SRC Spins Off For-Profit Purplewire

By Casey J. Dickinson, CNY Business Journal Staff, March 9, 2001, Vol XV, No. 10

SYRACUSE - Syracuse Research Corp. has spun off its five-year-old Web-development division as a new company called Purplewire LLC. Nonprofit SRC will retain an equity interest in for-profit Purplewire. SRC division managers purchased software rights and hardware from their employer to start the new venture. Purplewire will operate from the SRC offices in North Syracuse until a suitable downtown location can be found, according to Lisa Mondello, spokesperson for SRC

Purplewire concentrates on high-end Web development for corporate customers. The company's creations allow businesses to use the Internet to extend their capabilities, says Chung-Chi Cha, president of Purplewire. Samples of Purplewire's work can be found on the DaVinci Project's Web site.

The company's name is taken from the initial abundance of purple-colored networking cables in their offices when the division started, says Cha.

The division has also done work for commercial clients, Mondello says. The restrictions imposed by SRC's nonprofit status were the main reason for spinning off the division, she says. Purplewire will be free to take on partners and investors, she adds.

Purplewire employs 11 and plans to double its work force in three years, says Cha, who worked at SRC for two decades, most recently as director of SRC's Application Technology Center. Most of the new employees will be engineers.

The recent slowdown in the technology sector hasn't deterred Cha from taking Purplewire into the marketplace. The company's customers, he says, are not part of the "new economy," nor are they e-commerce businesses.

"Most of our clients are traditional companies," he says, "looking to use the Web to increase operational efficiency."

Acquiring space in downtown Syracuse is the next step for Purplewire. Access to fiber-optic cable, as well as electrical power supply, will be top priorities in selecting a location, says Cha. The company will be hosting applications for several of its clients.

Moving into the downtown area will also place Purplewire in the Empire Zone, making the company eligible for state economic assistance.

Created by Syracuse University in 1957, Syracuse Research was itself spun off in the 1970s. The independent, nonprofit company employs 380 in technology-research programs across the country. Approximately 15 Syracuse-area companies, such as Anaren Microwave and Inficon, can trace their origins to Syracuse Research Corp, says Mondello.

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