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Londonderry Calling

In Northwest Northern Ireland, the city of Londonderry is also faring well as a high-tech hot spot. Over the last four or five years, several North American high-tech companies have located and expanded in the area. And these companies span the high-tech spectrum from manufacturing to software development and call centers.

On the software development side, Raytheon Systems, the London-based subsidiary of Lexington, Mass.-based Raytheon Co., plans to build a multimillion-dollar software development center in Londonderry. The center will employ 150 engineers and support a variety of Raytheon's electronics programs, including air traffic control systems for European and other airports.

LYCRA manufacturer DuPont has also chosen a site in the Londonderry area for a new LYCRA plant. The $125 million facility brings DuPont's investment in Northern Ireland to $900 million in the past 40 years.

British Telecom also continues to invest heavily in Northern Ireland. BT's latest Northern Ireland expenditure comes in the form of a 650-job call center in Londonderry. The $16 million center will be among the largest and most technologically advanced operations of its type in Northern Ireland.

"This major center will be among the most important in our network of call centers and will feature technology new to Northern Ireland," says Peter Bonfield, BT chief executive. "The decision to locate this new center in Londonderry resulted after extensive research, which confirmed our long-standing experience that among the many substantial benefits here is the ready availability of highly motivated and adaptable people. The outstanding achievements of our five existing operations in Northern Ireland in terms of the quality of employees, their keenness in helping callers and the low staff turnover rates also influenced our decision to invest further in Northern Ireland."