The technology industry could use the jolt of a good economic defibrillator. But that's not stopping some young tech companies around the country from exercising their bragging rights. Just not any around here.
In Colorado, Aspen Systems crowed Tuesday about its recognition as one of its state's hot technology businesses. In Illinois, software developer InfoPower Systems boasted of its premier status in the Chicago market. And in Washington, Seattle biotech company Dendreon Corp. touted its fast-rising revenues.
All of these companies and hundreds more are newly named finalists appearing on "Technology Fast 50" lists in 20 different U.S. metro markets. They are ranked by accounting firm Deloitte & Touche according to revenue growth over the past five years, one key measure of up-and-coming tech businesses.
But there is no similar buzz this fall among Central Florida tech firms. After years of annual Fast 50 rankings, this region's program quietly died. It is the only demise in the country of a regional Fast 50 program run by Deloitte.
The reasons cited for the end to this area's Fast 50 program are a bit fuzzy. It got too expensive to administer, says Deloitte. Not enough regional sponsors stepped up to help defray costs.
That's too bad. The Tampa Bay area had its own Fast 50 ranking of area tech companies for nine years. Orlando had its version for four years. A few years ago, Deloitte thought it made sense to combine the two Fast 50s into one Central Florida ranking.
After all, the Tampa Bay area increasingly was linked to Orlando and Melbourne on Florida's east coast under a regional organization called the Florida High Tech Corridor. The Corridor pitched itself as an east-west technology conduit that, like Interstate 4, snaked across Central Florida and encompassed hundreds of technology businesses.
While the Corridor idea still makes sense, the unexpected end of this area's Fast 50 program is a step backward. It sends an odd message: For all its supposed technology credentials, Central Florida couldn't maintain a Fast 50 franchise.
"It's a loss in terms of the process and discipline we had in place as a community to collect good primary data on our tech companies," acknowledges Chris Steinocher, marketing chief for the Tampa Bay Partnership, the area's regional economic development group and an early supporter of the Fast 50 ranking. But, he says, it's not the end of the world.
The Fast 50 helped create a buzz that we do indeed have tech companies here, Steinocher says. It helped validate companies, too, because the rankings are based on real sales numbers that are reviewed and ranked.
Nobody wanted Central Florida's Fast 50 to evaporate. The tech world needs every scrap of support and attention it can get in these post-Internet-bubble, post-9/11 and shrunken-tech-job times.
Tom Wallace, Tampa Bay entrepreneur and president of the Tampa Bay Technology Forum, would love to see the Fast 50 revived. But he's not twiddling his thumbs in the meantime. His group is in the early stages of creating its own technology awards program for next spring. It won't replace the Fast 50, but it would be another way to bring attention to area tech companies.
"We don't have to reinvent the wheel," Wallace says because other regional tech councils around the country have established their own awards.
The notion of a Fast 50 alternative is making the rounds of the Tech Forum, the Florida High-Tech Corridor and other regional development groups.
"My crystal ball tells me that you'll see one or more of these groups create a tech award dinner - not necessarily based solely on sales growth - but sincerely recognizing good tech business in our region," Steinocher says.
In Orlando, Deloitte marketing manager Karen Palvisak says it's possible the Fast 50 for central Florida will return.
Without the Fast 50s of years gone by, many area companies would have received scant notice. But everyone is interested in the fastest-growing companies - and their fates.
The area's No. 1 Fast 50 winner in 1995 was Transitions Optical Inc., a maker of light-sensitive lenses in Pinellas Park. It's still growing. In 1996, Tampa's Utility Partners had a turn as the No. 1 hotshot in revenue growth. The company disappeared when its main customers, electric utilities, hit hard times.
In 1997, Hoveround Corp. of Manatee County, a maker of power wheelchairs, topped the Fast 50 rankings. It was succeeded in 1998 by Oldsmar's Genesis Manufacturing, which later declared bankruptcy and was acquired. By 1999, Tampa's Intermedia Communications topped the list, but was soon bought by MCI/WorldCom and effectively shut down.
In 2000, Sarasota's LexJet and its printing technology ranked No. 1 Then came 2001's winner: Sarasota's PPi Technologies, a designer of food packaging. And in 2002, the list's last year in the region, the Fast 50 picked Orlando's Riptide Software.
If the varied success and failure of these young tech companies seems out of character with their rankings, they shouldn't. Welcome to the world of business start-ups, says Wallace.
"We don't think it is a bad thing to recognize companies, and two years later find they are not around any more or they are acquired," he says. Many young companies will not survive. And it is not a bad thing.
Tech companies fail in Silicon Valley, too, Wallace reminds us. Just maybe, the more companies that fail, the more there are that will succeed.
If so, someone ought to note the losses but also celebrate the wins.
