Employee-owned companies are different, and San Diego, California-based Science Applications International Corp has a highly-developed sense of civic obligation. It is donating facility space and technical expertise to help small San Diego software companies to get their feet off the ground. Science Applications is teaming up with the new San Diego Software Industry Council, Connect and the American Electronics Association to create the Software Resource Centre, which will provide low-cost access for small neighbourhood software companies to essential hardware and software development technologies that would normally be cost-prohibitive to them. The non-for-profit centre will focus on providing application development value-added services at minimal cost. Science Applications’ goal is to work with the Council and other partners to ensure that the Centre has access to emergent high-technology hardware and software in the hope that this will give San Diego’s developer community a competitive edge. Formed in 1993, the San Diego Software Council’s first priority was to set up a testing and development centre and that is where Science Applications comes in – it is donating space for the new centre at its Wateridge Circle facility in Sorrento Valley. Science Applications provides systems integration, national security, energy, health, environment and transport professional services and products to government and the private sector. With $1,670m in annual revenues, the employee-owned company has 16,000 employees at 250 bases worldwide.
