Spokane Gets Dot-Com Pitch Former Microsoft Worker Urges E-Business Push

A former Microsoft executive laid out a 30-minute e-commerce primer Tuesday during the fourth in a series of discussions aimed at boosting Spokane’s economy.

Neil Evans, who was Microsoft chief information officer from 1983 to 1994, urged more than 125 attending the symposium at Gonzaga University to move quickly into the digital marketplace.

Quoting Intel’s Andy Grove, Evans said he believes companies “must either become e-businesses or go out of business.”

For the past six years Evans has been connected with Bellevue Community College’s innovative Northwest Center for Emerging Technologies. National Science Foundation grants have supported the center’s aggressive effort to be a national leader in delivering technical education to students. Evans said the program now is self-supporting.

The center’s approach - putting its services available completely online to students anywhere - can be used by firms trying to develop an Internet strategy, Evans said.

He was the keynote speaker in the fourth in a symposium series created by several area business leaders. The group’s founder, developer John Stone, said the series will continue indefinitely. The next session, in late spring, will focus on high-tech growth in other communities and possible applications here.

“This is a grass-roots group of people trying to increase the number of high-tech, better-paying jobs in our area,” Stone said.

Stone also introduced Patrick Valentine, who has been hired as symposium coordinator. Valentine’s job will be to focus community interest into several work groups that will push the ideas from the symposiums into application and development. Valentine, a Spokane native, has worked with companies to increase high-tech jobs in the Washington, D.C., area.

Evans listed 10 rules for doing business effectively on the Net. One important strategy is a “clicks and mortar” approach - retaining one’s identity while focusing on reaching customers online.

“Preserve your core values. You’ve established your name and its brand, so don’t lose what’s worked for you so far,” he said.

Some other rules Evans prescribed include: outsourcing some services to speed time to the marketplace and delivery of products and “puffing” up one’s e-commerce presence.

“On the Internet, size doesn’t matter,” he said.

Just as important, he added, was keeping technology “invisible.”

Evans compared America Online with the Microsoft Network - two ambitious online services that started a few years apart from each other.

AOL turned into a 20-million subscriber colossus, while Bill Gates’ online stepchild has just 2million.

The difference, Evans said, was how easy AOL made its service for users.

“That’s what a good e-business should strive to do also,” he said.

“You have to find the right way to measure what you’re doing. It’s not the same as just waiting to see who buys your product,” he said.

Symposium attendees also heard Doug McQueen, director of the University of Idaho Research Park in Post Falls, and Robert Ketchum, who heads North Idaho College’s Workforce Training Center, describe collaborative research and job-training efforts among colleges and universities in Idaho and Washington.

And Charles Taylor, chief executive of the Community Colleges of Spokane, challenged those attending to help build a Spokane center for emerging technology.