Silicon Prairie
The Silicon Prairie, a take on the Silicon Valley, can refer to one of several places in the United States: an area in Texas, one in a multi-state region comprised loosely of parts of Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Missouri, one in Wyoming, and one in Illinois.
Dallas–Fort Worth Silicon Prairie
North Texas's Silicon Prairie refers to north Dallas and Dallas and Fort Worth's northern suburbs, all part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is named for the high concentration of semiconductor manufacturing, telecommunications, and other information technology related companies in the area.
Dallas-Fort Worth area business in these industry sectors include:
- Active Network, LLC (Dallas)
- Alcatel-Lucent (Richardson)
- AT&T (Dallas)
- Cisco (Richardson)
- CommScope (Richardson)
- CompuCom (Dallas)
- CSC (Fort Worth)
- Dealertrack Technologies (Dallas)
- Dell Services (Plano)
- Electronic Data Systems (EDS) (Plano)
- Entrust (Addison)
- Ericsson (Richardson)
- Fujitsu Network Communications (Richardson)
- Hotels.com (Dallas)
- HP Enterprise Services (Plano)
- i2 Technologies (Irving)
- Intuit (Plano)
- Match.com (Dallas)
- Microsoft (Irving)
- Motorola (Dallas)
- NEC America (Irving)
- Nokia (Irving)
- Nortel (Richardson)
- NQ Mobile (Dallas)
- Okmetic (Allen)
- OrgSync (Dallas)
- PivotPoint Solutions (Plano)
- RadioShack (Fort Worth)
- Raytheon (Plano)
- BlackBerry [formerly Research in Motion (RIM)] (Irving)
- Rockwell Collins (Richardson)
- SoftLayer (Dallas)
- StreamVenue, LLC (McKinney, Texas)
- Texas Instruments (Dallas)
- Thursby Software (Arlington)
- Travelocity (Southlake)
- Verizon Communications (Irving)
- VMware (Irving)
- Huawei (Plano)
- ZTE (Richardson)
- Wistron (McKinney)
The Telecom Corridor in Richardson is usually considered an area within the Silicon Prairie. There are also a large number of recognized video and computer game developers in the area, known as the Dallas Gaming Mafia, including Gearbox Software, id Software, 3D Realms, and Ensemble Studios.[1]
Illinois Silicon Prairie
The Illinois Silicon Prairie typically refers to the Chicago and Champaign/Urbana areas. Much of the high technology industry base in the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area consists of research and small start-up companies working with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Seven Fortune 500 companies have research entities at the university's research park, which is located in Champaign. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is in Urbana.[2]
The Chicago Metropolitan Area is home to several companies in the industrial automation, consumer electronics, telecommunications and online services industries. The Illinois Technology and Research Corridor along Interstate 88 and the Golden Corridor along Interstate 90 have particularly high concentrations of such businesses.
Among the Chicago area companies and organizations that comprise the Illinois Silicon Prairie are:
- 1871 (River North, Chicago)
- Alcatel-Lucent (Naperville)
- Amada America (Schaumburg)
- Anixter (Glenview)
- CDW (Vernon Hills)
- Cisco (Chicago)
- Classified Ventures (Chicago)
- CommScope (Joliet, Illinois)
- Continental Automotive Systems (Deer Park)
- Enova Financial (Chicago)
- FANUC Robotics America Corporation (Hoffman Estates)
- Groupon (Chicago)
- GrubHub (Chicago)
- Guaranteed Rate (Chicago)
- HighGround (Chicago)
- Hostway (Chicago)
- LiveText (LaGrange)
- Molex (Lisle)
- Mori Seiki USA/DMG (Hoffman Estates)
- Motorola Mobility (Chicago)
- Motorola Solutions (Schaumburg)
- Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (Rolling Meadows)
- Omron (Schaumburg)
- Orbitz (Chicago)
- Panasonic Corporation (Buffalo Grove)
- Rand McNally (Skokie)
- Schneider Electric (Palatine)
- Shure (Niles)
- Tellabs (Naperville)
- Trunk Club (River North, Chicago)
- Underwriters Laboratories (Northbrook)
- USRobotics (Schaumburg)
- Westell (Aurora)
- WMS Gaming (Waukegan)
- Zebra Technologies (Lincolnshire)
Midwest Silicon Prairie
An area of the Midwestern United States is often referred to as the Silicon Prairie. This region can loosely be defined as the states bordering along Interstate 29 in the Upper Midwest; specifically Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Missouri.[3]
Gateway
The moniker was first claimed by the Gateway 2000 computer company in advertisements in the mid-1990s as its location in advertisements and promotional materials. The firm was originally founded in Sioux City, Iowa but later relocated across the border to North Sioux City, South Dakota.[4]
Silicon Prairie Communications (prairie.net) - ISP and regional BBS
Founded in 1992, Silicon Prairie Communications started as a regional BBS and UUCP gateway, expanding to a boutique ISP that still serves as the delegated admin for a large group of .us domain localities, both regionally in Iowa and several large metro cities. http://www.prairie.net/usdomains
Silicon Prairie News
In 2008, the online technology and entrepreneurial news publication Silicon Prairie News[5] was founded to highlight achievements of companies in the region's principal cities, namely: Omaha, Des Moines, Lincoln, Sioux Falls, and Kansas City.[6]
Iowa Governor Culver
In 2009, Governor Chet Culver (D-Iowa) used the term to describe his desired future reputation for his state after their investment in wind and other renewable energy industries.[7]
ISU Research Park
Ames, Iowa [8]
References
- ↑ International association of science and technology for development - "The IASTED International Conference on Computational and Systems Biology (CASB 2006)." Originally published 2005. Retrieved 13 April 2007.
- ↑ Tech News World -" Silicon Prairie May Be Fertile Ground for Emerging Homeland Security Biz." Originally published 7 March 2006. Retrieved 30 March 2007.
- ↑ Rubin, Josh (2010-07-16). "Techies reject coasts for 'Silicon Prairie'". CNN.com. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
- ↑ Lohr, Steve (1997-09-04). "Gateway 2000 Chairman Blames Haste for Earnings Lag". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ Silicon Prairie News
- ↑ "About Silicon Prairie News". Silicon Prairie News. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ Strawn, Jessi (2009-08-06). "Governor visits Iowa State as part of renewable energy tour". Iowa State University Featured News. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ↑ http://www.isupark.org/