Techster networking goes on day and night in Bay area

Pamela Griner Leavy - Tampa Bay Business Journal
From the January 19, 2001 print edition

The busy holiday season means multitasking and multipartying for the Tampa Bay high-tech community.

Events took place on Dec. 13 in the early morning hours, the afternoon and at night.

The Centre Club at the Wyndham Westshore Hotel was the site of a breakfast gathering of more than 200 members of the Tampa Bay Internet Forum.

The high-tech faithful in attendance were cautioned about the future by Tom Wallace, president of the forum and former chief executive officer at Brainbuzz.com. Quoting Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, Wallace told the crowd "the days of irrational exuberance are over."

Additional speakers included Roger Dean, director of information technology for Hillsborough County and Rick Smith, director of planning and management for the city of Tampa. Smith gave an overview of the city's public service portal.

Internet company presentations were given by John Jenner, CEO of I-Netwerks in Tampa; Kim During of K.tek Systems Inc. , and Mike Siewruk, CEO at MediaBrowser.com.

Siewruk, as well as the other speakers, expressed optimism about the New Economy's future:

"The trend in the environment is one of caution and at the same time, I place a lot of faith in Alan Greenspan and his decisions over the years," said Siewruk. "The election problems are over, the interest rates are stable and may go down. I look forward to an up, but modestly up 2001."

Winstar Communications Inc. held an afternoon open house at its downtown Tampa office. Molly McCormick, vice president and general manager, gave an overview of the "Winstar Business Essentials" long-distance applications.

Touring Winstar were Darryl Madison, president of Provider Technologies Inc. and Mark Wofford, vice president of marketing for the startup software development and Web design frm.

And that evening the Internet Business Association International Inc. hosted its holiday networking and charity fund-raiser at Club Joy in Tampa. For more information about this organization, click onto http://www.ibaii.org or contact president Lauren Shiner at admin@ibaii.org.

IN THE NEWS

The Globalaxxess.com vice president for business development, Matt Ghaffari, the only wrestler in U.S. history to win four World and Olympic gold medals, recently visited the company's Tampa headquarters.

Software developer Backsoft Corp. in Sarasota has been named to the list of Top 100 Emerging Companies by ComputerWorld Magazine.

Magnetic.com, a Web development firm based in Tampa, announced the completion of a site for GunnAllen Financial, a Tampa brokerage and investment firm. Officials said that Magnetic.com has "big expansion plans in 2001, building on its ... base of Web development work while rolling out several proprietary Internet applications for some of its larger clients."

TECHNOLOGY WORDS FOR 2001

Fritz Eichelberger of GlobalCrossing.com passed these words along for your holiday perusal.

Toynoying: Someone who has too many toys and flaunts them.

Dot-coma: A Web site with no visible signs of life: content is not updated; and commerce and any other features requiring humans have been removed.

E-nnoyance: Vexation or irritation caused by the placement of "e" in front of every word.

Not-com: Laid off from a dot-com business.

Wall Envy: New Economy employees who covet old economy offices instead of their ever-shrinking cubicles.

To reach Pamela Griner Leavy, call (813) 342-2479, or send your e-mail to pleavy@amcity.com.

Copyright 2000 American City Business Journals Inc.

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