done. But OC a high-tech has-been? Gimme a break.
Dullsville
ONE PASSAGE OF THE ABOVE-MENTIONED TIMES STORY SAID:
“Orange County’s a snooze. Its suburban neighborhoods are turnoffs to new-economy companies, which prefer the creative chaos.”
Which got me to wondering, how do Dennis Rodman and Henry Nicholas stand it?
, Rick Reiff
