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<\/a> Back during the first technology boom, Austin was a force when it came to silicon and enterprise software startups, but the escalating cost of the plants where chips were manufactured and the SaaS-ification of enterprise software hit Austin’s key sectors hard<\/a>. Other than cursing Salesforce.com and semiconductor foundries,\u00a0 Austin has tried to make a tech comeback with wireless, clean energy and even a few consumer web startups, but the city is in the midst of an identity crisis, and its startups are lagging those built in Silicon Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\nAustin has Gowalla<\/a>, which is trailing behind Foursquare<\/a> in location-based services, and Heliovolt<\/a>, which is trailing Valley startup Solyndra<\/a> in the race to develop better solar technology. But Bart Bohn, a director at the Austin Technology Incubator<\/a> is hoping to resurrect Austin’s hardware past with a collection of data center infrastructure and wireless startups\u00a0 in the University of Texas-backed incubation program. Given the emphasis on cloud computing and wireless innovation, ATI’s bet may pay off.<\/p>\n In the video below Bohn talks about how infrastructure startups are raising money in Texas, and names some of the exciting companies at ATI, from Smooth-Stone<\/a>, which is building servers with ARM chips to Savara, a biomed startup that has developed a method for delivering drugs via an inhaler. Maybe, with a newly active ATI, plus a new hardware-focused venture fund in Austin<\/a>, the city can regain some of its former glory.<\/p>\n