InfoMall in the new University and State Context

Structure of NPAC / InfoMall Activities


Above we show the proposed structure of NPAC, InfoMall and some associated commercial entities. There is at the top the University component of NPAC. This includes:

Below we have four identified types of commercial activity associated with NPAC via InfoMall. Note these are "logical" not "physical" entities and any given commercial InfoMall member could have many of these of four activities described below.

  1. There is a specially identified commNPAC which is concerned with commercial development of NPAC technologies of general value to many associated InfoMall members. Example technologies could include Tango WebFlow or WebWisdom. In exchange for supporting the general InfoMall member, commNPAC will effectively receive InfoMall support - probably by direct InfoMall funding of the relevant core technology development in University NPAC. "Support of a general InfoMall member" means that commNPAC will license/supply technologies non exclusively to InfoMall members who desire them.
  2. Companies labeled sysApp in the figure are illustrated by Forepoint, Translet, Ultra and WebTopSystems and proposed start-ups in education, finance and Healthcare technology areas. These are technology companies focused on particular application areas. Most but not all these companies are based on exploiting Web technologies.
  3. Companies labeled userApp in the figure are illustrated by Carrier, CSN (MidHudson) and Syracuse Language Systems. These are application companies whose product is enhanced by a technology developed by either sysApp, commNPAC or NPAC.
  4. Companies labeled compcomm in the figure are illustrated by Digital, IBM, NYNEX and Sun. They are computer and communication companies supplying base hardware and services.

Outcome Based InfoMall Targets

InfoMall will deliver direct economic development in 6 general target areas:

  1. Advanced Education: NPAC's courses and research activities train students and staff in areas which provide critical skills to New York State companies who hire them. These skills are not available in the broader and less leading edge education available at Universities.
  2. Technology Consulting: NPAC has expertise which can help New York Companies develop new Information Technology Plans which will increase the global competitiveness of the company. This expertise will be transferred by a set of general outreach and specialized consulting activities. The economic impact of this is in general clear but will be hard to quantify.
  3. Creation of Jobs in Technology Companies: 4 technology companies have been set up as a result of NPAC activities over the last three years and we expect there to be more. These companies are in Web Technology and parallel processing arenas and continue to work with NPAC through InfoMall. There are also existing technology companies whose activity has been enhanced by working with NPAC through InfoMall. This target measures directly the number of technology jobs created in these companies through InfoMall activities.
  4. Increased Revenue for Technology Companies: InfoMall activities increase revenue for New York state technology companies by providing leading edge NPAC developed technologies and knowledge of new technology developed elsewhere. We term this combination of specific new NPAC technologies and knowledge of worldwide developed new technologies as "InfoMall Technology". This target measures increase in revenue in technology development and not technology use companies.
  5. Creation of Jobs in Companies using InfoMall Technology: InfoMall technologies (defined above) directly create jobs in companies that use them. This is exemplified by Carrier where jobs were created based on the NPAC developed web product catalog on the Carrier Home Page. Again jobs were created in Syracuse Language Systems based on initially on activities 1) 2) and 3) with in particular their new Virtual University which makes critical use of InfoMall technology. This target measures job creation through InfoMall activities in commercial products of New York state companies that use (but do not develop as in 3)) InfoMall technology.
  6. Increased Revenue for Companies using InfoMall Technology: The companies of the type described above will increase their revenue because InfoMall technology will give them better products. For instance Carrier will sell more air-conditioners because of the quality of their Web-linked database developed by NPAC while Syracuse Language Systems will enroll more people in their Virtual University because of the effectiveness of InfoMall technology used in it. This target measures this increase in revenue attributable to InfoMall activity.

Specific Target Outcomes for 1996-97

Note a signification new InfoMall Activity is an assessment task which is designed to quantify the target outcomes described below. Given that this is a transition year, we consider current targets as relatively inexact estimates.

  1. Advanced Education: Here the goal is 5 jobs created per year on an ongoing basis. This estimate is a reasonable number based on prior years.
  2. Technology Consulting: In 96-97, we are starting several new activities that can contribute to outcome funding in this category. After 3 years our target is $1,000,000 of economic value for a full year of outcome based funding InfoMall activity. In 96-97, we have a different goal of producing by Sept 1,97 a proposed outreach approach based on experiments and a proposed assessment methodology for this target. No outcome funding will be promised for the preliminary 96-97 efforts in this area.
  3. Creation of Jobs in Technology Companies: Here we have substantial experience to draw on and estimate 10 jobs by Sept 1,97; 15 by Sept 1,98 and 20 by Sept 1,99.
  4. Increased Revenue for Technology Companies: Here our estimate is $250,000 by Sept 1,97; $500,000 by Sept 1,98 and $1,500,000 by Sept 1,99
  5. Creation of Jobs in Companies using InfoMall Technology: Here our estimate is less certain and we need to develop better assessment methods. Such assessment methods will be a major goal for Sept 1,97 and we estimate after 3 years that this will also lead to 20 jobs in New York state companies.
  6. Increased Revenue for Companies using InfoMall Technology: As in previous target, assessment needs to be developed and our estimate is currently the same as 4) -- $250,000 by Sept 1,97; $500,000 by Sept 1,98 and $1,500,000 by Sept 1,99

In summary, we have a total outcome estimated as $3,000,000 increased revenue and 45 jobs which can be assigned directly to 96-97 activities. Note we assign advanced education to 5 as those in later years should be attributed to InfoMall activities of those years! Using $150,000 value per job gives an estimated outcome of $9,750,000. Note that the targets include economic activity in both large and small businesses but the latter are probably the most promising area for InfoMall. All the activity in targets 3) and 4) and some of targets 1) and 5),6) are associated with small businesses. Again most of our activity is associated with Web Technology but not all. The work of Ultra is parallel processing as is some new activities we expect in financial modeling.

New InfoMall Activities Implied by Outcome Funding

Outreach

Many of the targets and especially target 2) require directed outreach activities in both Central New York and more broadly throughout the State. We have already organized two highly successful technology days organized around uses of Web Technologies in particular areas. These were

We intend to offer more such day long activities with a Health care focus being the next offering in early summer.

However we need to supplement these with an ongoing series of technology focus discussions - initially we plan 2 hour evening sessions. These we expect to offer monthly starting in the summer. As well as this increase in area and delivery type, we intend to organize these outside CNY - especially in conjunction with InfoMall MidHudson in New York and Hudson Valley region.

It is clear that these activities will identify InfoMall opportunities and generally help New York State business identify the value of emerging information technologies. However it will be hard to quantify success and we need to develop appropriate assessment methods.

Assessment

As already discussed, we need to become more expert on quantifying the economic effect of our InfoMall activities and developing a plan and some preliminary experiments will be a critical part of 96-97 activities.

Advanced Education

We have already started an effort to enhance our education through two ways. Firstly we are offering continuing education classes trough the DCESS unit of Syracuse University. Secondly we are developing novel distance education technologies aimed at both national and state delivery. The national activities are funded by the federal government as part of training and outreach to both HBCU (Historically Black Colleges) and DoD laboratories. We will use this federally funded activity to enhance InfoMall state activities.

Technology Development

Here our work is often called "software capitalization" as it involves developing novel software from the point it is left after research to a more robust functional level where it can be commercialized at lower risk to the company that licenses the software. This has been a feature of our in InfoMall for last 3 years and has several successes seen in spin-off businesses. In 96-97, we will focus on two areas: Web technology for Health Care (especially work of Lipson and Warner); Web technology for education (especially work with CSN)