Let the disease-fighting biologists have the spotlight.

Paul Buckley won't mind if his computer software engineers play a behind-the-scenes role in the biotech boom -- just as long as they have a part.

"We want to position ourselves to deal with the life sciences companies," said Buckley, president of Applied Sciences Group in Cheektowaga. In fact, his 11-year-old software company is giving free business advice to biotech start-ups, in hopes of winning more business from them down the road. "The free work is essentially strategic," he said.

Tech companies like Buckley's were forced to adopt creative business approaches to survive the industry downturn. Now their out-of-box thinking habits may allow them to thrive as the business climate warms up.

Internet projects are no longer a money machine for infotech businesses. But hot new opportunities are emerging in wireless technology and, in a security-conscious world, identification systems.

And as biotechnology's star rises, infotech companies like Buckley's hope to provide number- crunching support for life science firms, which are more familiar with test tubes than silicon chips.

The modest infotech upturn under way now may feel less exuberant than the Internet boom in the 1990s, but it's built on firmer foundations, industry experts said.

"Everybody who survived the bubble is now being cautious -- they're being good businesspeople," said Brian Griffin, executive director of the industry group Infotech Niagara. Griffin's own hiring early in 2003 as a full-time executive director marked a maturing of the 225-member industry group, which was founded in 1997.

Nationally, business is picking up for infotech firms, but the activity is slow to translate into new jobs, according to industry surveys and federal reports. Part of the reason is the outsourcing of programming and related tasks to offshore workers, according to a survey by the Information Technology Association of America.

Still, the job climate is better than the arctic chill during the downturn. From 2000 through 2002, tech employment fell 11.2 percent, compared with a 2 percent decline for other jobs, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Digital Economy report for 2003.
Locally, Infotech Niagara is seeing signs of an upturn at its networking events for the out-of-work, Griffin said. In surveys, about half of attendees say the job market is improving. "People are getting jobs."

Buckley's Applied Sciences Group is supplying software know-how for life science companies, helping to turn their ideas into commercial products. For instance, the company wrote code to operate a medical device for heart patients, developed by a University at Buffalo researcher. The device, a kind of implanted sensor, constantly monitors cardiac performance. Applied Sciences Group is also working with a protein analysis company spun off from Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.

Although biomedical advances are about bodies not bytes, the products often need a digital component that tech firms can contribute, Buckley said. Bioscience researchers may have software that works well enough in a lab. But for a commercial product, they need code that's been professionally designed and tested, giving Applied Sciences a role.
" They know what it is they want to put together," said Buckley, whose own background in biomedical engineering gives him a common language with life science researchers.
While emerging industries beckon, mainstream infotech work is seeing a welcome upturn as well.

At digital consultant Computer Task Group, president Jim Boldt has seen signs of business building slowly through 2003. One of Western New York's largest tech companies, CTG provides temporary computer staffers and supports technology upgrades for corporate customers.

"We have started to see companies work on projects again," Boldt said. Corporations are starting to perform the cost analyses that are a precursor for infotech upgrade projects, he said. One of the hot industries is expected to be pharmaceuticals, which will need electronic signature systems under new FDA rules for tracking drug development.
In fact, identification and security systems are a growth area for several local companies. Networks flung together during the 1990s now seek to build doors and locks, to control access in a more security conscious world.

Identification is the heart of UltraScan's business, an Amherst fingerprint technology that got an injection of $18 million in capital last year, led by billionaire business magnate B. Thomas Golisano. Founded by an ex-University at Buffalo researcher, UltraScan makes fingerprint scanners that use sound waves instead of optical technology to read the pattern of ridges on a fingertip. The company's technology is being installed at hospitals, airports and other organizations seeking fast and accurate identification systems.

Combining ID technology with wireless communication is the business model for a start-up company in downtown Buffalo. Tech entrepreneur David Straitiff launched Intuitek last year to capitalize on an expected boom in "radio frequency identification" or RFID technology. Relatively cheap radio tags -- like the ones used by the E-ZPass toll system on the Thruway -- are being seen as a way to control access -- both on networks and in real-world buildings.

Straitiff's company is developing a low-cost RFID card reader that plugs into a PC. He sees it being used to increase security on networks, adding another layer of ID check beyond standard password protection. In addition, sensitive documents embedded with RFID tags can be tracked as they're passed from user to user within an organization.
" The RFID market is so new, there are a lot of niches," Straitiff said. "Most of the opportunities were going after are very high-volume."

An outgrowth of Buffalo's Algonquin Studios, Intuitek is working with an area hospital to implement an identification and tracking system. It also helped Buffalo's Enterprise Charter School install an RFID-based system that takes attendance electronically.
Even the telecommunications sector, whose start-up companies were among the hardest-hit in the downturn, is showing new vigor.

Choice One Communications, one of the largest independent telephone companies operating in Western New York, saw its stock fall below $1 on fears that it wouldn't survive. But it staunched losses and reached positive cash flow last year, helping to allay investors' fears. This year the Rochester-based company will be selling local phone service to residential customers in Buffalo, expanding from its base in the business phone market.

e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com