Israel has long been known as a start-up nation, considered by many savvy investors as the...
Telecommunications
From mobile start-ups to communication satellites, Israel is home to more that 550 telecom companies. Israel’s tech-savvy population has provided entrepreneurs and start-ups with a domestic market that is constantly demanding new services and increasing bandwidth to accommodate for surges in digital traffic.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that the kind of innovation going on in Israel is critical to the future of the technology business.”
- Bill Gates
The ingenuity of Israeli innovation has been duly noted for decades within Silicon Valley. With the highest proportion in the world of skilled engineers in the workforce, Israel provides the perfect incubator for R&D in technology-focused fields. Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM and Google are just a few big players that have partnered with Israel and set up permanent R&D facilities.
In addition to Israel’s intellectual capital, part of the country’s appeal lies in its end-to-end capabilities; Israel does everything from chip design, fabrication and testing, to manufacturing of subassemblies and equipment production.
With equipment exports valued at more than $3 billion and the international sales of software products and services exceeding $2 billion, the Israeli telecom industry ranks among the world’s most sophisticated, advanced and commercially successful.
From concept to completion, two sectors within telecommunications which are receiving significant attention are semiconductors and software.
Semiconductors
Relying on original research and development, Israel is a global provider of fabless semiconductors for specialized processes. Widely used globally, the Centrino Core 2 Duo by Intel Israel revolutionized energy consumption and boosted cost efficiency. M-Systems, acquired in 2006 by U.S.-based SanDisk, and Saifun Semiconductors (under parent company Spansion) are leading developers for flash memory, while Emblaze specializes in design for multimedia applications. EZChip focuses on design for network processes and DSP Group has an array of components across wireless, video, and VoIP applications. Due to its development of integrated circuits and “system-on-a-chip” solutions for graphical consumer electronics products, Israeli company Zoran is responsible for powering products created by global electronics companies such as Casio, Fujifilm, Kodak, and Samsung.
Countless other Israeli companies with a specialized nuance to the field shape this thriving industry.
Software
With over $3 billion in annual exports, software technology accounts for over a quarter of all technology exports in Israel. Moreover, the software industry attracts more than one third of all foreign investment in Israel. As such, Israel’s government has been encouraging software development through liberal grants and loans, government-funded research centers, and incentives to global technology companies.
Partially due to this encouragement, Israel’s software inventions are so widespread that they are found in nearly all businesses in the Western world. One such invention came from Check Point Software Technologies, an Israeli company established in 1993, which invented the Internet Firewall, securing the internet and creating a multi-billion dollar market. From Israeli pioneered VoIP technology came Skype messaging, and Israeli start-up ICQ provided the infrastructure for AOL Instant Messenger.
In the field of Electro-optic inspection, Orbotech's unique inspection and imaging solutions for the printing circuit board and flat panel display industries are used globally in electronic devices across the board.
Such big ideas require beta troubleshooting - Israeli companies are also leaders in testing software. Tesnet Software Testing is a global developer of proprietary testing software for Euro, ERP, and Data Warehouse. Mercury Interactive, now acquired by HP, provides its clients with the ability to constantly watch and maintain the user's experience of their business applications by employing Software Performance technology.
Israeli tech culture has helped define America's digital lifestyle in a variety of ways and will continue to breed new ideas.