Silicon Glen - Technology in Scotland

Silicon Glen - computing in Scotland

Traditionally, Silicon Glen focussed on the inward investment of electronic companies. We are now seeing the problems caused by such a narrow strategy. Viasystems, National Semiconductor and the like are foreign companies which are now closing down, with devastating knock on effects for the Scottish economy, an economy which has focussed too narrowly on such industries. The current trend towards massive growth in call centres is another case in point - whilst these provide quality jobs in the short term, their long term prospects are in grave doubt due to the growth of automated systems and electronic commerce on the Internet as well as outsourcing from Scotland's Silicon Glen to India's Silicon Plateau.

It is estimated that like electronics, there will be a scaling down of call centre jobs. An article in PC Week (29-Sept-98, P7) indicated that 50% of front line jobs (including call centres) will disappear by 2010. There is hope though. Scottish software, whilst still relatively small scale, is starting to grow thanks to the efforts of the Scottish Software Federation, now ScotlandIS. However, we still live in a climate where people are often expected to gamble the roof over their head to start a business in Scotland and at the same time foreign investors are paid thousands of pounds of money in grants for each job created. It is hardly surprising therefore that there is such an imbalance in the Scottish software business towards foreign companies at the expense of home grown talent. Public sector money is also often surrounded by so much red tape that it isn't unknown for the funds to have to hand the money back to investors because insufficient businesses were eligible to apply.

In an age when we should be attempting to eliminate ageism and sexism in the workplace and to encourage people to balance work and family life, when you start a business there is completely rampant sexism (funds only available for women), ageism (funds only available to young people) and no special help at all for anyone balancing a startup with a family! Talk about conflicting government messages!

For business startup information, see Scottish Business start-up information.

Please see these article for information on Computer shops in Scotland and PC repair shops in Scotland.

Companies

See the company search feature at Silicon Glen, Scotland for a comprehensive search engine including the websites of over 500 companies, agencies, government bodies and entrepreneurial groups operating in Scotland.

Helpdesk Software

Serio ITIL-compliant Helpdesk and Service Management Software.
http://www.seriosoft.com/

Magazines and Journals

NB Magazine will provide you with news about the computer industry in Silicon Glen, Scotland.
http://www.nb-mag.com/

Scottish Development International

http://www.lis.org.uk/
The body dealing with inward investment in Scotland

Scotland IS

http://www.scotlandis.com/

E-mail validation script

E-mail validation script which I host and have amended to fix some bugs in code written by other people. Please feel free to use.

Sharedbiz

http://3rdtuesday.net/
The forum for entrepreneurs to meet venture capitalists.

SLI Centre

For information on the Institute for System Level Integration (SLI). This is a major initiative, Project Alba, to establish in Scotland a world-leading centre for next generation semiconductor research and design and software development.
http://www.sli-scotland.org.uk/
The "anchor" company of the Project Alba campus is Cadence,
http://www.cadence.com/

SiliconGlen.com

Silicon Glen, Scotland (General site)
Companies in Silicon Glen
Silicon Glen guide to web usability and design

WOW Web Competition

For Scottish businesses, a competition run by the Scottish Enterprise network with corporate sponsors.
http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/wow/
The winners are usually websites with lots of glitz and trendy technologies rather than websites which are useful from a consumer's point of view (e.g. one recent winner didn't even have an email address on their site - doh!)

Combat Spam - Stop Spam

http://www.scot.demon.co.uk/spam-filter.html
The Spam Filter - Mentioned on TV across the US.

http://www.thespamfilter.com/, The Spam Filter
http://www.spam-filter.com/, Spam Filter
http://www.themailfilter.com/, The Mail Filter
http://www.theemailfilter.com/, The Email Filter
http://www.themailfilter.com/, The Mail Filter
http://www.the-mail-filter.com/, The Mail Filter
http://www.the-spam-filter.com/, The Spam Filter
http://www.filterjunkmail.com/, Filter Junk Mail

Jobs

For information on jobs in Scotland,
try the newsgroup scot.jobs or see [1.15]

Building prototypes of inventions

Working Model
Highly recommended.

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