When Walt Disney designed his Magic Kingdom in the middle of Florida, little did he know that the Orlando-Tampa area and the I-4 corridor would be renown for more than orange groves or mouse ears. Today, Interstate 4 from the Bay Area to Orlando and east to the Space Coast is recognized as the Sunshine State's high-tech corridor. It is estimated that the corridor is now home to 5,200-plus high-tech firms employing more than 160,000 workers.
      "What's happening here is an actual rise in excitement," says Mikel Cvetanovic, founder and CEO of Cloudburste Personal Commerce, an e-commerce firm in Tampa. "People are talking about tech here in Tampa, and the excitement I feel is similar to when things were up and running in Silicon Valley and L.A.," he adds.
      Cvetanovic should know. He is one of many high-tech employees that have moved to Florida's high-tech corridor since the dot-bomb of Silicon Valley. His former firm was a causality of silicon shake-out that hit high-tech California last year.
      Even with the nationwide slowing high-tech growth, the Sunshine State now ranks fifth in the nation in high-tech employment, according to a study by Washington, D.C.-based tech-trade group AeA. Wages for tech workers in Florida now average $50,300 -- well below their counterparts in California and Massachusetts. Many local high-tech businesses are reaping success. Jabil Circuit Inc. of St. Pete recently ranked 20th on BusinessWeek magazine's Information Technology 100 List. Tech Data Corp. of Clearwater made the magazine's "tech's heaviest hitters" companies. Firms had to report at least $400 million in revenue to make the list.
      To keep the investment ball rolling, the Florida High-Tech Corridor Council was established in 1996. The presidents of the council are presidents of the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida. Both universities are key players in the organization and participants in joint research projects with industry partners. Since 1996, the council has provided $19.2 million to more than 186 projects. The council's central focus is to attract, retain and grow high-tech industries in Florida's High-tech Corridor. Five targeted sectors for research and development by the council are: information technologies; medical technologies; microelectronics; modeling, simulation and training; and optics and photonics.
      Sunshine State officials hope to continue the high-tech success story. This summer, Gov. Jeb Bush announced the launch of eFlorida, a new marketing strategy intent upon branding the state as the "global technology hub of the Americas." Sponsored by Enterprise Florida, the endeavor has also launched a web portal, www.eFlorida .com, which will provide business and industry with resources on Florida's growing high-tech industries. State officials felt the site was necessary to differentiate itself from other sites that tout Florida as a vacation and citrus-growing mecca. Information will be available onsite on venture capital resources, international trade, incentives, as well as county-by-county data. The portal will link to every economic development organization in the state.
      "eFlorida will be how technology sees us," says Gov. Bush, "and eFlorida .com will become the way the business world finds us. This new Web portal is a one-stop location to businesses looking to move to Florida."
      Three West Coast Florida high-tech firms will be featured in the new ad campaigns: Sony Electronics of Fort Myers, ASG of Naples and Z-Tel, a Tampa-based firm that integrates Internet and telephone communications.