THE MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is a bi-county

agency created by the General Assembly of Maryland in 1927. The
Commission's geographic authority covers most of Montgomery and Prince
George's counties. The Commission’s planning jurisdiction, the
Maryland-Washington Regional District, comprises 1,001 square miles; its parks
jurisdiction, the Metropolitan District, comprises 919 square miles.

The Commission has three major functions:

(1) The preparation, adoption, and, from time to time,

amendment or extension of The General Plan (On
Wedges and Corridors) for the Physical
Development of the Maryland-Washington Regional
District Within Montgomery and Prince George's
Counties.

(2) The acquisition, development, operation, and

maintenance of a public park system.

(3) In Prince George's County only, the operation of the

entire County public recreation program.

The Commission operates in each county through a Planning Board appointed by

and responsible to the county government. The Planning Boards are responsible
for preparation of all local master plans, recommendations on zoning amendments,
administration of subdivision regulations, and general administration of parks.

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission encourages the

involvement and participation of individuals with disabilities, and its facilities are
accessible. For assistance with special needs (e.g., large print materials, listening
devices, sign language interpretation, etc.), please contact the Community Relations
Office, 301-495-4600 or TDD 301-495-1331.
 Elected and Appointed Officials

County Council

Blair Ewing, President

Steven A. Silverman, Vice President

Phil Andrews
Derick P. Berlage
Nancy Dacek
Howard Denis
Isiah Leggett
Marilyn J. Praisner
Michael L. Subin

County Executive

Douglas M. Duncan

THE MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION

Elizabeth M. Hewlett, Chairman

Commissioners

Montgomery County Prince George's County

Planning Board Planning Board

Elizabeth M. Hewlett, Chairman

Arthur Holmes, Jr., Vice Chairman James M. Brown
Allison Bryant William M. Eley, Jr.
Wendy C. Perdue George H. Lowe, Jr.
Meredith K. Wellington Albert C. Scott

2
 Abstract

TITLE: The Information Technology and Telecommunications Industry

In Montgomery County

AUTHOR: Gary Goodwin, Research Coordinator, Research & Technology Center

SUBJECT: A study of the information technology and telecommunications industries

in the region and Montgomery County. The Montgomery County
discussion includes an analysis of an inventory of 1,900 Montgomery
County IT and Telecom firms. This analysis includes: a study of firm size
and activity, where these firms have clustered, the type of space used, and
the differences between Montgomery County’s firms and those found
elsewhere in the region.

DATE: June 2001

PLANNING The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission

AGENCY: 8787 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3760

NUMBER
OF PAGES: 42

3
Technical Report
June 2001

The Information Technology &

Telecommunications Industry in Montgomery
County

THE MARYLAND-NATIONAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION

Research and Technology Center

The Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning
8787 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-3760
www.mc-mncppc.org

4
 Table of Contents

Major Findings 6

Section 1. Introduction 8
Composition of the Information Technology and Telecommunications Industries 8
Anticipated Growth of Industry 8
InfoCom Growth and Montgomery County 9

Section 2. The Regional InfoCom 11

Multiplier Effect of InfoCom Growth 11
Washington Region Compared to Total U.S. InfoCom Employment 12
Key Events in Regional InfoCom Growth 12
Summary of Factors Leading To InfoCom Concentration 17
Location of Regional InfoCom Clusters 21
Projections of Regional InfoCom Employment & Growth 22
Conclusion 22

Section 3. Montgomery County InfoCom 23

Montgomery County InfoCom and Federal Procurements 23
Firm Statistics 24
Concentrations of Firms By Location 26
Types of Space Used 28
Comparison To Other Washington Area InfoCom Centers 28
The Future of the InfoCom Industry in the County 32

Appendix 36
InfoCom By North American Industrial Classification System Codes 37
List of Cited Sources and Other Research Materials 38
Interviews Conducted 40
Accessing the MNCPPC Database of County InfoCom Firms 41

5
 Major Findings

Washington Area Is Major Center of InfoCom Activity

• The InfoCom industry (information technology and telecommunications) has a
long history in the Washington region, growing out of federal government
spending, innovations, and its role as regulator.

• InfoCom employment increased nearly 5 fold between 1969 to 1999. Some

estimates place InfoCom employment equal to or exceeding total local federal
government employment. In 1999, InfoCom employment totaled more than
350,000 jobs.

• The Washington area InfoCom employment is forecast to show steady growth

1999 to 2009. By 2009, there will be more than 427,000 InfoCom employees in
the area.

Montgomery County InfoCom

• Montgomery County is an important center of InfoCom activity. Montgomery
County’s InfoCom base grew out of the needs of the federal government. In fiscal
year 2000, County firms captured about 15 percent of the federal procurements
awarded to Washington area firms. Only two other jurisdictions captured more
(Fairfax County firms received nearly 38 percent and the District of Columbia
companies 25 percent). Lockheed-Martin (Bethesda) has held the number one
position of all U.S. federal contractors for the last seven years.

• The InfoCom economy in the County is not just comprised of federal contractors.
A wide variety of firms are: developing software, providing systems integration,
designing Websites, and competing in the Internet marketplace.

• As of January 2001, there were an estimated 1,840 Montgomery County firms

engaged in InfoCom. These firms employed 59,233 workers, or nearly 12 percent
of the total Montgomery County employment base. Most firms are small
businesses; 70 percent have 9 or fewer employees. Large firms, however, hold
most of the employment. Firms with 100 or more employees account for 69
percent of the total InfoCom employment.

Future of InfoCom in Montgomery County

• Montgomery County will continue to be a major location for InfoCom firms. The
County will be able to attract and retain a large share of regional InfoCom firm
and employment due to:

6
 • the quality of the County’s urban centers such as Bethesda and Silver
Spring
• the quality of the County’s business parks, especially those in the I-
270 corridor
• the high quality of life in Montgomery County
• the synergistic effect of the County’s concentration in biotechnology,
large base of government contractors (i.e. Lockheed-Martin) and
system integration/software expertise.

• Some conditions will limit the number of firms and amount of InfoCom
employment that can be attracted and accommodated in Montgomery County.

• The expansion of MAE-East (a major Internet switching point) to new

office areas in Northern Virginia. This will be a powerful attractor of
those firms that require/desire to be close to this InfoCom focal point.

• The outward expansion of office/flex/industrial developments for

InfoCom firms in the more distant suburbs. Although InfoCom has
been widely dispersed in the region, with firms in downtown
Washington, in Montgomery County to the north and Fairfax County
to the south and west, developments in the outer suburbs will spread
firms even further. Loudoun and Prince William County projects are
already creating new InfoCom clusters. With each new cluster comes
greater competition among all clusters, spreading a growing but
limited supply of InfoCom firms more thinly across the region.

• The demand for large tracts of land for business park/campus

development. Montgomery County’s supply of land for large
developments (i.e. 80+ acres) is extremely limited. Much of the land
that had been allocated for business development in the 1980s and
1990s has now been developed or spoken for.

7
Section 1. Introduction

Montgomery County’s economy is rapidly being shaped by high technology industries.

Aerospace, biotechnology, information technology, and telecommunications are adding
jobs almost twice as fast as the economy as a whole. High tech jobs grew 11.9 percent
between the second quarters of 1999 and 2000, while the growth rate for all sectors was
4.8 percent. The local rate clearly out paced the high technology job growth found at
either the national level (1.7%) or within the State of Maryland (8.3%).1

This report, the second publication on high technology sectors in the Montgomery
County economy,2 concentrates on the information and telecommunications technology
industries encompassing six types of activities:3

Information Technology Telecommunications

Hardware Manufacturing & Sales Communications Equipment
Software Manufacturing & Sales Communications Services
IT Services (consultants, maintenance)
Internet Driven Enterprises

Until just a few years ago, Convergence of Technologies Spurred by the

information technology and Growth of the Internet

telecommunications were separate

industries. Today, the two have
merged as mobile phones access the
Internet and as televisions and = InfoCom
computers become “web TV.”
Following this trend, this report will
refer to the two industries as a single
economic sector by using the
collective term “InfoCom.”

Anticipated Growth of Industry

Over the last two decades the influence of InfoCom has become so widespread that very
few households and individuals remain untouched. Personal computers

1
Economic Forces That Shape Montgomery County-Update 2001, Research & Technology Center,
Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning, The Maryland-National Park and Planning
Commission, pps. 50, 49,64, 57 (in the order data were presented in this report).
2
The first report is entitled: The Biotechnology Industry in Montgomery County: Factors Related to the
Development of the Industry Including Real Estate Issues, July 2000, Research & Technology Center,
Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning, The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning
Commission.
3
Based upon a listing of information technology industry categories provided by the U.S. Department of
Commerce. A detailed listing of the specific North American Industrial Classification codes studied can be
found in the Appendix, Item 1.

8
now outsell television sets. Mobile phones and personal digital assistants (i.e. Palm
Pilots) are replacing pay phones, paper calendars, and pens. Businesses are tying their
futures to the Internet and entrepreneurs are creating such a demand for Internet
addresses that, as of July 2000, a new dot com address was registered every 3.9 seconds.4

Despite explosive growth over the last six or seven years, forecasts show that InfoCom
has only just begun to touch our lives. Citing only a few examples on the Internet related
portion of InfoCom, the anticipated trend is clear:

• Internet commerce
68% of the U.S. Population Will Be Online by 2005 and contributed 0.5
60% Will Be Making Purchases percent of the U.S.
gross domestic
product in 1998; by
80% 2002 it is projected to
70% Online Buyers contribute 4.4
60% Online Users
percent.5
50%
40%
30% • Consumers spent $20
20% billion on the Internet
10%
0%
in 1999; 2004
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 forecasts show a nine-
Projected fold increase, growing
Source: Jupiter Media, 2000.
to $184 billion.6

• Businesses trading with other businesses on the Internet in 1999 spent

approximately $100 billion; by 2003, U.S. sales are expected to jump 20 times to
$2 trillion.7

• In 1999, 20,000 people in the U.S. accessed the Internet using mobile devices
(mobile phones and personal digital assistants); in five years, forecasts predict that
this will grow to 97 million.8

InfoCom Growth and Montgomery County

As will be shown in the next section, the Washington region is a major center of InfoCom
activity. When the overall InfoCom industry grows, Washington area employment in that

4
Business 2.0, August 22, 2000, p. 37.
5
University of Texas and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Research, cited in “Net Drives Economic Boom,”
The Standard, June 26, 2000.
6
Forrester Research, cited in “Chasing Retail’s Tail,” Business 2.0, January 1, 2000.
7
Gartner Group, cited in “Behind the Numbers: The Mystery of B-to-B Forecasts Revealed,” The
Standard, February 21, 2000.
8
Ovum Research, cited in “Wireless Net: Not Yet,” The Standard, May 22, 2000.

9
sector, demand for office, flex, and industrial space, and business service demand, will
also grow with it. Montgomery County will certainly participate in this expansion since it
has been historically a prominent location for InfoCom. During the “Space race” the
County was home to the satellite industry and today it hosts the headquarters of the
largest regional InfoCom employer, Lockheed-Martin.9 The County’s supply of office
space, access to Internet infrastructure, number of Metrorail stations, proximity to the
Capital Beltway and regional airports, high level of business activity, and high quality of
life makes it very attractive to large and small InfoCom concerns.

The goal of this report is to provide a general view of the InfoCom industry, its
development in this region, its impact on Montgomery County, and its likely future form
(in terms of building construction and use). It also answers some fundamental questions
of recent interest to governmental and business leaders: How big is the Montgomery
County InfoCom sector? What is the County’s relationship to the Internet backbone (the
main infrastructure)? What is the future for InfoCom in this region? How does
Montgomery County differ from Northern Virginia as a place to do InfoCom business?
What sort of InfoCom business are here in Montgomery County? Where are these
businesses located? Answers to these questions were developed from a literature review,
field observations, and interviews with InfoCom industry representatives.

Section 2 considers how InfoCom came to be concentrated in the Washington region and
provides a projection of InfoCom employment to 2009. Section 3 narrows the focus to
Montgomery County InfoCom showing the number of InfoCom firms as of March 2001,
where they have concentrated, the types of real estate space used, firm characteristics,
and the future of InfoCom in Montgomery County.

9
Not all of Lockheed-Martin’s employment is Montgomery County but is also found in Northern Virginia,
the District of Columbia, and other Washington, D.C. Maryland area counties.

10
Section 2. Regional InfoCom

A recent report on the InfoCom industry authored by George Mason University professor
Dr. Stephen Fuller, highlights InfoCom’s rise and wide influence on the Washington
metropolitan regional economy. 10 Over the thirty-year period, 1969 to 1999, InfoCom
employment grew by 381 percent while total employment grew by 112 percent. In 1969
InfoCom employed an
estimated 72,826 workers
Washington Area InfoCom Jobs Increased Nearly 5 Fold and accounted for 4.6 percent
1969 to 1999
of the area’s total
employment base. By 1999,
350,069 that percentage had jumped
286,949 to 10.4 percent, bringing
248,734 InfoCom employment to
350,069.11
153,386

94,040
72,826 The industry’s growth has
been robust between 1969 to
1999. While total
1969 1975 1981 1987 1993 1999
employment was showing a
Source: Fuller, Stephen S. InfoCom in the Washington Area Economy, December 1998. compound growth rate of 2.5
percent, InfoCom grew by
5.4 percent.

Multiplier Effect Of InfoCom Growth

Besides its own growth in jobs, the InfoCom industry generates jobs for those not in that
field (i.e. office suppliers, employment agencies, office maintenance workers). Dr. Fuller
estimates that for every new InfoCom job created more than one additional job is
generated elsewhere in the area economy (1.01 jobs for every InfoCom job). By this
estimate, an increase of 69,783 InfoCom workers from 1990 to1999 supported the
creation of 70,480 additional non-InfoCom jobs.

10
Fuller, Stephen. S. InfoCom Industry Study (Herndon, VA: Potomac Knowledgeway, 1998,
www.knowledgeway.org) PMSA data were used; this includes the jurisdictions contiguous to the District
of Columbia, the nearby suburban jurisdictions (e.g. Prince William, Frederick Counties), and the more
distant exurbs (e.g. Stafford County, VA, Berkeley County, WV).
11
InfoCom employment is actually higher since these employment figures were gathered for InfoCom
firms and therefore does not count InfoCom workers within government agencies or private sector
establishments where InfoCom is not the primary activity (e.g. the data processing department of a chain of
restaurants).

11
Washington Region Compared To Total U.S. InfoCom Employment
InfoCom employment is concentrated in Washington compared to the U.S. In 1997 (the
most recent year these data are available), five percent of all U.S. InfoCom jobs were
located in the Washington region compared to about three percent of total U.S.
employment.12

The region stands out as a

center of online information InfoCom Jobs Have Clustered In The Washington Region
services and computer Region’s Share of U.S. Employment
systems integration. Online
services include Internet 14.0%

access providers like 11.5%

Vienna, Virginia based
America Online (AOL),
Beltsville’s Digex, 4.6%
Montgomery County’s 3.0%

AppNet (recently purchased

by Commerce One), and All Jobs In All Telecom Online Services Systems
others. In 1997, the Industries Integration

Washington region held 14 Source: Selected firm types; 1997 Economic Census, Bureau of the Census; Research & Technology Center,
percent of the national M-NCPPC.

online services employees.

Systems integration services are employed to match computer hardware and software to
tasks sought by a computer system user. The process extends from writing system
specifications, to installation, to ongoing maintenance and upgrading. The Washington
region has nearly 12 percent of the U.S. workers in this field.

Key Events In Regional InfoCom Growth

How Washington came to capture a large share of the U.S. InfoCom employment can be
seen in the 40-year history of this region’s involvement in InfoCom.

1960s – Federal Government Needs Drives InfoCom

• First computerization of the Federal government begins.

• In the race to gain worldwide superiority in communications satellite

technology Congress creates the Communications Satellite Corp. (Bethesda,
Maryland). Located in this region to be close to federal agencies, Comsat
establishes national and international satellite efforts and spins-off an
additional local concern, Intelsat (Washington, D.C.).

12
Source: Fuller, Stephen S. InfoCom In The Washington Area Economy, Table 1. Baseline InfoCom
Employment By Major Industrial Sector; County Business Patterns (1997), Bureau of the Census.

12
• The Vietnam War and the Cold War fuel government spending on defense
projects. Scientists and technicians develop companies to compete to capture
federal government contract dollars. For instance, Fairfax County based SAIC
was able to grow from a small staff of scientists to its current staffing level of
9,000 employees by winning contracts that involved developing strategies for
winning nuclear warfare.

1970s - Systems Integration Matures

• Staff members with experience provided by working with large computers

owned by the Department of Defense resign their Pentagon jobs to start
American Management Systems, Inc. (Fairfax, VA). AMS grows to 5,000
local employees, providing computer systems integration software to the
government and private sector around the world.

• Military use of computing expands as systems decrease in size and costs. For
instance, the National Security Agency becomes a major Anne Arundel
employer and the Naval Research Laboratory at Bolling Air Force Base
expand into artificial intelligence, sonar, radar, and computing.

• The owner of Microwave Communications Inc. moves from Chicago to the

District of Columbia so his lawyers can be closer to federal regulators (1972).
The company, later renamed MCI, waged a legal and marketing battle that
helped to dismantle the Bell Telephone monopoly over long distance phone
networks.

1980s – Federal Downsizing & The Internet Is Born

• A massive contract (FTS 2000) to overhaul the federal government telephone

system draws major carriers and suppliers into the region.

• The Reagan administration’s emphasis upon downsizing government

accelerates spending at and creation of consulting firms assuming some of the
projects previously conducted by government employees.

• Washington, D.C. based National Science Foundation receives funding from

the federal government to become the chief administrator of the Internet (1985
to 1995). NSF is selected because of its close relationship to the scientific and
education communities.

13
• A major East Coast Internet network operation center is developed in College
Park, Maryland and maintained by SURANet. SURANet, sponsored by the
Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), also acts as an
exchange point where federal government Internet connections can merge and
share signals. Dubbed FIX-East (Federal Internet Exchange), this operation
center will act as the model for commercially run exchange points will lead to
the establishment of a major operations center in the Washington area.

• UUNet, Inc. is founded

(1987) by a former
employee of the Most Area Firms Are Less Than 10 Years Old
Arlington, Virginia Period Firm Founded
based Department of
Defense supported 947
Center for Seismic
Studies. UUNet
becomes the first 512
provider of Internet
access to commercial
clients. UUNet ties its 191
73 68
international network
into the Washington area Pre 1961 1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000
network access point
Source: Potomac Tech Journal Directory of Technology Companies
selling its services to
regional and local
Internet access providers.

• In 1989, the owner of Performance Systems International moves his company

from New York to Reston, Virginia to be near the pool of technological
workers and federal regulators. PSINet develops a network similar to UUNet
and both firms become two of the largest Internet access providers in the
world.

• MCI leases (1982) right-of-way to install single-mode fiber from Washington

to New York; this establishes single-mode fiber as the industry standard for
world-wide fiber networking.

• Control Video Corporation (Vienna, VA) is launched (1982). The founder of

CVC had moved to the Washington area in the 1960s to attend Georgetown
University. Although CVC would eventually cease operations, much of the
original business model and staff go to start America Online.

• Orbital Sciences (Dulles, Virginia and, as of 1994, Montgomery County)

incorporates (1982) to concentrate on building and launching low-earth orbit

14
 satellites for communication and
navigation. Eventually other
companies will also either start in or Washington Region InfoCom Timeline
move to the Washington area to be near
the government agencies authorizing
commercial space launches and
Federal government
licensing of radio frequencies. As of 1960s
needs drive InfoCom
July 2000, more than 50 companies are
engaged in satellite activities in the 1970s
Systems integration
matures
Washington region.13
Federal downsizing
• 1980s
Three new cable networks are founded. & the Internet is born
Former staff member of the Internet goes commercial
Washington, D.C. based National Cable 1990s & entrepreneurs enter the
Television Association launches Black market

Entertainment Television. Former 2000s

analyst in the White House Office of
Telecommunications founds C-SPAN
and former director of corporate Source: Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC

relations for the University of Maryland

and consultant to universities, starts
Discovery Communications (1985).

• Employees start to leave MCI to form their own companies (i.e. LCI, Nextel,
Telegent, Primus Telecommunications Group, American Mobile Telephone).

1990s – The Internet Goes Commercial & Entrepreneurs Start Business

• Network Solutions, Inc. (Herndon, Virginia) is authorized to be the only

private sector registrar of Internet domain names (i.e. washingtonpost.com,
bingo.com).

• America On Line (Vienna, VA) captures the largest share of the residential
Internet access market of any company in the world. Merges with Time-
Warner.

• In 1993, the National Science Foundation issues a solicitation for bids for
development of special Internet connection points (explained in greater detail
later in this chapter). NSF decides that there should be four; locations in San
Jose, New York City area, Chicago, and the Washington, D.C. area (1919
Gallows Road, Vienna, Virginia) are selected. A few years later the College
Park network access point (FIX-East) is shut down.

13
Phone interview with business data supplier InfoUSA. Includes SICs 4841-03 and 3663-05.

15
 • Internet related companies are attracted to the Washington region because of
the region’s diverse cluster of InfoCom firms.

• Area Internet entrepreneurs pass on their success by forming venture capital

funds for new Internet enterprises. Established

• Venture capital firms open branch offices while new venture capital
companies are created.

• Local genetic research sparks growth of bioinformatics firms that utilize

powerful computers to decipher attributes and relationships of DNA.

• The commercialization of satellite launches and satellite network operations

moves from business uses to consumer interests. In addition to satellite based
pager and mobile phone service, two area firms develop satellite radio
providing dozens of channels of music and news.

• Orbital Sciences brings space launches to the Mid-Atlantic region when it

begins to use Wallops Island, a U.S. government launch site located on
Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

2000s

• A Washington Post article observes that the Washington, D.C. region is

becoming “a mecca” for fiber optics firms as older firms expand or are
purchased by large telecommunications companies and new firms are started
by ex-employees.14

• The Washington area is ranked fourth in terms of new Internet domain name
creations. Los Angeles/Long Beach is the number one metropolitan area
followed by New York, and Dallas, Texas.15

• The fortunes and wild growth of Internet commerce companies stall as

InfoCom stocks take a plunge in April 2000. The summer of 2000 is marked
by a sharp pull back in venture capital investment in dot coms and the first
closures of dot com firms are seen. By fall, a large tide of firm deaths are
being reported. In 2001, Internet advertising revenues fall sharply as a decline
in advertising occurs across all media (i.e. newspapers, broadcast media, and
magazines). This drives more InfoCom firms out of business and fiber
networks and data centers operate well below capacity.

14
Noguchi, Yuki. “Internet? Poo. It’s Fiber Optics That’s On Fire,” Washington Post, August 21, 2000,
F16.
15
Network Solutions.com MSA rankings, June 2000.

16
 • By early 2001 it becomes apparent that the companies that are fairing the best
in this shake-out are the “brick and mortar” operations, those companies with
stores in addition to Web sites. Brick and mortars, such as Sears, Eddie
Bauer, and Barnes and Noble combine traditional marketing tactics and their
store presence with Web marketing to capture sales.16

Summary of Factors Leading To InfoCom Concentration

Before turning from the history of regional InfoCom development to other issues, it is
important to look to that history for the factors that have attracted firms to the
Washington area.

Federal Government Spending

The Washington, D.C. area is a very important location for firms receiving federal
government funding. According to According to the Washington Post, nearly half
of the $20 billion that the federal government spends each year on InfoCom
nationwide goes to Washington area firms (1998). Whether or not these firms
need to be located in Washington is something that can’t be determined, but the
success of local firms in capturing $10 billion is strong incentive not to leave the
area and it is a strong incentive for those thinking about moving here to open local
offices.

Federal Government As Regulator

The migration of technology spawned by the U.S. military and government to
commercial applications has required considerable public and private effort. The
process of lobbying, responding to proposed legislation, and then reacting to
regulatory review makes a Washington area location very desirable for high
technology companies.

Desire To Be Near Similar Businesses

Driving the expanding concentration of Washington area InfoCom firms is a
tendency of firms within an industry to locate near other firms doing the same sort
of business. The thought is, if a location has worked for one or two companies it
must be a suitable location for other companies in that industry. Resources, such
as workers, suppliers, distribution channels, and financial institutions, build up
around this original cluster of businesses and this in turn attracts still more firms
and more resource providers. “Following the herd” was how this phenomenon
was repeatedly described by people interviewed for this report.

Concentration is especially important when recruiting personnel. InfoCom

companies have specialized needs and they tend to require large numbers of
employees to expand their firms. Locating near an existing pool of workers that
one might be able to “pirate” from other firms is very important and guides the

16
Walker, Leslie. “Plugged In For Maximum Efficiency: Undaunted by Dot-Com Flameout, Companies
Move To Streamline Operations by Harnessing the Web,” Washington Post, June 20, 2001, p.G01

17
 decision making process of where a firm will locate. This trend was recently
illustrated in a survey conducted by The Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit
economic development group in California. The organization surveyed nearly 150
technology CEOs and found that 75 percent said that access to a skilled labor pool
was the prime reason why they chose a particular location.17

Concentration is also important to companies that have developed a portion of

their business to sell to other firms within the cluster. Other businesses rely upon
firms within the cluster to be their suppliers, providing goods and services “just in
time” rather than seeking them from other locations around the region, U.S. or
even the world.
Loyalty To Home/Work Location
Also seen in the above history is the tendency of people starting new InfoCom
businesses to locate their businesses near their current residence or last place of
employment (i.e. AOL, UUNet, AMS). Most entrepreneurs don’t uproot
themselves from their current environment while starting a new enterprise. This
reluctance even inhibits movement even within a relatively small region such as
the Washington, D.C. area. Montgomery County firms/personnel tend to stay in
Montgomery County and Northern Virginia firms stay in Virginia. Essentially,
once a concentration of businesses exists it tends to hold employees to that
location and a closed cycle is created; few, mass intra-regional migrations of
personnel or firms occur.

InfoCom Infrastructure
The Internet is what it is because it is a networking of millions of computers,
linked by a central system of connections called by the industry, the Internet
“backbone.” The main backbone, originally established through government
funding but expanded and now operated commercially, is comprised of fiber optic
and telephone lines that crisscross the United States. Several hundred firms have
entered the market to tie customers (business and residential) to the backbone via
physical infrastructure and thousands of firms have sprung up to sell access to this
network.

An integral part of the InfoCom infrastructure are Network Access Points (NAPs).
NAPs are switching centers that move Internet from one access provider to
another. Without this set-up, a person could not send e-mail messages to anyone
not on their same system. For instance, an AOL customer could not communicate
with a Sprint customer, they could only mail other AOL subscribers.

17
Urban Land, May 2000, p.18.

18
 Major Internet Network Access Points
The primary NAPs are
located in just four
locations: in Chicago,
outside New York City
in New Jersey, in San San Francisco NAP
Jose, and in suburban CHICAGO-NAP
NEW YORK NAP
(Pennsauken, NJ)

Washington, D.C. MAE-WEST

(San Jose, CA) MAE- EAST
(Vienna, VA)
(Vienna, Virginia). MAE-LA (Los Angeles, CA)

Secondary sites have MAE-DALLAS

been added in Dallas, MAE-HOUSTON

San Francisco, Los

Angeles, and Houston.
Primary NAPs Secondary NAPs
The Washington area
NAP, called MAE-
EAST for Metropolitan
Area Exchange, has more than a 100 Internet access providers attached to it. In
recent years major companies such as MCI/World Com have developed additional
access points but the primary NAPs remain very important.

Although Internet access is rapidly moving to ubiquity, access comes in varying

levels of speed, quality, and privacy and these differences are important
considerations to companies doing business on the Internet. Arrayed in a
hierarchy, Internet access breaks out in four major levels.

The first level is at Network Access Points. Some companies prefer to be close to
a NAP because it offers the fastest route from one Internet access provider to
another. Although the speed being considered is in milliseconds, the industry
realizes that even small loses of speed can lead to larger problems further down
the network.

The Northern Virginia NAP has

Levels of Internet Backbone Access
been so successful, the
operators of the facility recently
MAE-EAST
announced that they are Network Access Points
(Vienna, VA)
building similar operation
TIER 1
centers in three locations: National Backbone Operators
Ashburn, Reston, and Tysons
Corner. A high-speed network TIER 2
will interlink these three Regional Backbone Operators

locations with the original

center on Gallows Road. It can TIER 3
Access Resellers
be expected, that with this
expansion, will be an expansion Residential & Business Internet Users
of firms locating in Virginia
near this NAP network.

19
Some firms, however, have been able to tie into regional high-speed networks that
carry them directly to the NAP. The best example of this in the Washington area
is Digex of Beltsville, Maryland. This company “hosts” very high profile web
sites (i.e. Martha Stewart, J.Crew, J.P. Morgan) by storing, securing, and
maintaining all the equipment necessary to run the sites. Although Digex sits 18
miles from MAE-East, it can still achieve direct access to MAE-East through a
special Internet network that rings the Washington area.

Tier 1 is provided by 48 large Internet access providers such as MCIWorldCom,

Sprint, and Qwest. Each of these firms has spent billions of dollars to lay fiber
optic lines throughout the world and are called “backbone” operators by the
InfoCom industry. Companies find it desirable to be close to these fiber lines
because they provide high quality, long-distance, and high-speed access to
millions of customers on the network and on the larger Internet. Several of them
also offer the advantage of having their own network access points that augment
the larger NAPs.

A local example of companies clustering around Tier 1 operators appears to be

developing near the intersection of Florida and New York Avenues in the District
of Columbia. First Qwest and then MCI/WorldCom announced in 1998 and
1999, respectively, that they were opening data centers in this location. Each was
attracted there by the availability of industrial space, proximity to downtown
Washington and to access to their own fiber optic lines that run along the
Amtrack/Metrorail/CSX line about a block away. Owners of nearby buildings
are rapidly renovating space in anticipation that access to Tier 1 companies will
draw a large number of network dependent firms.

Tier 2 operators act in much the same way as the national providers, but they are
limited to backbone operations within a region. While the companies provide high
speed access through fiber or telephone lines, their regional or local reach does
not provide the technological advantages found at the Tier 1 level where sheer
reach in number of customers or speed across networks is a powerful advantage.

Tier 3 firms resell usage of national and regional backbone providers. Companies
can range in size from one or two employees to thousands of employees (such as
AOL). Each year the number of resellers seems to grow with the current total
more than 7,000 companies.

Because of MAE-East, that Washington is the nation’s capital, and because there
is a large customer base here, all of the major transcontinental Internet lines run
through this region. This has made the Washington area a very attractive place to
do InfoCom business. The Washington Internet trade journal The Industry
Standard lists the Washington, D.C. area as the fifth most popular area to start an

20
 Internet business. 18 The top position was held by New York City. San Francisco
came in second, Los Angeles third, and the Silicon Valley, fourth.

Location of Regional InfoCom Clusters

The Washington Post recently mapped two major types of InfoCom firms,
telecommunications and computer programming/software companies.19 Concentrations
of telecommunications firms are found in Montgomery County, Washington, D.C. and
Fairfax County, Virginia. Montgomery County’s share follows I-270 from North
Bethesda to Clarksburg. The concentration in the District of Columbia is located in the
central business district, roughly between Wisconsin Avenue in the west to the North
Capitol Street area in the east. Fairfax County concentrations are seen in two areas,
Tysons Corner and along the Dulles Access Toll Road.

Computer programming and software firms are concentrated in Montgomery County

along I-270, but also in the Bethesda and Silver Spring business districts. Again, Fairfax
County’s clusters are seen at Tyson’s Corner and along the Dulles corridor, but also
along I-66. Arlington and the City of Alexandria have their share of firms as well.

Telecommunication Firms Computer Programming & Software Firms

Te
April 2000
Te
April 2000

HOWARD HOWARD

MONTGOMERY MONTGOMERY

LOUDOUN LOUDOUN
PRINCE PRINCE
GEORGE’S GEORGE’S

D.C. D.C.

FAIRFAX FAIRFAX

PRINCE PRINCE
WILLIAM WILLIAM

Source: Washington Post, April 5, 2000, G13. Source: Washington Post, April 5, 2000, G13.

18
“The State of the Internet Startup,” The Industry Standard, June 12, 2000, p.187.
19
Behr, Peter. “The Evolution of Wired Washington,” Washington Post, April 5, 2000.

21
Projections of Regional
InfoCom Employment
& Growth Washington Area InfoCom Employment Forecast
According to the George Shows Steady Growth 1999 to 2009
Mason University study,
continued growth of the
411,576 427,617
InfoCom industry between 361,438
379,601 395,174
350,069
1999 to 2009 will generate
77,548 new jobs, a 22 percent
increase in this sector’s
employment. This will in turn
support the creation of about
78,000 other private sector
jobs in the area economy
1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
combining to account for 24
percent of all new private Source: Fuller, Stephen S. InfoComm in the Washington Area Economy , December 1998; Research and
Technology Center, M-NCPPC.

sector jobs generated over this

ten-year period.

Although there has been a major downturn in InfoCom since mid-2000, George Mason
University professors Dr. Steven Fuller and Dr. Roger Stough are confident that the
above estimates will come to pass. 20 As will be discussed at the end of the next section,
this region has several factors that will sustain it through this downturn. It also has the
capability to exceed the employment growth of other U.S. high technology locations such
as Boston and the Silicon Valley.

Conclusion
In 1994, the Washington area was nicknamed “The Netplex” by Fortune and in 1995 it
was called the “Potomac Knowledgeway” by an economic development group.21 While
neither of these names has been widely adopted like “Silicon Valley,” they convey the
importance of Washington area in the worldwide InfoCom economy. InfoCom assets in
our region are considerable: principal parts of the Internet backbone, a large InfoCom
employment base, key regulatory agencies, bioinformatics, AOL and its spin-offs, and
venture capital funds. Regional developments over the last 40 years have assured that the
Washington region will be a major InfoCom leader in 2001 and for the foreseeable
future.

20
Stough, Roger R. and Rajendra Kulkarni. “A Soft Landing for the Regional Economy?” Proceedings of
the 9 th Annual Conference Forecasting the Greater Washington Economy:2001,
http://policy2.gmu.edu/ixconf/new.htm. Note: Although this study report on all high technology sectors,
not just InfoCom, the authors do note that almost 90 percent of the technology sector in the Washington
area is in the information technology, telecommunications, and management services industries.
21
Stewart, Thomas A. “The Netplex: It’s A New Silicon Valley,” Fortune, March 7, 1994, pp. 98-104;
Potomac Knowledgeway Project, www.knowledgeway.org.

22
Section 3. Montgomery County InfoCom

Montgomery County’s InfoCom base grew out of the needs of the federal government.
In 1963, shortly after Congress created the Communications Satellite Corp. (Comsat),
that firm was established in Clarksburg. IBM and ACS Government Solutions, Inc.
opened offices in the late 1960s to respond to the great demand for computer system
hardware and integration services. Also following government contracts was Lockheed-
Martin (formerly Martin Marietta) who consolidated its operations in the County in 1976.

County Captures 3rd Largest Share of This connection to federal

Federal InfoCom Procurements From Firms in the Region contracting continues
Percent of Total InfoCom Procurements
today. Montgomery
County firms captured the
Fairfax Co. third highest percentage of
Washington, D.C. federal procurement
Montgomery Co. contracts (FY2000)
Prince George's Co. awarded to Washington
Arlington Co.
area companies. At nearly
Alexandria City
15 percent, Montgomery
County was exceeded by
Loudoun Co.
Fairfax County (37.7%)
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
and the District of
Source: FY 2000 data, Federal Procurement Data Center
Columbia (25.1%).

A single firm has been successful in garnering a large share of both Washington area and
national federal procurements in InfoCom. Montgomery County’s Lockheed-Martin
(Bethesda) has held the number one position of all U.S. federal contractors for the last
seven years.22 Four other Montgomery County firms also ranked in the top 100.
Combined with Lockheed-Martin, these firms captured $2.84 billion in contracts in FY
2000.23 InfoCom clearly plays a large part in bringing federal procurement dollars to the
County. InfoCom purchases account for nearly 45 percent of all federal contracts
awarded to Montgomery County firms.24

The InfoCom economy in the County is not just comprised of federal contractors. A wide
variety of firms are: developing software, providing systems integration, designing
websites, and competing in the Internet marketplace. This latter group has been as
creative as those entrepreneurs frequently mentioned in the media. A sample of these
firms include:

22
Washington Technology, “7th Annual Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors Information Technology
Services,” www.wtonline.com.
23
#1. Lockheed-Martin; #22 Federal Data Corp.; #58 Comteq Federal, Inc.; #66 Comsat; #71 Aspen
Systems.
24
Federal Procurement Data Center; Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC.

23
 • Allsoldout.com - Auction site for concert and sporting event tickets
• Presidentialbank.com – The first Internet bank (opened in 1995)
• Buydomains.com – Registers Web site names and sells them to the highest bidder
• Drugmonitor.com – Notifies patients of clinical trials
• Associationcentral.com – A one-stop location to access associations
• Ecentives.com – Provides e-commerce sites with ecoupons
• USLAW.com – Lawyer locating, legal advice
• AtYourBusiness.com – Helps businesses to manage employee-related paperwork
• Showmethescore.com – Web pages for amateur sports teams
• Bid4assets.com – An auction site for high value distressed properties (the site
recently sold the U.S. Presidential yacht the U.S.S. Sequoia).
Firm Statistics
As of January 2001, there were 1,840 firms providing a wide variety of InfoCom services
and products in Montgomery County.25 These firms employed 59,233 workers, or nearly
12 percent of the total number of employees working in the County.26 Most firms can be
classified as small businesses given that 70 percent of them have 9 or fewer employees.
This high percentage of small firms is consistent with that found region-wide. The
Greater Washington Initiative estimates that 72 percent of the Washington region high
technology firms (includes other activities in addition to InfoCom) have 10 or fewer
employees.27
Table 1. Montgomery County Firm Size Distribution

Distribution By Firm Size Employee Distribution By Firm Size

Firm Size Total Percent Total Percent

(Employees) Firms of All Firms Employees of All Employees
1-4 787 46.5 2,345 4.0
5- 9 393 23.2 2,734 4.6
10 - 19 177 10.5 2,437 4.1
20 - 49 153 9.0 5,185 8.8
50 - 99 81 4.8 5,781 9.8
100 - 249 56 3.3 9,294 15.7
250 - 499 30 1.8 11,831 20.0
500+ 16 0.9 19,626 33.1
Total 1,693 100.0 59,233 100.0
Unassignable 147 - - -
Grand Total 1,840 59,233

Source: Data collected from published sources (e.g. Washington Post, Washington Techway, Potomac Tech
Journal), phone interviews, and InfoUSA.

25
Data gathered from a variety of sources. Sources used: IT Company Guide; various issues of the
Washington Business Journal, Potomac Tech Journal, Washington Post, and Washington Techway;
postings on sites such as dbusiness.com, netpreneur news, potomactechwire.com; Information Technology
Almanac; Dun & Bradstreet (companiesonline.com); Network Solutions (dotcomdiretory.com); InfoUSA.
26
Total County At-Place Employees = 513,000, Round 6.1 Forecasts; M-NCPPC.
27
Radio interview on WWRC-980 AM, July 2000.

24
Large firms, however, hold most of the employment. Firms with 100 or more employees
account for 69 percent of the total InfoCom employment. The largest of these firms
include:

Table
t 2. Top Seven Firms By Number of Employees

Number of
Firm Employees
Lockheed-Martin 4,000
Hughes Network Systems 3,500
Discovery Communications 2,000
BAE Systems 2,000
Comsat Corp.* 950
TTC 910
GE Information Systems 800
*Acquired by Lockheed-Martin in 2000.

Source: Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC.

The majority (79 percent) of County InfoCom firms are engaged in some aspect of
information technology such as software development, data processing, computer
programming, and computer systems integration. The next largest share (10 percent)
includes those firms supplying telecommunications. Web based enterprises account for
the third ranking share (6 percent). Five percent of the Montgomery County firms provide
supplies to the InfoCom industry (i.e. equipment sales/rental).

Most of Firms Are Engaged In Information Majority of Employees Are In Information

Technology Technology or Telecom

Percent of total firms* Percent of total employees*

Web Based Suppliers Web Based Suppliers

5% 4% 5% 4%

Telecom Telecom
10% 33%

IT IT
55% 55%

Source: Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC; based on sample of 1773 Source: Research & Technology Center, M -NCPPC; based on sample of 1772
firms. firms; *3% of total employees could not be classified.

25
Fifty-five percent of all InfoCom employees are focused on information technology
(31,727 workers). Telecommunications workers account for 33 percent of the total
(19,036 workers). So far, 5 percent of County InfoCom workers (2,884) work at Web
based enterprises (i.e. Presidentialbank.com). Another four percent of the work force
(2,307) come from direct suppliers to the industry such as high tech employment agencies
and firms that provide electronic parts. (Sixty-eight firms with 1,546 employees could not
be specifically classified).

Concentrations of Firms By Location

When the inventory of InfoCom firms is mapped, their locations are widely disbursed.
Clusters can be seen in Silver Spring, Rockville, and Bethesda, as well as near I-270.
Also seen are a large number of firms located in homes in residential areas of the County.

InfoCom Firm Distribution

April 2001

Montgomery County

26
Sorting the InfoCom inventory by mailing address, concentrations are found in and
around Rockville, Bethesda, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Germantown.

Table 3. Concentration of Firms By Location

Number Percent Number Percent

City Of Firms of All Firms Of Employees of All Employees
Rockville 452 24.6 19,216 32.4
Gaithersburg 349 19.0 7,681 13.0
Silver Spring 342 18.6 6,433 10.9
Bethesda 292 15.9 15,950 26.9
Germantown 103 5.6 7,331 12.4
Potomac 57 3.1 238 0.4
Olney 40 2.2 195 0.3
Chevy Chase 32 1.7 275 0.5
Kensington 30 1.6 264 0.4
Takoma Park 24 1.3 87 0.1
Wheaton 15 0.8 249 0.4
Other 104 5.7 1,314 2.2
Total 1,840 100.0 59,233 100.0

Source: Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC.

Table 4. Locations of Notable Firms

Location

Firm Location*
Lockheed-Martin Bethesda
Discovery Communications Bethesda
BAE Systems Rockville
Startec Global Communications Bethesda
TTC Germantown
GE Information Systems Gaithersburg
Loral Cyberstar Rockville
CityNet Telecommunications Silver Spring

*As determined by zip code

Source: Research & Technology Center; M-NCPPC.

27
Types of Space Used
The addresses of InfoCom firms were matched with the Co-Star building database from
the Realty Information Group. Matches were
found for 844 firms. The majority of firms
are located in general office space while InfoCom Firms Rely Upon Office & Flex
others use flex, industrial, and office condo Space
space.
Percent of Total Firms

Most firms occupy Class A or Class B space. Condo Industrial

4% 4%
Use of these classes was almost equally split,
351 firms filled Class A space and 338 firms Flex
10%
occupied Class B locations. Class C was
occupied by 119 firms.

Comparisons With Other Washington

Area InfoCom Centers Office
82%
Montgomery County is frequently compared
with counties in Northern Virginia in terms
of number of firms, number of employees,
and other economic factors. Data, Source: Co-Star; Research & Technology Center,
M-NCPPC; based on sample of 844 firms.
interviews, and field observations were used
to differentiate Montgomery County from the
surrounding jurisdictions.

The Employment and Firm

Comparison
Montgomery County Firms 2nd Largest Regional Employer Montgomery County InfoCom
Percent of Total InfoCom Employment
employment has expanded
along with the rapid ramp-up in
Fairfax Co.
the region. In fact, the County
has the second largest share of
Montgomery Co.
regional employment following
Prince George's Co.
Fairfax County.
Washington, D.C.

Alexandria City Montgomery County’s has

Loudoun Co. wide variety of firms engaged
Prince William Co. in InfoCom represent every
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
type of major InfoCom
business activity from
Source: 1997 Economic Census, Bureau of the Census; M- NCPPC.
manufacturing (a small
amount) to Web design. As is
the case with InfoCom employment, the County is second in the region in terms
of total number of InfoCom firms. The real difference between Montgomery

28
 County and other regional jurisdictions such as Northern Virginia, is the size and
visibility of certain firms. For instance, while Montgomery County has IT
consulting firms, it does not have as many firms the size of Booz, Allen, and
Hamilton, Price
Waterhouse Coopers, Montgomery County Home To 2nd Largest Number of
Accenture, AMS, or InfoCom Firms
SAIC. Montgomery Percent of Total InfoCom Firms
County has some large
firms doing comparable Fairfax Co.

work, but few the Montgomery Co.

magnitude of those just Washington, D.C.

mentioned. Using one Prince George's Co.
other example, Loudoun Co.
Montgomery County has Alexandria City
its Internet Service
Prince William Co.
providers, but none reach
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
the size of AOL or
MCI/WorldCom. Source: 1997 Economic Census, Bureau of the Census; M- NCPPC.

Data Centers
With the surge in Internet development has come the creation of a new real estate
product. Known by a variety of names, “server farms,” “cyber hotels,” “carrier
hotels,” or “data centers,” these buildings house the equipment that provide the
infrastructure of the Internet. Telecommunications firms as well as Internet
service providers, Web-hosting companies; Web based application service
providers, and other companies house dozens, hundreds, or thousands of switches
and switching equipment needed to move traffic along the Internet.28

In 1999, local developers stepped in to fill existing and forecasted demand for
data center space. Some of the first space to go up is located a few miles from
Montgomery County, in the District of Columbia near the intersection of Florida
and New York Avenues. Vacant buildings previously used by the printing
industry were especially attractive because of their sturdy construction and their
location near a fiber network trunk line running parallel to the Metrorail Red Line
tracks. This was followed by the construction or purchase of land for development
for nearly a million square feet of data center floor area, with plans to build a total
of 13 centers. This boom was temporarily halted when the District government
placed a moratorium on new construction of data centers until they could get
some development restrictions in place aimed at protecting area neighborhoods
from the architectural ramifications of these buildings. The opposition lay with
how the buildings are constructed and operated. Most centers are windowless and
tend to look like the fortresses they are. These centers are constructed to protect
the equipment inside from common criminal activity such as burglary and against

28
Carberry, James. “Second Generation,” Urban Land, January 2001, p.68.

29
 unusual occurrences such as terrorist attack or acts of nature such as earthquakes,
floods, and windstorms.

While these centers were being opened or planned, three dozen centers have also
been completed or are planned to be part of the sprawling advance of InfoCom
development in Northern Virginia. These projects total an estimated 2.5 to 3
million square feet.29

Montgomery County does not have any commercial data centers (some
companies and institutions do have proprietary centers). This is largely due to a
preference held by most of the data center developers to be near high profile
companies that have largely located in Northern Virginia, and where affordable,
in urban cores where there is a very high concentration of firms requiring Internet
access and services. This latter preference is why the New York Avenue projects
went forward. Similar projects have developed in downtown Los Angeles, where
18 buildings totaling more than 3 million square feet that were totally vacant have
been converted to data centers.30

In 1999 and 2000, data centers became sought after because they were seen as
very visible indicators of how a community’s economy had shifted to the “new
economy” how it was very much part of the “dot com” revolution. The more data
centers a community had, the more successful it would soon be. Data centers also
have been attractive to some jurisdictions when data centers were slated for urban
centers such as downtowns. Typically, these centers place little strain on the
existing infrastructure (e.g. traffic and parking) because centers have few
employees. Montgomery County did not attract any of the commercial centers in
this period. No major obstacles against data center development in the County are
evident. The same fiber lines feeding the New York projects run through portions
of the County including downtown Silver Spring. Real estate representatives
have reported that firms seeking data center space have toured buildings in
Montgomery County within the last twelve months.

It could be some time before we know if data centers will be developed here. The
deep downturn in Internet investment, sales, and firm creation has largely stopped
leasing and further development of data centers. One of the earliest and largest
District of Columbia data center projects (800,000 square feet) was cancelled in
mid-April while in the planning stage. Other centers in Northern Virginia remain
largely or totally vacant.31 This follows a national trend of overcapacity of data
center space. According to the Wall Street Journal, data center space in the

29
Usher, Anne. “Down on the Server Farm,” Washington Techway, March 26, 2001, p.24.
30
Ibid, p.71.
31
Ibid, p.24.

30
 United States is only being utilized at 25 percent of its capacity.32 Predictions
show that center space use will only grow 2 to 5 percent annually over the next
four years, down from the previous forecasts used to drive new center
construction (25 to 35 percent annual growth rates).

The Internet Infrastructure Comparison

While Northern Virginia is the home of MAE-East and the majority of the
region’s data centers, Montgomery County shares with it a high level of
connectivity. Information gathered in interviews and a literature review for this
study failed to identify any current major differences in terms of connectivity.

AOL had spearheaded the installation of many miles of fiber lines in Virginia,
now major urban centers and business parks throughout the entire region enjoy
access to the Internet via copper-wire solutions (DSL, T-1, and T-3) and fiber
optic networks that run at a variety of speeds. Interviews with those familiar with
some of the major fiber networks indicate that Montgomery County fiber lines
link urban centers such as Bethesda and Silver Spring, and business park areas
such as those found in the I-270 corridor.

One difference between Montgomery County and some locations such as the
Dulles Corridor is the age of buildings being wired for Internet access. New
buildings have the advantage of being designed to accommodate Internet access
lines and the storage of associated equipment. Much of the space used by
Northern Virginia’s InfoCom industry has been new construction along the Dulles
Corridor and other emerging areas. Some tenants moving to Montgomery County
buildings probably found that the older buildings had to go through a period of
rewiring. Owners of older buildings have the special challenge of developing
“teleco closet space” for equipment, snaking wires vertically from floor to floor
and horizontally into tenant space, often while these spaces are occupied. In some
cases, fees are charged service providers wishing to wire a building by landlords
who wish to receive a percentage of the charges paid by the tenants. Sometimes
these negotiations can slow wiring of a building.

This difference is largely being erased as principal buildings have been rewired
and infrastructure companies are providing greater education, incentives, and
technical options to building owners for retrofitting many of the remaining older
buildings.33

32
Mangalindan, Mylene. “Overcapacity Jitters Hurt Web-Hosting Stocks,” Wall Street Journal, June 18,
2001, p.B6.
33
As per presentations at the “Broadband Connectivity Workshop,” February 7, 2001, Silver Spring,
Maryland, hosted by the Communication Infrastructure Committee and the Montgomery County Chamber
of Commerce.

31
The Future of the InfoCom Industry in the County
The worldwide InfoCom market has suffered a major downturn since mid-2000. A
majority of ecommerce firms never got off the ground to show performance expected by
venture capitalists, Wall Street, and the general public. Once confidence in key
ecommerce businesses collapsed so did many of those firms supplying equipment,
services, and other goods to the ecommerce sector. At the same time, the consumer
market for computers softened after several years of strong sales. Lastly, wireless and
broadband (i.e. fiber) applications did not garner as much consumer and business interest
as expected.

This downtrend in ecommerce is leaving its mark on the Washington Region. The most
visible impact can be seen in the statistics of the real estate market.34 The inventory of
office space available for subleasing (often times an early indicator of a softening real
estate market) has moved up sharply as closing and downsizing firms place office space
on the market. This is especially true in the Dulles Corridor where the sublet vacancy
rate for Class A office space has jumped from 2.2 percent at the end of 2000 to 6 percent
in May 2001. Office construction too, has been affected. Projects, such as data centers
for companies like Amazon.com and business parks expansions for MCI/WorldCom,
have been put on hold.

The impact has been less visible in terms of InfoCom employment. Some data show
layoffs between mid-November 2000 to mid-May 2001 totaled 7,000 employees (about 2
percent of the local 2000 InfoCom workforce).35 However, a local InfoCom columnist
claims that there are more than seven times that number of unfilled InfoCom jobs in the
region, and other press reports support this observation that hiring is still going on for
certain jobs even in the midst of a downturn.36

Several reports released in close succession in the first part of this year point out the
important differences between the Washington region and many other high tech
locations. 37 It is these differences that will help the Washington region weather the
general economic and InfoCom downturns:

34
White, Suzanne. “Tech Troubles Trickle Down: Real Estate Market Gets A Loud, Clear Wake-up Call,”
Washington Business Journal, April 6-12, 2001, pps. 1 & 59; Spinner, Jackie. “Now Virginia Is For
Subleasing: High-Tech Distress Pulls Rug Out From Under An Office Market Boom,” Washington Post,
April 5, 2001, p. E01; Sunnucks, Mike. “Maryland Suffers Sublet Woes: Vacancy Rate Doubles in Q1 in
Bethesda/Chevy Chase,” Washington Business Journal, April 20, 2001.
35
Schafer, Sarah. “Welcome Back To The Real World: Jobless Tech Workers Find Balance of Power Has
Shifted,” Washington Post, May 21, 2001, pp E1, E13.
36
Villella, Paul. “Washington Tech Industry Can Work Through Slump,” Washington Business Journal,
March 23, 2001. See footnote 33.
37
Stough, Roger R. and Rajendra Kulkarni, A Soft Landing for the Regional Economy?, The School of
Public Policy, George Mason University, January 2001; Fuller, Stephen. The Economic Look For The
Washington Region, George Mason University, January 2001;

32
 Difference 1. Our region has a small InfoCom manufacturing base
Personal computer and ecommerce equipment manufacturing have been declining
over the past year and along with this has come corporate layoffs and
downsizings. These effects have largely been unseen in the Washington region
because here, only 14 percent of technology jobs are in manufacturing. Silicon
Valley has 58 percent of its workforce engaged in InfoCom manufacturing.38

Difference 2. Our region captures a large share of federal procurement

In 1999, Washington region firms captured nearly six times more federal
procurement than did Silicon Valley companies. Although the Washington region
InfoCom sector has made major strides into commercial markets, federal
expenditures still drive many companies. The Potomac Tech Journal found that 49
percent of 1,600 InfoCom firms in its database received government contracts in
2000.39 These companies can have considerable shielding from the vicissitudes of
the purely commercial markets since federal spending cycles usually work
independently of those markets.

It should be noted, as InfoCom expands further into commercial markets, the percentage
of total regional firms involved with government contracting will decrease. The
Washington Post provided a glimpse of this trend with data gathered before the sharp
downturn in InfoCom starting in mid-2000.40 As can be seen in this chart, the number of
federal contracting InfoCom firms exceeded those that had no connections to the
government before the commercialization of the Internet in the mid-1990s. In recent
years, as the Internet became a
commonly available in the Commercial Internet Shifts InfoCom Firm Formation Towards
workplace and the home, the Non-Government Contracting
number of firms not associated
Period Firm Founded
with government contracts
surged. The current downturn
has undoubtedly lessened the Contractors
Not Contractors
disparity between contractors
and non-government
contractors.

It can be expected that this is Pre 1982 '82-'85 '86-'89 '90-'93 '94 -
but a temporary adjustment. April
2000
Over time, as the Internet makes
new and deeper impacts on our Source: Washington Post, April 5, 2000, p.G11.

business and personal lives, the

38
Stephen Fuller findings as cited in: Irwin, Neil. “Upbeat on Area’s Tech Sector,” Washington Post,
February 6, 2001, p. E05.
39
“Government Contracts and Technology Firms,” Potomac Tech Journal, November 27, 2000, p.12.
40
Behr, Peter. “The Evolution of Wired Washington: Explosion of Internet Firms Weans Area From U.S.
Government,” Washington Post, p. G11.

33
growth of firms with products and services aimed not at government users but at the
commercial market, will exceed the creation of firms servicing government needs.

Although it is hard to fully substantiate, it is likely that Montgomery County escaped

many of the effects of this InfoCom downturn because a smaller percentage of the
county’s total inventory of InfoCom firms were focused exclusively on providing Web
services and products. The Potomac Tech Journal reports that in October 2000, nearly 11
percent of 1,300 regional InfoCom firms said that they provide services that are primarily
focused on Web related InfoCom activities (i.e. Web site design, software for Web
sites).41 At the same time, MNCPPC estimates show that 6 percent of Montgomery
County firms describe themselves as Web companies.

George Mason University

expects the Washington region Washington Will Outpace Employment Growth In
to outperform many U.S. high Other High Technology Locations In 2001
technology locations. Since the
Change in employment 2000 to 2001
majority of high technology in
this region is InfoCom, this Washington Region

projection for 2001 shows not Boston

only the resilience in the
Research Triangle, NC
Washington InfoCom economy
but also higher growth potential Seattle

than found in Boston, the Silicon Valley, CA

Silicon Valley, and the U.S. U.S.
high tech economy generally.
0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16%

As the market for InfoCom Source: Stough , Roger R. “A Soft Landing for the Regional Economy?”
services and products goes
through periods of expansion
and contraction in the coming years, Montgomery County will continue to be a major
location for firms in this sector. In summary, Montgomery County will be able to attract
and retain a large share of regional InfoCom firm and employment due to:

1. the quality of the County’s urban centers such as Bethesda and Silver Spring

2. the quality of the County’s business parks, especially those in the I-270
corridor

3. the high quality of life in Montgomery County

4. the synergistic effect of the County’s concentration in biotechnology, large

base of government contractors (i.e. Lockheed-Martin) and system
integration/software expertise.
41
Potomac Tech Journal, October 2, 2000, p. 16.

34
Some conditions will limit the number of firms and amount of InfoCom employment that
can be attracted and accommodated in Montgomery County.

1. The expansion of MAE-East in Northern Virigina.

This will be a powerful attractor of those firms that require/desire to be close
to this InfoCom focal point.

2. The outward expansion of office/flex/industrial developments for InfoCom

firms in the more distant suburbs. Although InfoCom has been widely
dispersed in the region, with firms in downtown Washington, in Montgomery
County to the north and Fairfax County to the south and west, developments
in the outer suburbs will spread firms even further. Loudoun and Prince
William County projects are already creating new InfoCom clusters. With
each new cluster comes greater competition among all clusters, spreading a
growing but limited supply of InfoCom firms more thinly across the region.

3. The demand for large tracts of land for business park/campus development.
Montgomery County’s supply of land for large developments (i.e. 80+ acres)
is extremely limited. Much of the land that had been allocated for business
development in the 1980s and 1990s has now been developed or spoken for.
A recent example of an employer with local ties that chose to go to Northern
Virginia to develop a business campus is the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute.42 Long associated with Montgomery County by way of having its
headquarters in Chevy Chase, the Institute could not have easily found the 281
acres it wanted in this County.

42
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “HHMI Unveils Long-Range, $500 Million Plan for Collaborative
Research Campus, Press Release, February 1, 2001 (http://www.hhmi.org/news/020101.html) on Web site,
May 22, 2001.

35
 Appendix

Item 1. InfoCom By North American Industrial Classification System Codes

Item 2. List of Cited Sources
Item 3. List of Persons Interviewed
Item 4. Accessing the MNCPPC Database of Montgomery County InfoCom Firms

36
Item 1.
InfoCom By North American Industrial Classification System Codes

Hardware Industries SIC NAICS

Computers and equipment 3571, 2, 5, 7 334111, 2, 3, 9
Wholesale trade of computers & equipment 5045 pt. 42143 pt.
Retail trade of computers & equipment 5734 pt. 44312 pt.
Calculating and office machines, nec 3578, 9 334119, 333313, 339942, 334518
Magnetic and optical recording media 3695 334613
Electron tubes 3671 334411
Printed circuit boards 3672 334412
Semiconductors 3674 334413
Passive electronic components 3675-9 334414, 334415, 34416, 334417,
334418, 336322, 334419
Industrial instruments for measurement 3823 334513
Industrial for measuring electricity 3825 334416, 334515
Laboratory analytical instruments 3826 334516

Software/Services Industries
Computer Programming Services 7371 541513
Prepackaged software 7372 51121, 334611
Wholesale trade of software 5045 pt. 42143 pt.
Retail trade of software 5734 pt. 44312 pt.
Computer integrated systems design 7373 541512
Computer processing, data preparation 7374 51421
Information retrieval services 7375 514191
Computer services management 7376 541513
Computer rental and leasing 7377 53242
Computer maintenance and repair 7378 44312, 811212
Computer related services, nec. 7379 541512, 541519

Communications Equipment Industries

Household audio and video equipment 3651 33431
Telephone and telegraph equipment 3661 33421, 334416, 334418
Radio and TV and communications equipment 3663 33422

Communications Services Industries

Telephone and telegraph communications 481, 22, 99 513321, 513322, 51333, 51331.
513322, 51334, 51339
Radio broadcasting 4832 513111, 513112
Television broadcasting 4833 51312
Cable and other pay TV services 4841 51321, 51322

Source: Based on U.S. Department of Commerce, The Emerging Digital Economy , Appendix 1, p. 19.;
Research & Technology Center, M-NCPPC.

37
Item 3.
List of Cited Sources & Other Research Materials

Behr, Peter. “The Evolution of Wired Washington: Explosion of Internet Firms Weans Area From U.S.
Government,” Washington Post, p.G11.

Broadband Connectivity Workshop, February 7, 2001, Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce

Business 2.0, “Chasing Retail’s Tail,” January 1, 2000.

Business 2.0, various issues

Carberry, James. “Second Generation,” Urban Land, January 2001, p.8

Companiesonline.com

Co-Star

Dbusinss.com, various postings

Dotcomdirectory.com

Ecompany Now, various issues

Economic Census 1997, Bureau of the Census

Federal Procurement Data Center custom data run

Fuller, Stephen S. InfoCom Industry Study (Herndon, VA: Potomac Knowledgeway, 1998).

Fuller, Stephen. The Economic Look For The Washington Region, George Mason University, January
2001.

Gralla, Preston. How The Internet Works, (Indianapolis, IN: Que, 1999).

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “HHMI Unveils Long-Range, $500 Million Plan for Collaborative
Research Campus,” Press Release, February 1, 2001.

Industry Standard, “Behind the Numbers: The Mystery of B-to-B Forecasts Revealed, February 21, 2000.

Industry Standard, “Wireless Net: Not Yet,”, May 22, 2000.

Industry Standard, “Net Drives Economic Boom,” June 26, 2000.

Industry Standard, “The State of the Internet Startup,” June 12, 2000, p.187.

Industry Standard, various issues

Information Technology Almanac

InfoUSA

38
Irwin, Neil. “Upbeat on Area’s Tech Sector,” Washington Post, February 6, 2001, p.E05.
IT Company Guide, various issues

Mangalindan, Mylene. “Overcapacity Jitters Hurt Web-Hosting Stocks,” Wall Street Journal, June 18,
2001, p.B6.

MNCPPC, Economic Forces That Shape Montgomery County – Update 2001, Research & Technology
Center, Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning.

Noguchi, Yuki. “Internet? Poo. It’s Fiber Optics That’s On Fire,” Washington Post, August 21, 2000, F16.

Potomac Tech Journal, various issues

Potomac Tech Journal, “Government Contracts and Technology Firms,” November 27, 2000, p.12.

Potomactechwire.com, various postings

Schafer, Sarah. “Welcome Back To The Real World: Jobless Tech Workers Find Balance of Power Has
Shifted,” Washington Post, May 21, 2001, ppE1, E13.

Smart Computing, various issues

Spinner, Jackie. “Now Virginia Is For Subleasing: High-Tech Distress Pulls Rug Out From Under An
Office Market Boom,” Washington Post, April 5, 2001, p.E01

Stewart, Thomas A. “The Netplex: It’s A New Silicon Valley,” Fortune, March 7, 1994, pp. 98-104.

Stough, Roger R. and Rajendra Kulkarni, A Soft Landing for the Regional Economy?, The School of
Public Policy, George Mason University, January 2001.

Sunnucks, Mike. “Maryland Suffers Sublet Woes: Vacancy Rate Doubles in Q1 in Bethesda/Chevy
Chase,” Washington Business Journal, April 20, 2001.

Upside, various issues.

Usher, Anne. “Down on the Server Farm,” Washington Techway, March 26, 2001, p.24

Villella, Paul. “Washington Tech Industry Can Work Through Slump,” Washington Business Journal,
March 23, 2001.

WWRC-980 Radio, various broadcasts

Washington Business Journal, various is sues

Washington Technology, “7th Annual Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors Information Technology
Services,” www.wtonline.com

Washington Techway, various issues

Walker, Leslie. “Plugged In For Maximum Efficiency: Undaunted by Dot-Com Flameout, Companies
Move To Streamline Operations By Harnessing the Web,” Washington Post, June 20, 2001, p.G01.

White, Suzanne. “Tech Troubles Trickle Down: Real Estate Market Gets A Loud, Clear Wake-up Call,”
Washington Business Journal, April 6-12, 2001, pps. 1 & 59

39
Item 4.
Interviews Conducted

Gary Arlen, Arlen Communications, Inc.

Mary MacPherson, Executive Director, Morino Institute
Cris Epstein Heerford, DataCentersNow
Willian Drury, Lockheed-Martin
Debbie Alston, Pimmit Run Research, Inc.
Brendan Owen, CB Richard Ellis
Guy Wollcott, CEO, Rocket Works
Ralph Haught, CB Richard Ellis
Morgan Sullivan, Spaulding & Slye
Parind J. Raval, Site Engineer, Digex
Ed Zaptin, Washington Real Estate Investment Trust
Amy Finan, Montgomery County Department of Economic Development
Basil Allison, Systems Planning, Pepco
Mark Seward, MCI/Worldcom/UUnet
Andrew Afflerbach, Columbia Telecommunications Corp.
David Lillibridge, Mid-Atlantic Technology Associates LLC
Ferdinand Tolentino, MCI/WorldCom, Vienna, Virginia
Anne Rosenau, Cushman & Wakefield

40
Item 5.
Accessing the MNCPPC Database of Montgomery County InfoCom Firms

The MNCPPC inventory of Montgomery County InfoCom firms compiled for this study
can be found online at www.mc-mncppc.org/factmap/databook/resanlys/randa.htm in
Excel format.

This inventory may be updated periodically so it may vary from the data cited in this
report. It should also be noted that MNCPPC is offering this inventory for general
information only. There may be firms listed in the inventory that are no longer in
business and the inventory may be lacking other names of firms that have begun
operations. Also, the inventory may have data that may no longer be accurate, such as
employee counts and addresses.

41
 Acknowledgements

The Maryland National Capital Park & Planning Commission

Montgomery County Park and Planning Department

Charles R. Loehr, Director

Drew Dedrick, Chief, Research and Technology Center

Project Team

Gary Goodwin, Research Coordinator (Author)

Frederick R. Peacock, Research Master Planner

Other Staff

Wayne Koempel, Research Planner

Sam Dixon, Graphic Designer/Illustrator
Charles Coleman, Reproduction Services

42