SAN JOS� STATE UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT
Samuel Samaniego

Silicon Glen

History

Silicon Glen, refers to a high-tech region in Scotland that is growing along a 70 mile strip of Scottish plain that winds from Ayr in the southwest through Glasgow and Edinburgh and up to Dundee in the northeast.  As its coal, steel, and shipbuilding sectors dwindled, Scotland began to cultivate its electronics industry, which fit nicely with the region's skilled work force and its well developed academic community.  The area is also home to thirteen universities and several colleges and vocational schools, which inject a constant stream of skilled workers and research into the region.

The region now yields an array of electronics products and draws comparisons to two successful American high-tech regions, California 's Silicon Valley and Massachusetts' Route 128.  Critics, however, say that the name Silicon Glen refers only to a marketing campaign designed to bring in jobs. They say that the name of a self-sustained region that includes a growing sector of indigenous high-tech firms has taken a back seat to attracting job-producing foreign investments. Others say that the region lacks the highly competitive culture of entrepreneurs and small companies that charaterized American successes in the Silicon Valley and Route 128.

The seeds for the Silicon Glen were planted after World War II.  A small core of electronics companies, including IBM, built factories in Scotland during the 1950s.  As heavy industries, such as shipbuilding, coal mining, and steel making, declined, Scottish officials sought to replace them with companies focused on new technology.  By 1981, the government had created Locate in Scotland (LIS), an agency designed to recruit high-tech firms to the region.  LIS offered a range of incentives and tax breaks to attract prospective firms to the region.  LIS offered a range of incentives and tax breaks to attract prospective firms and assisted in everything from finding a site for the operations to recruiting employees to lining up local suppliers.  In the intervening seventeen years, the Silicon Glen has attracted firms like Sun Microsystems, Compaq, Digital Equipment, National Semiconductor, and Motorola.  In fact, five of the world's top eight computer makers now have operations in Scotland, and the region contains more than 500 software companies.
 
 

Last January 25, 2000