Re: New nanotech survey

From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Thu Nov 08 2001 - 17:50:50 MST


This is my review (from www.manyworlds.com) of the recent Red Herring
article on the NanoBusiness Alliance report. I'm not posting the URL since
Red Herring seems to be fiddling with their website, and all URLs are going
to their new homepage.

Max
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The View From Here
Red Herring by Stephan Herrera, published on 11/02/01

With all the recent attention to nanotechnology and other technologies of
the very small, some investors and entrepreneurs want to know how large is
the market opportunity today and tomorrow. In a critical examination of a
survey by the new NanoBusiness Aliance (NBA), Herrara finds that most of
the funding and output is for companies working on MEMs and
microtechnologies, not nanotech and NEMs. While their numbers differ, the
NBA and the NSF both see the market for nanotech products growing
enormously in the next few years into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The problem with the NBA's first survey (which they say they will correct
next time) is that in surveying 150 companies they made no distinction
between microtech and nanotech. This distinction is important because
nanotech works at a scale one thousandth the size of microtechnology and
potentially is far more powerful, with a wider range of applications. The
figure of $1.2 billion for VC money going into nanotech is similarly
flawed. The figure was derived not by asking VCs directly, but by asking
the companies what they expected to receive for nanotech and microtech.
More and more people agree that the business potential for nanotech is
large. We can only hope that the next survey will provide more reliable
numbers for those considering ventures in the realms of the very small.

_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
President, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more@extropy.org>
________________________________________________________________
Senior Content Architect, ManyWorlds Inc.: http://www.manyworlds.com
--- Thought leadership in the innovation economy
m.more@manyworlds.com
_______________________________________________________



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