In the 1970s, Route 128 outside Boston was considered to be the center of the tech world. Companies like Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General and others disrupted the market for mainframes with new minicomputers that were smaller, cheaper and more agile. They seemed destined to dominate the information age.
Yet as AnnaLee Saxenian explained in her classic book, Regional Advantage, by the 1990s, the mantle had clearly passed to Silicon Valley. While the Boston firms were vertically integrated islands unto themselves, the Silicon Valley upstarts worked to integrate themselves into a ecosystem.
