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by Kate Royals, The Clarion-Ledger

Joel Bomgar is an entrepreneur and founder of Bomgar Corp., the No. 1 provider in the world of enterprise remote support software. He started Bomgar Corp. in 2003 as a Belhaven University student and grew it to an industry leader. He lives in Madison with wife Rachel and their four children.

What do you think the future of the software industry in Mississippi looks like?

It is bright partially because of the talent shortage in other major markets. The large technology companies increasingly are tired of competing for the same talent as everyone else in Silicon Valley or Boston, and the same thing is happening in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta. As technology companies increasingly look for untapped talent in non-traditional technology hubs, I believe Mississippi is in a great position to capitalize on that, and we have incredible and very loyal software and technology talent right here in Mississippi.

What does it take to succeed in this industry in Mississippi?

Mississippi doesn’t have the same level of access to venture capital or software development talent as the East or West Coast or other major cities, so software and technology companies need to be much more focused and strategic about how they approach and win a market … A big part of Bomgar Corp.’s success was in focusing limited resources and aligning those resources to a market where we could win and become No. 1. We achieved that by getting very talented people and carefully focusing our resources so that our energies were not diffused or distracted.

What’s holding Mississippi back in this industry?

Lack of focus. You just don’t have the access to capital or the access to the volumes of technology talent that is required to be successful without focus in Mississippi. I often see companies that will always struggle to grow because they just can’t say “no” to all the exciting things they could do in order to focus on the areas they can be the best in the world at and win.

Read the entire article here.