A stroll through technology and innovation in the USA

In San Francisco, California, it’s a typical sunny day in late spring. The technology mission, led by Professor Marco Astuti, which is now in the USA to visit Silicon Valley, the Consumer Electronics Show and firms in the Seattle area, wakes early to go to Silicon Valley.
We drive along Highway 101. It’s amazing to think that on this strip of road, no more than 60 miles in length, where, only a few years ago, exotic fruits grew, today there are innovative buildings on both sides, owned by those brands that made history in information and communications technology, like Yahoo, Google, Intel, EMC, Oracle and many others.
We reach Palo Alto and cross the main street of this bustling town, with bars along the streets where Stanford students meet for something to drink, or for a coffee. It’s nice to think that, among them, there might be the next Steve Jobs. On the right, there’s a big Apple Store (Apple’s founder was born here) and then, the Stanford Cinema, which was bought and renovated by Dave Packard, a co-founder of Hewlett-Packard; the cinema shows old films and the students can enter for free.
We come to Stanford University, the sight is breathtaking, there’s a grassy entrance with a fountain and tall palm trees; the architecture is that of the Franciscan missions. At the end of the square, there’s a church, which dominates. In every corner, you can feel the technological innovation. Throughout the complex, there are students walking by, chatting on the grass, or studying while drinking coffee from mugs.
After visiting the university, we set off again for Sunnyvale, where Net App awaits us. We are welcomed by Massimo Rapparini, who we thank sincerely; he’s an Italian, who has succeeded in the Silicon Valley, and who is currently the group’s IT director.
Net App is a storage company, that is, the infrastructure that manages and stores the data and information that every company needs to exist. With 14,000 employees worldwide, it achieved a turnover of $6.5 billion in 2011 and 20% growth in the last two years. In 2011, Fortune ranked it amongst the 100 best companies. Three factors must be taken into consideration: 1) the data that every company’s computer system holds, and it does not have to manage its exponential growth; 2) as a consequence, the costs that every company have to sustain for this purpose have now reached almost 50% of the total IT costs that a company has to sustain; 3) storage costs increase by 50% every year.
Consequently, storage efficiency is the key to tackling these matters. And it is on this that Net App works to find solutions.
In the evening, we fly back to Las Vegas, the adventure continues …