Comments on: Only 6 of the 20 largest software companies are in Silicon Valley

By: joe

joe — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 09:36:55 +0000

Also keep in mind that almost all of these companies either bought subsidiaries or have branches in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley still has far more successful startups than anywhere else in the world if you define “successful” as eventually being sold for a large sum to one of these bigger tech giants.

By: Balder Verberne

Balder Verberne — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:53:30 +0000

Great analysis, but the source is of questionable quality. Many companies listed by Forbes as software companies, actually do not have much software revenues: Google, Softbank, Accenture, Yahoo… Many of the really large software companies are not listed, or listed under another sublist, such as HP, which is a very big hardware company but also a multi-billion dollar software company.
If you look at the Software Top 100 (www.softwaretop100.org), you find that 70 out of the 100 largest software companies in the world are from the US. I estimate that half (35) are in California. Considering the small size of California on the world map, this does implya disproportional success for California-based software companies, in my opinion.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:49:11 +0000

I thought Silicon Valley was about small software companies. How many small software companies are there?

By: Scott Wheeler

Scott Wheeler — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:05:09 +0000

@obxerve – these were the companies that Forbes classified as software companies.

By: obxerve

obxerve — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:13:08 +0000

You need to be a bit more disciplined in naming the list. Software company is not the same as IT company. At least 7 of the 20 in the list are typically classified as not software company. For example, Capgemini is "technology, consulting, outsourcing" company. Likewise EDS, Tata, etc. These IT services companies' lifeblood is tightly related to software, but they are hardly software companies in the sense of Adobe, Symantec, etc.

By: Ben Godfrey

Ben Godfrey — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:44:42 +0000

Nice work for digging up the data. There’s a lot of debate around the Valley effect and this week it seems to have turned a bit nasty, with the feedback to Fred’s post and Paul Carr’s declaration that the London scene is dead.

There’s always an attractive market, an attractive industry, etc, but there are still very many opportunities outside those. As Sarah Lacy during a panel session at the TechCrunch Europa awards on Thursday, non-valley businesses should focus on what unique advantages they do have. E.g. London has a lot of financial services, so BetFair has prospered. Berlin has a great music scene, so Ableton and others have grown quickly.

By: Denis Malreaux

Denis Malreaux — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:52:35 +0000

Keep in mind that the substantial growth in Bangalore has come about largely because these U.S. firms expanded into that part of India.

By: muwasalat.com

muwasalat.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:13:00 +0000

Ok! what’s the point when you just can’t have the WORLD UNDER YOUR FEET.

How can all the BIG SOFTWARE COMPANIES come under one roof when THE WORLD IS BECOMING HIGHLY COMPETITIVE BY THE MINUTE.

Best software engineers are in America, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and oh! Japan, China, – Korea.

This article is just a thought or a worrisome shown on part of the writer.

By: Zed A. Shaw

Zed A. Shaw — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:28:47 +0000

Damn lies and statistics. Since even though Cali “only has 6″, that’s till 2 times India, 3 times New York and Texas, and 6 times as many as all the other places.