It is now going toe to toe against much larger Computer Associates in the booming field of helping big companies manage their vast databases and sprawling computer systems. It is a tough business, but Filipowski's combative instincts were well honed on Chicago's West Side streets where he was raised the son of Polish immigrants. Thanks to entrepreneurs like Filipowski, the city better known for food marketing and retailing is rapidly emerging as a major technology hot spot. For years, the Chicago area had little technology infrastructure beyond the Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola. Most technologists who graduated from local universities departed for the coasts, often taking their inventions with them.
Computer engineers seem to feel more at home in Chicago today.
The six-county area around Chicago boasts 43,400 software jobs, a figure exceeding that of Washington State, home to mighty Microsoft. Some technology companies have opened headquarters downtown inside the Loop. The city of Chicago, belatedly, is copying New York by creating a district zoned exclusively for information-technology firms. A site for the project will be chosen in March. In contrast to the West Coast, Chicagoland's software and communications companies concentrate less on personal computers than on creating systems for big companies.