Did somebody pull the plug?
Posted by Eric Stewart Fri, 17 Feb 2006 04:06:00 GMT
Is Alexander Muse right? In Brain Drain for Austin he muses that Austin is losing ground to our neighbor up the road, Dallas.
Another hi-tech company has given up the ghost and decided to leave Austin for the Dallas suburb of Plano. General Bandwidth, …
This loss follows several high profile losses for the city including Tyco’s departure last year. And one of several big wins for Dallas including Wednesdays announcement of QI System’s move to the city from Canada. I think we are witnessing a gravitational shift from Austin to Dallas – Austin will still be important, but the resources (human and otherwise) available in Dallas will irresistable for companies seeking a place to live.
Certainly Dallas is a much bigger city, but Austin has always had a strong tech presence including big players like IBM, Motorola (now Freescale), AMD, and National Instruments just to name a few. Not to mention the multitude of smaller players and startups. In fact, Austin just recently won out in a battle over the new future headquarters of Freescale. There is a ton of talent here.
Or is there?
By far, most of the jobs I see listed in the Austin market are for generic J2EE web/enterprise shops. I know there are companies with other software/hardware products out there. Has Austin’s talent pool become too heavy in one area? Are there just not enough tech workers? Or is it just the usual tax incentives game?
Maybe Alexander is jumping the gun. I hope not. If so, what can be done to attract more companies?
I’m not really sure either, but can someone check the plug just to be safe?
