@LARGEBuilding a high-tech ballclub
By Scott KirsnerI envy the sports columnists.
They get to write about promising new recruits at the start of every season, regardless of how poor the prospects actually are for that year's team.
Over here in the business section, when the economy heads south, grimness pervades everything.
But what about the rookie companies that will ensure that Massachusetts has a strong technology franchise two or three years from now? They may be too small today to have much of an economic impact, but some could eventually become sizable engines of growth and innovation.
One rookie company with big-time potential is a stealthy Lowell start-up called Konarka Technologies, which was spawned from the polymer engineering labs at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
In late August, Bic Stevens of the Cambridge investment firm Zero Stage Capital committed about $500,000 of seed capital to Konarka and promised to lead a larger round of investment later this year. The company will attempt to commercialize research that would allow inexpensive, flexible, super-efficient solar panels to be integrated into just about any product, from clothing to roofing tiles to the plastic chassis of a ride-on lawn mower.
Konarka's photovoltaic cell will be capable of working in both direct sunlight and indoor artificial light, and will be able to withstand a wide range of temperatures. How is Konarka's technology different from existing solar cells?
"It's a dramatic step function different," says Stevens, declining to elaborate further. (Previously, Zero Stage was an early investor in Evergreen Solar, a publicly traded Marlborough company.)
"This will obviate the need for batteries in many devices," says Howard Berke, Konarka's chairman. "You'll see photovoltaics in thousands of [products] where solar power is impractical today. We believe we'll bring quite an advance to the state of the art."
The company has an office and laboratory in Lowell, but its Web site is incredibly sparse, listing just the company's address and a brief explanation of the origin of the company's name. "Konarka is the name of a temple in Orissa, India, dedicated to Surya, the God of the Sun," the site says.
The company's technology "builds on dye-sensitized solar cell technology, integrates polymer chemistry, physics, dye technology, and nanomaterials science," according to a press release issued by Zero Stage. On Konarka's board of advisers is Alan Heeger, a winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Paul Wormser, formerly chief executive of Advanced Energy Systems in New Hampshire, will serve as Konarka's president.
Berke, who helped take White Pine Software public and currently serves as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Business at UMass-Lowell, says Konarka will soon add a former Polaroid research scientist as its vice president of research and development, and is currently searching for a CEO.
One investor who had seen the Konarka business plan had not yet been convinced of the technology's practicality.
"I'd wonder about how easy and cheap it is to make this stuff ... [and] how many square feet are needed to generate enough power to be useful, given the current 110-volt world we live in," he says.
But, he says it's a good sign that Zero Stage is bold enough to be investing in "a company that's this early, and perhaps a long way from commercial adoption."
Stevens acknowledges Zero Stage's investment in Konarka is a long-term bet.
"Irrespective of what happens in the stock market or the economy in the short term, we will need renewable, inexpensive, alternative sources of energy," he says. "This [investment] isn't about momentary euphoria; it's about a much longer time horizon."
Logistical challenges
Companies that sell logistics software and services were among some of the hardiest survivors of the dot-com era. They promised to help customers cut costs by better managing incoming and outgoing shipments of parts and finished products.
But serious questions arose after the events of Sept. 11 shut down air cargo for several days, slowed truck traffic moving across US borders, and forced some companies to stop their assembly lines for lack of parts.
Would companies continue to look to technology to reduce inventories and make their supply chains more efficient? Or would they simply loosen the constraints of just-in-time manufacturing, and tolerate redundant relationships with multiple suppliers as insurance against further disruptions?
That scenario would make life even harder for Boston-area companies like Celarix, Optiant , Logistics.com , 3PLex.com , and Yantra, which already are facing the tough challenge of selling to customers with shrinking technology budgets.
A report last week from Boston-based AMR Research says that e-logistics companies will have to get better at helping customers deal with uncertainty -- but that their software hasn't suddenly become irrelevant.
"It's too expensive and too simplistic for companies to plan for supply disruptions by stuffing their warehouses," says Janet Suleski, a senior analyst at AMR who helped author the report.
Logistics software can help companies see where incoming or outgoing shipments actually are -- what's known as "visibility" -- and if they're delayed by unforeseen events, it can help in transferring them from trucks to rail, or from planes to ships. The software can also help companies identify and vet back-up suppliers "who in a pinch could supply missing inventory quickly," Suleski says.
John Lanigan, chief executive of Logistics.com of Burlington, says, "The inventory buildups [we've seen recently] are a short-term reaction, like people loading up their basements with canned goods in case the power goes out. Long term, we think companies will continue to tighten their belts, and part of that is reducing cost and cycle time in the supply chain."
Still, companies aren't yet rushing out to fill their larders with new software.
"Just like consumers seem to have cut back on their spending, companies may freeze their [technology] spending for a while," says Suleski. "It's a psychological thing."
Calendar items
Here's my list of upcoming events worth knowing about.
On Oct. 11, the TechConnect exposition in Portsmouth, N.H., will feature former Lycos chief executive Bob Davis as the keynote speaker. It's put on by eCoast, the Portsmouth-area technology networking group. Info at www.ecoast.org.
The MIMC Awards(that's Massachusetts Interactive Media Council, for the acronym-challenged) go to the best-designed Web sites, CD-ROMs, and software packages, and they're fast approaching. The party's Oct. 15 at the Marriott Copley Place. Tickets at www.mimcawards.org.
I'm involved with two events coming up later this month, so consider yourself forewarned. One is Pop!Tech, an annual gathering in Camden, Maine. The theme is "Online, Everywhere, All the Time -- How It Will Change Our Lives," and details are available at www.poptech.org.
Speakers will include the novelist and MIT professor Alan Lightman; Maine Governor Angus King; Palm chief executive Carl Yankowski; and Linda Stone of Microsoft. The shindig was started four years ago by investor and former Apple chief executive John Sculley and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe.
The second event is Future Forward: The New England Technology Summit, taking place Oct. 25-27 in Woodstock, Vt. Noted inventor Dean Kamen, New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, and Nasdaq chief technology officer Steve Randich are among the speakers. Info at www.futureforward.com. There's also a chat tied to the conference this Wednesday at 1 p.m. on Boston.com. Topic: the future of the tech sector in New England.
Online media maven Leslie Laredo holds a seminar in partnership with Adweek on "How to Buy and Sell Web Ads" Nov. 15-16 at the Logan Airport Hilton. Info at www.laredogroup.com.
There's no reason not to step out and schmooze this fall.
Scott Kirsner is a Boston freelance writer and a contributing editor at Wired and Fast Company magazines.