BusinessWest

Could the Valley Become a Hub for Video-game Companies?

Allan Blair freely admitted his understanding of the video-game industry is limited. Or was, anyway.
“I had the simplistic view that gaming meant being frustrated by Angry Birds,” said Blair, president of the Western Mass. Economic Development Council (EDC). “The fact is, it’s truly a business, a real industry, and not just something to wile away time on. I had no idea.
“But once I got my mind around that,” he continued, “naturally, as an economic developer, I asked, ‘how do we nurture growth in this kind of industry in Massachusetts?’ As I learned about the industry, I came to believe we have in Western Mass. a lot of aspects necessary for this industry to grow and thrive.”
That was the general sentiment among more than two dozen panelists participating in “Digital Games: Playing in the Valley,” a recent symposium co-sponsored by host Hampshire College, the Mass. Digital Games Institute, and the EDC. The event drafted video-game entrepreneurs, professors from several colleges, political and economic-development leaders, and other speakers to discuss the potential of this fast-growing industry to take root and bring economic benefits to the Bay State.
“I am not part of what you would consider the ‘video-game generation,’ but video games encompass more than they used to,” said state Rep. Jim McGovern (D-3rd District). “Few industries these days can project the growth characteristics of the game industry … and those jobs should be in Massachusetts.”

Many already are; the Bay State’s digital-games cluster employs nearly 4,000 people at more than 75 companies, with gross industry revenues estimated at around $2 billion. More than 20 colleges and universities in Massachusetts offer majors or courses in game design and development. And much of that activity is thriving in the Pioneer Valley.
“The Western Mass. region thrives on creativity and innovation, and I want to see these businesses blossom right here, and for these students to stay in the Valley and pursue their passion for video-game design,” McGovern said, noting that game technology has crossed over into other industries, from military training to medical applications, and is likely to expand further. “This is not a bunch of people talking about this in theory; this industry is growing now. And to get the economy back on its feet again, this is one of the answers.”

No Smokestacks
John Musante, Amherst’s town manager, called video games a potential “smokestack industry without the smokestacks. I enthusiastically believe that the gaming industry would be good for Amherst and good for our region.”
He mentioned that the three colleges in his town alone — UMass, Hampshire, and Amherst — include some 29,000 students at any given time, while others at the symposium noted that the 13 colleges in Western Mass. total some 65,000 students, many of whom are enthusiastic about gaming and might be likely to pursue jobs in the industry locally if they exist.
“Creativity and innovation are what our region is all about,” Musante added. “We believe the creative economy is part of our future, and the prominent potential of the gaming industry certainly seems like a perfect opportunity to build upon together, right here in the Valley.”
Take Raf Anzovin, for example. He launched Anzovin Inc., which creates character animation for games and other entertainment, in Florence in 1999 — a time when he was one of only a handful of people in the area doing that kind of work.
“There are both advantages and disadvantages to being in this area,” Anzovin said. “The cost of living is difficult to minimize. I’m not sure we could possibly start a small character-animation studio from nothing in a place where the cost of living wasn’t so low. We’ve also had a good relationship with the colleges; there’s a lot of good talent coming out of them, and that’s been very beneficial.”
Then there’s HitPoint Studios, a game-development outfit specializing in newer platforms such as social and mobile games. “We started HitPoint in 2008 with eight people in Greenfield,” said its founder, Paul Hake. “Now we’re in Hatfield with 37 people, and we’re anticipating growing quite a bit more.
“We’re excited about what’s going on in the Valley,” added Hake, who sees the region eventually becoming not just a mini-hub for the video-game industry, but a full-blown hub.
Musante said the region sells itself, especially at a time when industry professionals are virtually connected across the globe, and no longer have to be located in a major metropolitan center.
“We have a critical mass of higher education and talent. We have space,” Musante said, adding that the Pioneer Valley’s location less than two hours from Boston and less than four hours from Manhattan, combined with that aforementioned lower cost of living, is a major draw, as well as reputable public-school systems and the region’s natural beauty and outdoor activities. “We feel like we have a lot of things to nurture this industry so it can grow right here in the Valley.”
That growth is already happening, said Pat Larkin, director of the John Adams Innovation Institute, an arm of the Mass. Technology Collaborative. “In this region, the market has already spoken,” he argued. “Firms have flourished; they’re able to germinate, be disruptive, do startups, and grow on a sustained basis in this region.”

However, precisely because it’s not New York or San Francisco or even Boston, this “middle-tier” region, as he called it, needs to more aggressively market itself. “We need to work harder, smarter, faster, better in order to build and sustain the critical mass we want to achieve.”

Getting Wired
The region poses some drawbacks, too — including one very basic problem in many rural communities.
“The Internet is really what made all this possible, in my opinion,” said Mike Levine, president of Pileated Pictures, an online- and mobile-entertainment studio in Shelburne Falls. “Amazingly, up in the hilltowns, many people do not have broadband. I really think this is a crime at this point; it’s like people not having electricity or television. That’s the number-one issue. Everyone should be connected in the state — not just for entertainment, but for public safety and other reasons.”
Hake agreed, noting that “broadband connectivity in Western Mass. is still not where it needs to be.” Another challenge, he said, is the lack of an experienced workforce to staff growing video-game companies. “We have huge amounts of talent coming out of the colleges, but we have a hard time finding industry veterans.”
There’s a sort of chicken-and-egg component to this issue, however, suggested Joe Minton, president of Digital Development Management in Northampton, which represents video-game-development studios; before that, he was president of game developer Cyberlore Studios.
Specifically, he said, the industry needs to expand in the region to attract that pool of available talent. “In San Francisco, you can walk down the street and meet five or 10 people willing to hire you.”
He talked about the importance of building critical mass in the region, forming a kind of ‘safety net’ so that talented designers, programmers, and others will know that, if one opportunity doesn’t work out, others will be available. Building many success stories, he said, “will make it much easier to bring talent here.”
Fred Fierst, a partner at law firm Fierst & Kane in Northampton, has represented video-game companies for 20 years, he said, amassing a strong reputation in the U.S. and overseas. But even he still sometimes encounters a “credibility issue” regarding Western Mass. that must be overcome. “They think if you’re not a New York or LA laywer, you can’t be a good lawyer; even a Boston lawyer is considered second-rate.”
Fierst noted another issue in video-game development, and that’s a pronounced dearth of women in the field. “I am constantly amazed how few women there are, and those who are [in the field] are in marketing and PR,” he said. “But that’s changing.”
Anzovin agreed. “I’d love to see more women in the industry,” he said, noting that he has worked with many female producers, but few artists and programmers — in other words, people on the creative side. “I don’t know that there’s a magical solution to that problem, but it’s getting better slowly.”

Back to School
Hake said colleges and universities are doing their part by recruiting more women into computer science and related programs.
Ruth West, associate professor and director of Computer Graphics at Springfield College, said the field has an appeal that should appeal to a wide variety of career seekers, no matter their gender. “It requires students to use their whole brain. It’s not just creative, but you have to think technically. There’s a whole mechanical side and a visual side, and it gets students to integrate their whole personality.”
It also requires professors to constantly keep up with trends, she said, which is why she and other faculty attend many conferences and continually track the industry in other ways.
“The only thing we can teach them is how to learn, because five years from now, it’s going to be something different,” West said. For example, social-media and mobile games have dominated the field recently. “I learned 56 programs, and they need to learn how to be that flexible.”
Paul Dickson, visiting assistant professor of Computer Science at Hampshire College, said video-game design is a motivator for students to learn many other skills. His program focuses on training students as generalists, so they can adapt to any platform, a trait valued by smaller video-game companies. Students who go on to specialized work — in a certain type of programming or animation, say — may find greater opportunities at larger companies.
“Games are a hook,” said Mark Claypool, professor and director of Interactive Media and Game Development at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “We get students coming through the doors passionate about the things they’ve been playing. That’s gold, to get a student who comes to college excited about learning something … not just about the latest game, but the physical calculus, the music, the storytelling. There are lots of elements that have to go into the next great game.”
Or the next great … whatever. “There are many applications outside entertainment,” Claypool said, “and that’s where the real action is going to be; that’s where the real money is.”
McGovern said Massachusetts clearly has the intellectual capital to build on this work and be an innovator in those future applications, adding that state leaders are continually trying to determine how best to invest in those growing industries through infrastructure and research dollars.
“I feel like there’s a renaissance period going on now,” Pileated’s Levine said, noting that, when he was in school, video games weren’t even mentioned as a possible career path. “Now we actually have schools teaching programs, and kids coming out of school knowing game design.
“I think it’s a very exciting time,” he continued. “As a company, we’re really interested in growing our business in this region, and we need young talent who understand mobile and social gaming far more than we do. What we learned was a very different business model. Things are changing very rapidly.”
And because of online connectivity, breakthroughs can happen anywhere, Minton said. “The world is flat, and it’s really exciting what can be done nowadays.”
He cited Rovio, the Finnish maker of the Angry Birds franchise. “This was a small company making a number of games that weren’t very successful,” he noted. “Now they have many, many hundreds of people. It just takes one hit — and there’s no reason that can’t happen here.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at bednar@businesswest.com

Mobile Web Sites Provide Information Via a Simple Touch

Blair Winans gets many requests from business owners who tell him they want their Web site turned into an app.
“I ask them whether they really need an app or whether they just need a mobile Web site,” said the principal and creative director of Winans Creative in Easthampton, which specializes in Web site design and development.
Technology is moving so quickly that, although many people are familiar with these terms, they don’t understand the real differences between them and what they can accomplish, Winans told BusinessWest. They also don’t know what makes sense for their business in terms of the cost/benefit ratio.
“Apps have become a buzzword,” he explained, “But there is a lot that goes into figuring out what someone needs, and it all comes down to functionality.”
Apps cost $20,000 or more to develop, and once they are in use, they are not easy to change. In addition, they must be approved by the iTunes store, then downloaded by people who want to use them, which makes them inappropriate for most small businesses. An idea is viable only if a company wants to provide a service that will become unique to its brand.
For example, a business might want to provide video tutorials that can be accessed via a mobile device, or a real-estate agency might want people to be able to see all their listings on a phone or tablet, Winans said. But many of these things can be accomplished via a mobile-optimized Web site, which is much more cost-effective than an app.
“You really need a high-level strategy to justify an app. Unless you have a revolutionary idea of how to connect with customers, it may not be worth the investment,” said Winans. “There are a million useless apps in the App Store, and if you can’t effectively answer the question, ‘why would someone download this?’ it is pointless to think about developing one.”
Rachael Frank concurs. “Unless your business is the size of Bank of America or Amazon, you probably cannot afford an app that will provide a return on your investment,” said the lead strategist for Gravity Switch in Northampton, which focuses on specialized technology development.
Still, most businesses have fallen behind the times in terms of keeping their Web sites updated, and could profit from technological advances.
“The whole world is playing catchup as Web development and technology has advanced so far in the last five years,” Winans said. “Ninety-nine percent of Web sites are not formatted for phones, and most people are still trying to get their Web site up to 2012 standards.”
Rob Archer, senior developer for Gravity Switch, said that being able to view a Web site on a mobile device and use it effectively are entirely different things. “If it doesn’t present well on a small screen, it is not really usable,” he explained, adding that, if people type the name of a company into their phone, they can easily become frustrated if the site has not been formatted to fit their viewing screen.
This occurs frequently because most Web sites were built to be viewed on a desktop computer or laptop with a full-size screen. “A Web site built for a desktop assumes that people have the height and width on their screen that make it easy for them to see everything,” Winans said. There is also information that can be accessed using a computer mouse that will not work with the touch of a thumb, such as a drop-down menu.
“Traditional Web sites can be cumbersome for people using mobile devices,” he continued. “If they are not formatted for mobile users, the bounce rate of people who visit them, then leave quickly, is high,” Winans said, explaining that the term ‘bounce rate’ refers to the speed at which people leave a site that is not user-friendly.

Options Galore
Mobile Web sites can be formatted so that the information people are searching for is literally at their fingertips. “You want to create a layout that gives people a friendly experience when they visit across multiple platforms,” Winans said.
The first step is to determine what mobile users who call up a site are looking for. For most businesses, this is their phone number and address. “If people are looking for a restaurant on a mobile device, they probably don’t care about your history or where your chef trained,” Frank said. “They want your menu, but they want to be able to view it in a way that can be seen well on a mobile device. And this not a PDF, which is for printing purposes.”
That format does work well for people on a desktop computer, Archer said. “But you need to provide multiple solutions and have a responsive design that looks good on a 3- by 5-inch screen as well as a 7-inch tablet.”
Frank told BusinessWest that a mobile site is a separate entity from a traditional site and, therefore, requires a different form of navigation.
“A responsive design will automatically adapt to the size of a mobile device and do things like load a smaller picture or change a layout,” she explained. “This technology has been built upon for the last 10 years.”
And providing this platform can make the difference between keeping or losing a prospective client.
“If you’re pulling in a lot of business from outside of your area, it is important for someone on a mobile device to have the ability to check your hours of operation,” Frank said. “If they can’t get the information instantly or access directions easily, they are likely to go somewhere else. You want to make it easy for people.”
Archer provided another example. If someone is walking around Northampton and knows the name of a restaurant but has no idea where it is located, he explained, that information needs to be easy to find on their smartphone.
Winans agrees, and says design is critical to making a site user-friendly. “Since a phone is small, you want to have big buttons to show specialized content,” he said, adding that a mobile site can be linked directly to Google Maps. “People on mobile devices are usually trying to find several pieces of information quickly, and a mobile site can provide a different layout and change their experience.”

Tuneups
Archer says the maintenance required on a Web site can be compared to the work necessary to keep up a home’s lawn or garden.
“If you let a backyard go, it will end up with weeds and molehills,” he explained. “You need to cut the grass, water it, and make changes according to the weather conditions. And, like the weather, the technology landscape is continually changing, so your business needs to change along with it to keep up with the times.
“A Web site is often the first impression people have of your business,” he continued, “so when they see it on a mobile device, it had better look good and work well.”
Archer advises business owners who have the ability to make changes to their site to make sure the Google Analytics program is turned on. Last June, a new feature was introduced that shows the breakdown between mobile and non-mobile visitor activity on a Web site, including what type of device people used to access it.
Even if the numbers of mobile users are small, they are bound to increase. According to a  report by eMarketer, half of the U.S. population will be using mobile devices, rather than computers, to access the Internet in 2015.
“The days of instant gratification are upon us, and it’s not enough to simply have a Web site or application. You need to be able to deliver content to anyone, anywhere, on any device,” Winans said.
He told BusinessWest that creating a mobile-optimized site from an existing Web site is not expensive. “It can be done for under $1,000 using a standard design,” he said. “And a large portion of businesses could definitely benefit from simple upgrades to their Web site. They can make a big difference.”
A mobile site can also serve as a starting point for a business that is considering an app. “You don’t need to jump into everything head first. There are definitely varying levels and ways of approaching it to minimize the up-front investment,” Winans said.
But building on a Web site requires a solid foundation.
“A lot of people can’t even change the content on their home page,” he noted, adding that he advises people to make sure their site has been built using a framework that can be expanded.
“If you have a good content-management system, it will allow you keep building rather than tearing down the structure each time you want to change something,” he continued, adding that some businesses may eventually want to add options such as e-commerce or video blogging.

Unfinished Business
Frank reiterated the fact that many small businesses have lagged behind the times. “They haven’t assumed their Web presence is important enough to develop,” she said. “But they need to build it and let it grow.”
Archer agrees. “Technology continues to grow, and we don’t know what is coming next,” he said.
So, although the future is unknown, experts say businesses need to make their products and services available in a way that shows they care. And right now, that means extending a friendly hand — or, rather, a design made for a thumb.

Apple Looms Large, but Competition Abounds in Tech Marketplace

Though its visionary leader, Steve Jobs, passed away earlier this fall, Apple continues its impressive momentum. If the iPad — which proved to be an über-popular media-consumption tool among all age groups, kids to senior citizens — was the tech product of 2010, its successor, the iPad 2 ($499 and up), raises the bar even further.
“Though the iPad 2 is an improvement on the original iPad in numerous ways, it’s still an evolutionary product, not a revolutionary one,” MacWorld reports. “If you’re happy with your current iPad, there’s no reason to dump it just because there’s a shinier, newer one.”
Yet, the magazine notes, some of the product’s deficiencies have been remedied, while the design is even smaller and thinner than before.
The iPad 2 uses a new, Apple-designed processor called the A5, a dual-core version of the 1 GHz chip that powers the iPhone 4 and last year’s iPad. The new model also boasts 512 MB of RAM and processing speed significantly faster than before. Notably, it also adds front- and rear-facing cameras.
“The first iPad was a bolt from the blue, a device that defined an entire category, and a tough act to follow,” MacWorld concludes. “The iPad 2 follows it with aplomb.”
The product isn’t without challengers, however. The Motorola Xoom, according to Popular Mechanics, “hits one cutting-edge mark after another,” featuring an Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, plenty of power with a dual-core 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and both front- and rear-facing cameras for videoconferencing as well as shooting photos. The high-resolution, 10.1-inch screen impresses, too.
“For now, the Xoom is a step ahead of the competition when it comes to connectivity,” the magazine notes, after launching on Verizon’s 3G network in the spring and moving to 4G with subsequent shippings. And HDMI compatibility means that the Xoom ($499 and up) can share its video with a home-entertainment center.
Amazon — which updated its e-reader offerings in 2011 with the Kindle Touch 3G ($149) or without 3G ($99), as well as a non-Touch Kindle ($79) — made its biggest splash in the tablet market, by launching the Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet with a very attractive $199 price tag.
The Fire features a dual-core processor and 8 GB of storage, and promises 7.5 hours of video playback on one charge. Although it has a USB port for file transfers, it offers neither a camera nor a microphone.
“But this tablet isn’t supposed to be about tech specs,” according to PC World. “It’s meant to be a dead-simple slate for consuming Amazon content. At the top, the interface has a search bar that can search locally, in the cloud, and on the Web. Below that is a strip of content categories, followed by a stylized list of recent content. On the bottom of the screen, users can pin their favorite apps, books, and other media.”
Time will tell how much an Amazon-centric tablet at a comparatively low price will cut into the market for iPads and their ilk; the Fire ships Nov. 15, but Amazon has been taking pre-orders for months.

Smartphones and Laptops
Apple has upgraded its smartphone line with the iPhone 4S, which Engadget calls “a new spin on an old phone that will shock none, but give it half a chance, and it will still impress.”
The 4S ($199 and up) runs on the same new dual-core processor powering the iPad 2, and while RAM remains the same at 512 MB, its maximum storage has doubled to 64 GB (in the $399 model). Its most notable feature might be Siri, a ‘digital helper’ with advanced voice recognition that some users have found uncanny.
“Siri can do a huge number of things, from sending texts and e-mails to finding restaurants and getting directions from one place to another — things that, it must be said, could largely be done before by voice on other devices and platforms,” Engadget notes. “It’s really the enhanced ability to understand casually spoken English mixed in with the notion of context that sets this apart.”

For tech observers watching mobile phones evolve into the CPUs of full-fledged laptops, the Motorola Atrix 4G ($199) takes a big step in that direction, according to Popular Mechanics. “The Atrix would be a powerhouse based on its smartphone chops alone: a dual-core 1GHz processor running Android 2.2, a GB of RAM, front- and rear-facing cameras, and access to AT&T’s future 4G network,” the magazine notes.
“But the phone is a game-changer because of its laptop and HD multimedia docking systems,” it goes on. “As soon as you plug the phone into either dock, a full-fledged Firefox browser launches, your Android apps scale up in size, and you leave thumb typing behind.” In addition, the multimedia dock has three USB ports and an HDMI port, so it can power plenty of entertainment equipment.
For consumers in the market for an attractive, lightweight notebook computer, PC World calls the Asus U36S “pretty darn close to perfect.” Aside from speakers that leave something to be desired, the magazine says this super-thin ultraportable has all the features the average user could want — and more.
The review model ($870) features an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM (which can be upgraded to 8GB), a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 520M graphics card, and a 640 GB hard drive. It also features built-in wi-fi and Bluetooth, and runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.
It’s also a slim machine, at 3.7 pounds and 0.75 inches thick, except for a battery compartment that bumps out to 1.1 inches. That battery tests at between eight and 10 hours of use.
For something a little more pricey, CNET raves about the 13-inch MacBook Air ($1,299), which has been updated with the latest Intel CPU for better performance and battery life. Although its 128 GB SSD drive is smaller than a standard hard drive, the model still vastly outperforms its predecessor. The new second-generation Core i5 processor is a jump of two Intel generations. And it now includes a backlit keyboard, a popular feature dropped in the previous generation.
With 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD storage, CNET notes, the 13-inch Air is a better bet for trouble-free mainstream computing than the 11-inch version, which offers only 2 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD. Its performance approaches that of the more expensive 13-inch MacBook Pro, and its battery life is excellent.

Cameras and Other Fun Stuff

For those in the market for a mid-priced digital camera, CNET loves the Nikon D7000 ($939), which it praises for its great viewfinder, first-rate photo quality, and streamlined controls.
“The usual caveats apply: it’s not the right camera for everyone, and it’s not best at everything,” the site notes. “But its combination of design, feature set, performance, and photo quality for the price is hard to beat (and will be especially so once the street price starts to drop).”
For those more interested in video, PC World praises the Epson Megaplex MG-50 ($699) and MG-850H ($799) portable projectors.
These units (the price difference reflects video resolution and brightness) have an iPad-, iPhone-, and iPod-compatible dock on the front and can project large, high-resolution videos or still images from the content stored on those units or from online sources such as YouTube. The MegaPlex units also work with a variety of other devices.
Speaking of the iPod, Apple’s latest iPod Touch, now on its fifth generation, comes with a variety of features. “It records HD video, chats over video or iMessages, checks your e-mail, keeps your appointments, connects to the cloud, rents movies, plays music, takes pictures, and plays more games than any of its competitors,” CNET reports. It’s priced from $199 (8 GB) to $399 (64 GB).
Music, movies, photos, games. Increasingly, today’s mobile high-tech products do all of these and more. For a society of voracious media consumers, it’s an exciting time, and 2012 only promises more evolution, and perhaps a revolution or two as well.
Just like Steve Jobs would have wanted.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at bednar@businesswest.com

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Taking High-speed Broadband to Every Corner of the Commonwealth

It’s called MassBroadband 123, the project to bring high-speed broadband to every corner of the Commonwealth, including historically underserved Western Mass. The scale of the initiative is immense, and the challenges are numerous, but there will be clear and immediate rewards from bringing the entire state into the 21st century.

The one-year anniversary is coming up for the day the Mass. Broadband Institute (MBI) received significant funding from federal stimulus efforts, effectively beginning the digitalization of the Commonwealth’s Internet. The project is known as MassBroadband 123, and, according to Judy Dumont, a lot has happened since then.
Director of the MBI, Dumont told BusinessWest recently that the project has not been without hurdles, but with some key players in place, both in her office and with partnerships in the private sector, the days of dial-up are soon to be relegated to a bygone era.
The MBI was put into place by Gov. Deval Patrick and the State Legislature back in 2008 to “close the digital divide,” as the catchphrase has become known — in other words, to bring broadband Internet to every community in the Commonwealth. No small feat.
When Patrick signed the Broadband Bill in August 2008 at a public ceremony in Goshen, it created the MBI, and the office was initially capitalized with $40 million in state bond funds. “At the time, the notion was to use those funds to catalyze private-sector investment,” Dumont explained. “I don’t think it was exactly the next day, but pretty soon after, the capital markets collapsed.
“And that has created an interesting turn of events for this project,” she added.
While the MBI has faced this and a series of ongoing and unfolding hurdles to bring high-speed Internet to every pocket of Western Mass. — the region of the Commonwealth that has historically been most underserved by broadband — not only has Dumont’s office been able to turn these drawbacks into strategic progress, but the goal has an actual, set time to fully go online.
July 2013 — that’s the deadline that Washington has set for the MBI to fully hardwire Western Mass. “That is, by most accounts, a blazingly fast pace to get all this done,” Dumont said. “And if that’s not enough already, the governor wants this to be done before then. He understands how difficult it is for the citizens and businesses of Western Mass. who have been grappling with the lack of broadband for over a decade.”
In a conversation with BusinessWest, Dumont outlined the MBI’s trajectory on its first birthday. And while much of Western Mass. has been offline from access to high-speed Internet, that digital divide is gradually closing. The work has been started — you’ve seen it in the trenching projects on I-91, and trucks will be out this summer evaluating the numerous utility poles to bring fiber-optic cables to even the most remote hilltowns. As the MBI proudly states in its mission — and this is one instance where words aren’t just a political rhetorical exercise — the Commonwealth is about to become fully connected.

Line Items
Dumont had 20 years of experience in management, and more than 17 in wireless telecommunications, when Patrick appointed her the director of the MBI in December 2009. Delving into her office’s back story, though, she explained how the bad bond market actually put the MBI back on line.
“That put $7.2 billion into the stimulus for broadband,” she said. “The majority of that money was given to the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and they had two rounds of funding.” It was a bit of a fingers-crossed moment when the MBI didn’t get first-round funds, but in July 2010, $45.4 million was allocated to the Commonwealth in the second round.
However, Dumont said that a few projects had already been in the works.
“We had moved forward already, independent of federal decisions,” she said. “We worked with the Mass Dept. of Transportation — MassHighway at the time — to piggyback off a project that they had underway on 91. They were building an intelligent traffic system up the I-91 corridor, and we said it makes sense, given that you’re digging up the highway, to put spare conduit in the ground so that we can run fiber optics. The project was cited in the National Broadband Plan that the FCC came out with last year as a model of ‘dig once.’”
That model of efficiency is something she said the MBI is encouraging in future infrastructure projects. “When we’re opening the roads, even if you don’t think there’s a need for it today, we need to make sure that you’re putting that spare conduit in. You don’t even need to have the fiber-optic cables in there now; just make it easy for the future.”
The successful implementation of broadband already has enough hurdles, not the least of which was that six-month lag between stimulus funding rounds. “Look at it this way,” she said. “We’re building a 1,300-mile network throughout Western and Central Mass. The hurdles are almost as many as there are miles.
“First off we had to get approval from the federal government on a finding of no significant impact to the environment” or FONSI, she explained. “That is an unusual thing to do on a project of this magnitude, to get that approval across that wide of terrain. Normally, you would get the approvals in segments — smaller pockets here and there, just to get going while you work on the subsequent projects. But of course, the federal government didn’t want to give any of their money until they knew that the entire project would pass the FONSI test.”
The second hurdle, one that will be an issue for this summer, is the aerial buildout for the broadband fiber-optic cables in this region. “Unlike 91, where we utilized trenched, underground lines, we are going to attach our cables to utility poles,” she continued. “We need to attach our cables to more than  35,000 utility poles, and those are owned by Verizon, National Grid, Western Mass. Electric, and eight other municipal electric companies. We need agreements with all of them, cooperation with all of them, and there’s a process by which each one of those utility poles has to be looked at by every one of the owners.
“It’s a very old-fashioned process,” she continued, “but we got the utilities to agree to a more automated process. We’ve gotten a consultant to go out and collect all the data — GPS coordinates, digital imagery — everything to go into a database to be used in reconciliation. All of that needs to happen before I can even begin putting my cables on those poles.”

Mind the Gap
Dumont likened the MassBroadband 123 project to the rural electrification of America at the turn of the last century. And like that monumental undertaking, the key to success came from a unique partnership with the private sector.
“When we looked at the ROI on this project here in the Commonwealth,” she explained, “we figured that it was going to be a 30-year timeline. There isn’t a business in the world that would allow that. Thus, it takes that partnership between public and private.”
And while she credits the MBI staff as possessing some of the brightest talent in the industry — including a manager who built the Five College network — she said that it was important to get a private collaboration with a service provider, one that could navigate the complexities of broadband implementation as well.
Axia Next Generation Networks, based in Canada, has successfully developed similar IT networks in France, Spain, Singapore, and, most notably, the Canadian province of Alberta. Its Calgary SuperNet is the world’s largest rural broadband network, and Dumont said she’s quite impressed with the company’s track record.
Since the MBI isn’t going to be a network service provider, Dumont said that it is Axia that will be subcontracting all the actual connections to local Internet service providers. Axia will be opening an office in Western Mass. and, within the next 10 years, plans to invest $35 million to $45 million in the Commonwealth. It will wholesale broadband to the local companies from which residents and businesses will buy service.
MassBroadband 123 is a far more ambitious project than any of Axia’s others, she said, with connections to almost 1,400 community anchor institutions — hospitals, libraries, schools, town halls, facilities that will provide public access — more per square mile than any other similar project in the nation.
But the SuperNet is an good point of reference, a comparison Dumont called “looking into a crystal ball for Massachusetts.” The installation of that network created a boom for local Internet providers.
“Five years ago, before the SuperNet,” Dumont said, “there were somewhere in the neighborhood of five service providers delivering broadband, most of them in downtown Calgary. There are now more than 80 service providers in the entire province.
“Since we’re a much smaller network — theirs is a 10,000-mile network — I don’t think we’ll see that many,” she added. “In a competitive environment, though, it’s not just going to be that people finally have access to broadband, but the advent of new companies will allow for better price offerings. Not only is there now finally an option, but then we can work on a competitive market after it actually exists for everyone.”

The Last Mile
The combination of federal funds and a state budget of $24.1 million has allowed the MBI to build out the backbone of MassBroadband 123, what Dumont called “the costliest element.” The last mile is the private rollout of the network, and Axia has engaged a business-development consultant to help municipalities and those anchor institutions to deliver broadband throughout the Commonwealth.
Significant strides have been taking place to adhere to that aggressive timeline, in both Washington and on Beacon Hill, and recently, the city of Springfield agreed to partner with the MBI for a series of historic underground conduits for the fiber-optic cables — yet another hurdle cleared.
In addressing the importance of broadband, Dumont said her office is engaged not only in the task of building the network, but in educating the public on the importance of this digital bridge. Regarding its role as an agent of economic development, she referred again to that “crystal ball” that can be looked into from Axia’s SuperNet project.
“Sure, it is about economic development, but it’s also about keeping pace with so many other things,” she explained. “The Internet is how people find jobs, how they file their taxes, how they interact with their government. They find out about the political process and become educated there. We received more than 400 letters of support we sent down to Washington when we filed for the stimulus money, and they contained the stories of what people needed to do for access to the Internet. The hoops that people in Western Mass. have to jump through to have access to what I’m using sitting here at my desk … that’s simply a social injustice.
“There are more home businesses in Western Mass. than in any other part of the state, and think about how those could grow and advance when they have access,” she continued. “For small design firms where pictures need to be sent to clients, they sometimes have to send it after hours, leaving their computers running all night hoping that the transmission didn’t time out before the files were delivered.”
And it’s not just dollars, but also sense, Dumont said. “In Western Mass., there are 27 police stations that don’t have online access to the criminal-justice system. They have to telephone in any requests for information.”
The Internet also plays vital roles in health care. Areas of remote Alberta have Telestroke centers, where patients can go, get a CT scan, get a remote diagnosis from doctors more than 10 hours away, and, if necessary, be given a drug that needs to be administered within two hours to significantly reduce the damage caused by the stroke. “When you look at that network across all access of our lives,” said Dumont, “you can really see the difference that it has made.”
Later this summer, she said, the trucks will begin stringing up the fiber-optic cables to bring the 21st century to every corner of the Commonwealth. And during that time, Axia will also be working with the anchor institutions to talk about what applications will be available to them once they get this network.
“We want to make sure that everyone knows the full potential ahead,” she said.
But, with deadlines looming, she laughed that, at this stage of MassBroadband 123, there still is a lot of work to do, and most likely hurdles she doesn’t know about yet. “In a project of this magnitude, things will crop up every day.
“People sometimes say that the last stretch of construction projects is either a marathon or a sprint, but this is both,” she said. But with all the right builders of that digital bridge here in Western Mass, the divide looks to be closing fast. You might even say with high speed.

Local Firm Is on the Cusp of a Microchip Breakthrough

Steven Frank, Jef Sharp, Jeff Hausthor, and Stephan Rogers are heading up a team whose work is so revolutionary that customers who hear about it say it is almost too good to be true.
“The feedback we are getting shows that what we are doing is the Holy Grail,” said Frank, CEO of Panève LLC, a Hadley-based management and engineering firm.
The mission of the company, founded two years ago by the four seasoned entrepreneurs, is to develop a new software-programmable, general-purpose microchip processor built from the ground up for video and graphics-intensive applications. Its use will cover a wide range of products that make life better for people and run the gamut from TVs to gaming devices to green-energy applications and medical apparatus.
The product, called the RhinoCore, is in final stages of development, said the partners, and will solve an industry problem by reducing costs as well as the time it takes to get new products to the market, while allowing programmers to write innovative applications.
“When most people think about computers, they think about PCs,” Frank said. “But a revolution is happening; computers and processors are embedded in all sorts of devices such as smartphones, tablets, and TVs.”
The number of computer chips used by manufacturers today is staggering. Sharp, founder of the Northampton-based IT solutions company TechCavalry, says the Toyota Prius he drives contains more than 50 computer chips. “A lot of people don’t know how many chips there are in everyday products today. The trend is exploding.”
What makes Panève’s work so groundbreaking is that its processor allows conventional software to take advantage of multiple chip cores as if they were one, Frank said.
He explained that, over the past four or five decades, semiconductor technology has advanced very rapidly and enabled a swift progression in the capability of products at a lower cost. “But that capability hit a technical wall. Over the past five years it has become apparent that we can’t make processors go any faster,” he said.
An example the average consumer can easily understand is that computers often contain multiple processors. “But each one is not faster, so the real problem that no one has figured out is how to make a software platform that will coordinate all these processors and make them work as one,” Frank said.
But the partners are happy to say they think they have solved that problem.

When the Chips Are Down
The mission began about seven years ago when one of the largest TV manufacturers in the world approached Frank with a problem — and an opportunity.
“They wanted to build a TV where all of the work inside was done with software. Instead of building a TV with special-purpose hardware chips, they needed a software-programmable chip that would be applicable to a large market, enable them to get their products to the market faster, and allow them to continually upgrade the device,” he said, adding that the cost of building a new computer chip is tens of millions of dollars. “What they wanted required a supercomputer in a TV, and there was no company that made a product like that.”
Frank was the chief technical officer (CTO) at Kendall Square Research, a leading supercomputer company that he had co-founded. “At the time that I was approached to put supercomputer thinking into a chip for consumer electronics, I was doing consulting work. The solution to the problem they presented me with was not obvious, but I had the framework to solve the problem because of my years at Kendall Square Research.”
Frank spent several months thinking about the problem and worked with the TV company’s consultants to redefine what was needed.
His work was essentially put aside as his wife waged an unsuccessful fight against breast cancer, but the television firm encouraged him to continue and to start a new business that would focus on a solution.
Two years ago, Frank joined together with his trio of partners who are engaged in making history. He said they have been able to operate on a budget due to their business model.
Three models exist in the semiconductor business world, they explained. One is made up of companies that design their own chips and own factories that produce them. Another simply does the design work and gets the chips ‘fabbed’ which means fabricated in tech-speak, while the third develops the design and licenses it to semiconductor and consumer-electronics companies that manufacture and sell the chips.
Panève fits into the third category, which allows it to develop technology without a tremendous amount of capital. “Our customers are semiconductor companies who sell to large consumer-electronic manufacturers like Sony, Sharp, or Samsung, who will use our technology to make the next-generation devices,” Sharp said.
Panève has met success in its quest to design a platform for a new type of chip that is software-programmable. “It will open up innovation for tens of thousands of programmers to come up with new ideas and new functionality,” Sharp said.
Frank offered two examples of how it can be used. High-end cars that are able to detect when other vehicles are nearby or when the driver is falling asleep need advanced image processing in real time, which is very expensive. “But our chip will make it easy to write software so the technology can be put into mid-priced vehicles,” he explained. The other example is that animated movies seen on televisions and smartphones look almost real on those media, but look ‘cartoonish’ on gaming devices because of the way the algorithms work with the processor. “Our chip will allow them to take a big jump in visual quality,” Frank said.

A Competitive Edge
A study conducted by the White House Science and Technology Advisory Council concluded that, over the past 15 years, hardware improvements have made computers 1,000 times faster. “The study also found that, in the same amount of time, software was responsible for making computer performance increase 43,000 times.
“Software is really a driver for new devices and the quality of life we are experiencing today,” Sharp said.
And it goes far beyond games, TV, and automobiles.
“New advances in medical-science imaging, renewable energy, and devices that use processors to help wounded veterans walk again are all examples of embedded processors at work, and we are proud to be developing a breakthrough platform that will help these kinds of technologies to improve further,” Sharp said. “What we are doing breaks through a wall that will enable continued increases in computer performance. When people think of technology, they think of gadgets, but in hospitals the amount of equipment driven by computers is incredible and enables us to live fuller, richer, and happier lives. It is an increasing part of the fabric of daily life.”
The company is finalizing a prototype that is very sophisticated and nearly ready to be brought to the market.
“Our belief that it is revolutionary is based on conversations we have had with dozens of companies who dream big and have given us feedback that this is almost too good to be true,” Frank said. “Computing is so pervasive in everything we do and everything that is important to us.”
The work has not been easy, however. “We have a team of 16 people who are making this happen through sweat and tears,” Sharp said. “But we are enjoying building something of substance and contributing to society. It’s a lot of work and involves a lot of challenges, but it is very satisfying to make progress.”
He added they would not be able to proceed without support from investors. “They are a very important part of this, and hopefully our work will inspire additional investment in other small companies,” Sharp said.
Summing it up, Frank said that “our work offers a triple play. It will make technology less expensive, more capable, and faster, and allow products to function in ways we can only dream about today.”