Chasing the Dime Read Free Page B

box, and the box back in the drawer. He got up and went to the row of file cabinets against the wall opposite the desk.
    She’d insisted on hard copies of all intelligence files. There were four double-drawer cabinets. Pierce took out his keys and used one to unlock a drawer labeled BRONSON. He opened the drawer and took out the blue file — under Nicole’s filing system the most current file on any competitor was blue. He opened the file and glanced through the printouts and a photocopy of a news clipping from the business section of the San Jose Mercury News. He’d seen everything before except for the clipping.
    It was a short story about one of his chief competitors in the private sector getting an infusion of cash. It was dated two days earlier. He had heard about the deal in general already — through Nicole. Word traveled fast in the emerging-technologies world. A lot faster than through the news media. But the story was a confirmation of everything he’d already heard — and then some.
    BRONSON TECH GETS BOOST FROM JAPAN
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    By Raul Puig
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    Santa Cruz-based Bronson Technologies has agreed to a partnership with Japan’s Tagawa Corporation that will provide funding for the firm’s molecular electronics project, the parties announced Wednesday.
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    Under terms of the agreement Tagawa will provide $I6 million in research funds over the next four years. In return Tagawa will hold a 20 percent interest in Bronson.
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    Elliot Bronson, president of the six-year-old company, said the money will help put his company into the lead in the vaunted race to develop the first practical molecular computer. Bronson and a host of private companies, universities and governmental agencies are engaged in a race to develop molecular-based random access memory (RAM) and link it to integrated circuitry. Though practical application of molecular computing is still seen by some as at least a decade away, it is believed by its proponents that it will revolutionize the world of electronics. It is also seen as a potential threat to the multibillion-dollar silicon-based computer industry.
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    The potential value and application of molecular computing is seen as limitless and, therefore, the race to develop it is heated. Molecular computer chips will be infinitely more powerful and smaller than the silicon-based chips that currently support the electronics field.
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    â€˜From diagnostic computers that can be dropped into the bloodstream to the creation of “smart streets” with microscopic computers contained in the asphalt, molecular computers will change this world,’ Bronson said Tuesday. ‘And this company is going to be there to help change it.’
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    Among Bronson’s chief competitors in the private sector are Amedeo Technologies of Los Angeles and Midas Molecular in Raleigh, N.C. Also, Hewlett-Packard has partnered with scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles. And more than a dozen other universities and private firms are putting significant funding into research into nanotechnology and molecular RAM. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is partially or wholly funding many of these programs.
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    A handful of companies have chosen to seek private backing instead of relying on the government or universities. Bronson explained that the decision makes the company more nimble, able to move quickly with projects and experimentation without having to seek government or university approval.
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    â€˜The government and these big universities are like battleships,’ Bronson said. ‘Once they get moving in the right direction, then watch out. But it takes them a long while to make the turns and get pointed the right way. This field is too competitive and changes too rapidly for that. It’s better to be a speed boat at the moment.’
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    Non-reliance on government or university funding also means less sharing of the wealth