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Silicon Valley is called golden place or dreamlandbecause it's full of the biggest companies in the world，which create a great numberofmillionaires andjob opportunities.

In all the famous companies，HP and Intel rank the top two according a well-known local magazine.

HP was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard，who had both graduated from Stanford University in 1934， as amanufacturer oftest and measurementinstruments. Their first product was aprecisionaudio oscillator，the Model 200A. Their innovation was the use of a light bulb as a temperature stabilized resistor in a critical portion of the circuit. This allowed them to sell the Model 200A for $54.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over US$200.

HP is acknowledged as the producer of the world's firstpersonal computer，in 1968，the Hewlett-Packard 9100A. HP called it a desktop calculator.The company earned global respect for a variety of products.They introduced the world'sfirst handheldscientificelectroniccalculatorin1972，the first handheldprogrammable in 1974，and the first alphanumeric，programmable，expandable in 1979. Like their scientific and business calculators，their oscilloscopes，logic analyzers， and othermeasurementinstrumentshavea reputation for sturdiness and usability. HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley.

In 2002，Hewlett-Packard merged with Compaq，a highly controversial move intended to make the company the leader in the personalcomputingspace.The merger opposition was led by Walter Hewlett，son of original founder William Hewlett. Hewlett-Packard also partners extensively with Microsoft. Given the size and scope of HP operations，HP leverages technology from most major software and hardware vendors.

Another giant company in the Valley got world-wild reputation because their products which are called the heart of the IT world.

Intel Corporation，headquartered in Santa Clara，California，is theleadingAmerican manufacturer and supplierofmicroprocessors and integrated circuits.Italsoproduces network and conferencingproducts， computermodules andboards， memory chips，servers，and parallel supercomputers. The company is most famous for pioneering the developmentofthemicroprocessor，which has made the personal computer possible. Currently，the majority of the world's personal computers uses Intel micro processors.

Intel was founded in 1968 when engineers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce left the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation of Mountain View，California， to form their own company.While working at Fairchild the pair had invented the integrated circuit，a critical component to the microprocessor. Their new company，called N M Electronics，was specifically formed to manufacture large-scale integrated circuits. Andrew Grove joined Noyce and Moore，and soon the three men changed the company's name to Intel. The name is a contraction of \"INTegrated ELectronics\".

In 1971 Intel developed the world's first microprocessor，the Intel 4004. In 1972 the Intel 8008 microprocessor，so named because it was twice as powerful as the 4004，was introduced and used inside the Mark 8，the first microcomputer to be marketed. In 1980 IBM chose the Intel 8088-chip (introduced in 1978) for its first personal computer，the IBM PC. Because IBM's PC design was widely accepted，this partnership helped position Intel as the world's top microprocessor manufacturer. In the following years Intel produced a series of faster，more powerful microprocessors that it generically called 80x86 (\"eighty-eighty-six\") microprocessors，where the letter \"x\" was specified with numerals as new chips were introduced. Important developments were the 16-bit 80286 chip (introduced in 1982 as the Intel 286)，the 32-bit 80386 chip (introduced in 1985 as the Intel 386)，the 80486 chip (introduced in 1989 as the Intel 486)，and the Pentium processor (introduced in 1993). The Intel Pentium processor did not use the \"80x86\" designation because a United States court had ruled that a number could not be trademarked. In 2000，Intel，still the largest manufacturer of microprocessors and integrated circuits in the world，introduced the Pentium IV processor.

Not only the \"old\" companies but also the newcomers companies to the Valley get much attention from all over the globe.

One of the hot new companies was JotSpot. Founded by Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer (founders of Excite)，JotSpot received Series A funding from Redpoint and Mayfield，and just released a beta version of their first product a few weeks ago. JotSpot is entering the WIKI market. For those of you who don't know what a WIKI is，it is a website or intranet that allows a user to add content but also allows that content to be edited by any other user. JotSpot is trying to take this to the next level by providing capabilities that make is simple to build full web applications in a WIKI environment. So，JotSpot is a company that is building a platform to make it easy and affordable to build long-tail software applications. To take those Excel spreadsheets and turn them into real web-based applications where you don't have versions，where updates find you instead of you looking for them and where you can integrate data in your hard drive with data from the web，email and other applications.

Joe Kraus is co-founder and CEO of JotSpot. A long time entrepreneur，Joe has been involved with early-stage technology development and starting companies for more than twelve years. Upon graduation from Stanford University in 1993，he joined with five engineering friends to found the highly successful Internet company，Excite，Inc. The original president of Excite，Joe was deeply involved in product strategy，direction and vision as the company grew. He also held senior operational roles in business development，international development and content.

After leaving Excite@Home in 2000，Joe was a co-founder of Digitalconsumer.org，a non-profit grassroots consumer organization with more than 50，000 members dedicated to protecting consumers fair-use rights to digital media. Joe，along with other co-founder Graham Spencer，continues to work on these important issues. In addition to his non-profit focus，he has also spent many years as an angel investor，working with numerous early-stage technology companies.

Another hot company that we've been following is Plaxo. Founded by Sean Parker and two Stanford engineers，Plaxo is funded by Sequoia Capital and Globespan Capital Partners，and boasts a world-class board including Michael Moritz，Jon Callaghan and Tim Koogle. Plaxo's flagship product offering is Plaxo Contacts，an elegant and much-needed solution for keeping your contact information up to date automatically. Integrated seamlessly and elegantly into Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express，Plaxo eliminates the chore of having to manually update users'contact information. When a person moves or changes companies，Plaxo instantly updates their information for users，and even sends him an email letting him know that the details have been taken care of.

With all these successful companies in it， Silicon Valley is making the life more convenient and the world more beautiful.