The Eastern Region Biotechnology Initiative, which had seed funding from government, has helped engender a networking culture and the characteristics of a cluster are clearly visible in the area. Specialist property provision is found on Cambridge Science Park, at the new incubator attached to St John's Innovation Centre and, most recently, at Granta Park. Telecoms services and hardware have both grown in Cambridge, most notably during the 1990s. Despite the newness of the sector around half the companies appear to have been spun out from local firms. The sector has also included the area's highest profile failure, Ionica - whose demise in the year after flotation appears to have tempered rather than damaged attitudes towards financing other Cambridge companies.
Software is the last of the four featured sectors.
It is dynamic and locally embedded, with healthy spin-out activity, high employment growth and strong local links. There have been important international firms establishing part of their research effort in Cambridge. Picking firms to feature in this sector is wholly invidious, so we used the local business awards as the basis - selecting ARM, Microsoft and Smallworld as a result, but missing some firms, such as Autonomy, that have achieved major success. Smallworld and ARM are Cambridge firms in terms of their antecedents and headquarters, but it is instructive to note that both have substantial offices in Europe and the USA plus a presence in the Far East. So measuring employment in Cambridge understates their importance as companies.