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By Felicity Ussher, 23 April 1999 14:13

NEWS Silicon Valley, long heralded as a free-market dream, faces stagnation without a serious financial injection from the US government, according to 3Com CEO, Eric Benhamou. He told Silicon.com that Clinton's IT advisory committee, which he is a member of, found that the Valley was living off past glories. "We have enjoyed the benefits of fundamental research, particularly in networks and other forms of high technology, here in Silicon Valley. But that research really took place 20 or 30 years ago. Since then, the role the federal government has had in IT research and development (R&D) has diminished, but the importance of IT has increased. "So we believe that unless we change the pace of investment in fundamental research, we're going to come to a point - pretty soon - where the industry will no longer have sufficient raw material of fundamental breakthrough discoveries, to be able to sustain itself," he said. Benhamou gave the US government two years to adopt a more vigorous R&D program. He said this would be "just in time to ensure that expansion continues". The advisory committee wants the government to offer companies incentives to discover fundamental breakthroughs in technology, just like in the 1960's, when Silicon Valley researchers invented packet switching. The committee is also demanding greater collaboration between research and industry. Benhamou was confident that the government would meet its two-year deadline. For the full interview with Benhamou, see Silicon.com's Politics Channel.