Portland, OR – While Delaware is widely known as home state for many corporations because of a favorable tax climate, Oregon – on a smaller scale – is gaining recognition as homeport for an emerging group of organizations that determine many standards and specifications vitally important to the high–technology industry.
The state's laws governing not–for–profit corporations, and the presence of market leaders such as Intel Corp., has stimulated development of some of the hardware industry's most influential technical associations. About 20 such groups, called SIGs – or Special Interest Groups – are based here. During the past four years, these organizations have hidden under the radar locally while gaining increased visibility nationally.
"Trade associations and SIGs have a profound impact on the global and local economy," says Richard Baek, whose firm, Vital Technical Marketing, Inc., (VTM), is one of the key players helping spur the growth of SIGs. "These multimillion–dollar organizations draw members from around the world and also are vitally important in improving and maintaining the competitive edge of Oregon companies.
"These groups are another example of how the state's technology cluster attracts new talent and stimulates the local economy," adds Baek, who serves as executive director of three major special interests groups. SIGs reach far beyond the Silicon Forest. For example, through the hardware standards they develop, SIGs influence the way peripherals, such as printers or scanners, communicate within a computer system. They also determine how system security, wireless protocols and mobile computing initiatives are developed.
The SIGs focus on refining familiar specifications, such as PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) and USB (Universal Serial Bus). SIGs also focus on the less familiar, such as DCP (Digital Content Protection) and TCG (Trusted Computing Group.) Diverse as they are, these organizations represent a cross–industry desire to design and sometimes promote common technologies through standardizing specifications, as well as publishing design guides and best–practices manuals. The US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission generally support SIGs because they foster open competition by ensuring access to emerging technology design standards and specifications. While it's difficult to determine the economic impact of SIGs in Oregon, they're becoming an important and growing element of the high–technology cluster that is driving the state's economy.
So what does this mean for the Oregon technology industry? Most importantly, new products are vital for the continued success of high–tech companies in the state. As a group, Oregon technology firms generate about two–thirds of their revenue from products less than two years old, according to data developed for the American Electronics Association in 2001. Because of locally based SIGs, Oregon companies, and the industry as a whole, may compete on a more–level playing field. That's because:
- Larger companies and their suppliers may take advantage of economies of scale by building new products to common industry–wide specifications, avoiding the need to create products using a multitude of proprietary specifications.
- Smaller companies may find it easier to gain access to patent licensing rights on key technologies while at the same time developing market niches.
Other benefits of SIGs to Oregon technology companies include:
- Creating opportunities for Oregon companies to influence the direction of the targeted technology by participating in the work groups developing specifications and guidelines.
- Leveraging the availability of technical support, developer conferences and performance compliance testing.
- Gaining the ability to claim compliance with an industry–accepted specification.
- Improving the ability for local companies to use a SIG's logo and trademark in promotional efforts.
- Extending a SIG's intellectual property rights policy for new technologies and products.
A good example of how SIGs benefit large and small Oregon companies may be seen in Oregon's own PCI–SIG, which, in less technical terms, means the architecture providing a high–speed path for the central processor of a computer to communicate with peripheral devices such as video, data–storage disks, networks and other connections. Engineers at Intel Corporation's Washington County campuses led in the development of the original PCI local bus specification. They remained in this role during the subsequent development of the many enhancements and revisions of the specifications. As a result, few would question that Intel has benefited by promoting what has become the preeminent I/O (Input/ Output) specifications for the hardware industry.
While perhaps not as dramatic as Intel's story, a multitude of other Oregon companies have benefited from their memberships in PCI–SIG. They have improved their capability to design products in compliance with PCI specifications. These companies include, but are in no way limited to, Tektronix, Mentor Graphics, Pixelworks, Oregon Micro Systems, Radisys and Planar Systems.
*article courtesy of Tim Haslach, shareholder (partner) with the Portland–based law firm of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt P.C.