Americas

Published June 19th, 2009 by johnmcintyre

The Weekly Dispatch, by John McIntyre, Friday June 19, 2009

We’ll be posting a short synopsis of the weekly goings-on here in the Americas as well as providing snapshots of business and technology news from Ireland and across the globe.

The Brooking Institute released their report this week tracking the recession and recovery in America’s 100 Largest Metropolitan Areas. The U.S. is really a nation of 366 different economies and they note that “A few metropolitan areas are beginning to show signs of economic recovery, although none has completely recovered… output (also) increased in Seattle, Austin, Virginia Beach, Washington, Richmond, San Jose, and Riverside”. The full report can be found at http://www.brookings.edu/metro.aspx.

Last week, we had several events worth noting, including Launch Silicon Valley 2009 at Microsoft’s Mountain View campus. They received 400 global applicants, up over 35 percent from 2008. Local angel Ron Conway also announced his intention to fund 40-50 new investments in the next 18 months. You get the feeling that after months of bad news the start-up phoenix is beginning to rise again.

We also attended Fujitsu Lab symposium on Cloud Computing. Our man with his head in the clouds, David Smith, joined more than 200 attendees and reported that if you are not in the cloud you are stuck in the mud. The big takeaway: cloud computing is highly scalable, making it a good fit for a range of organizations from small start-ups to big government. It is easy to test, is more flexible, and cheaper. But data security needs extra work and more standards for interoperability are required.

Email Alerts: Stay connected with Direct Connect: Dispatches from America. Email us at jack.kissane@enterprise-ireland.com

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