Print
Email
Print Edition Stories
Cable, telecom companies see net neutrality battle
Online video firms target small video publishing companies
The Departed: MHT tracks Greater Boston companies leaving, shutting down
The mergers wave is not limited to technology businesses, it seems, as the Mass Technology Leadership Council Inc. reports it is merging with the Massachusetts Network Communications Council, making a super-group of tech boosterism that now combines consumer and enterprise software, hardware, robotics, Internet commerce, network devices, network management and security software, and mobile software and hardware.
Following the merger, the organization, which will retain the Mass Technology Leadership Council name, will be led by current MassTLC president Tom Hopcroft and have more than 500 member companies. MassNetComms’ executive director Mark Horan will take on a role as senior vice president to help integrate MassNetComms members and to enhance MassTLC’s work-force programs. MassTLC senior vice president Heather Johnson, who joined that group after a stint at MassNetComms, will stay on in her role at MassTLC.
“I have personally tried to keep an open door to all the organizations around town for the entire time I have been here, and particularly with Tom and Heather who I have known for quite a while,” Horan said. “We’ve always been talking about whether it is the appropriate time and the right conditions to come together.”
According to Steve O’Leary, chairman of MassTLC, the light went on for him at the annual meeting in February when he was listening to Boston-area angel investor John Landry talking about cloud computing, and he realized that the line between communications and computing had essentially disappeared. That led to a summertime lunch meeting with Steve Krom, chairman of MassNetComms and vice president and general manager of AT&T for the New England region.
“It really was a natural discussion when Steve and I got together this summer to talk about where the real growth areas are and how we are going to get ourselves through this economic situation and be prepared to take advantage of the recovery that is going to come,” Krom said.
Bringing the two operations together so far has been an easy task, according to Hopcroft.
“Both organizations have a long history of working together and we are also organized very similarly,” he said. “So a lot of stuff just came together really well. It was just a natural fit between the two groups.”
The last time MassTLC merged with another entity was in 2005, when the then-named Massachusetts Software Council absorbed the New England Business and Technology Alliance. The Software Council changed its name to its current form and brought on board Hopcroft, who was NEBATA’s co-founder and president.
NEBATA in turn began in 1997 as the Massachusetts eCommerce Association and changed its name to NEBATA in 2003. At the time, the company launched its Leadership Roundtable, which helped define the name of MassTLC after the Software Council and NEBATA merged.
The Massachusetts Software Council was founded in 1985 and was run by Joyce Plotkin until Hopcroft was named president in January of 2008, with Plotkin taking the title of president emerita, a position she will retain following this latest merger.
With one less industry organization in the region, innovation companies can now count on representation from the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, the Massachusetts Interactive Technology Exchange (MITX), the New England Clean Energy Council, Massachusetts High Technology Council and the quasi-official state-created body the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Also a name changer, MassNetComms was founded in 1993 as the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council and changed its name in 2005. Horan took over in that role from previous director Carol Meier in 2006. He had spent 17 years working on telecommunications policy, including stints with AT&T, Andover-based Engage Inc. and as an analyst with the U.S. House Telecommunications Subcommittee. With that policy background, Horan sees the value in a united voice on Beacon Hill and in Washington.
“We all wanted to do more and do it better and we believe this combination gives us the scale to do that. Each organization’s done a very good job, and I think we can do even better with one strong united council,” he said.
RSS Feeds
Comments
Please Login/Register to post comments.
No comments have been added or approved.