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

So after Fred’s post caused a little bit of a stir in the blogosphere by downplaying some of the advantages for startups being in Silicon Valley, and being from a Berlin-based startup that’s out exploring the Silicon Valley vibe this month it set me to wondering — just where have most of the “great” software companies been started?

Forbes has a list of the 2000 largest public companies, so I went through and picked out the top 20 and noted their locations.  Here’s the list:

  1. IBM, New York
  2. Microsoft, Washington
  3. Oracle, California
  4. Google, California
  5. Softbank, Japan
  6. SAP, Germany
  7. Accenture, Bermuda
  8. Computer Sciences Corporation, Virginia
  9. Yahoo, California
  10. Capgemini, France
  11. Computer Associates, New York
  12. Tata Consultancy Services, India
  13. Infosys Technologies, India
  14. Fiserv, Wisconson
  15. Wipro, India
  16. Symantec, California
  17. Adobe Systems, California
  18. Affiliated Computer Services, Texas
  19. Activision Blizzard, California (non-Valley)
  20. Intuit, California

Notably, 7 are based in California (all but one in the Bay Area).  On the one hand, it certainly is far and away ahead of any other location (Bangalore, interestingly, being its closest competitor); on the other it shows a wider distribution of companies than one might assume.  I’ll leave further conclusions as an exercise for the reader.

Update:

I realized after publishing this that I’d used the 2007 numbers rather than those from 2009.  The number of companies in Silicon Valley remained the same.

2007 Numbers:

1. IBM, New York
2. Microsoft, Washington
3. Oracle, California
4. Google, California
5. SAP, Germany
6. First Data, Colorado
7. Electronic Data Systems, Texas
8. Softbank, Japan
9. Yahoo, California
10. Symantec, California
11. Computer Sciences Corporation, Virginia
12. Capgemini, France
13. Tata Consultancy Services, India
14. Fiserv, Wisconson
15. Adobe Systems, California
16. Infosys Technologies, India
17. Computer Associates, New York
18. Wipro, India
19. Affiliated Computer Services, Texas
20. VeriSign, California
  1. IBM, New York
  2. Microsoft, Washington
  3. Oracle, California
  4. Google, California
  5. SAP, Germany
  6. First Data, Colorado
  7. Electronic Data Systems, Texas
  8. Softbank, Japan
  9. Yahoo, California
  10. Symantec, California
  11. Computer Sciences Corporation, Virginia
  12. Capgemini, France
  13. Tata Consultancy Services, India
  14. Fiserv, Wisconson
  15. Adobe Systems, California
  16. Infosys Technologies, India
  17. Computer Associates, New York
  18. Wipro, India
  19. Affiliated Computer Services, Texas
  20. VeriSign, California

Twitrack – Keep track of unfollows

I’m not one of the sort of folks that gets irritated when people unfollow me on Twitter, but I do like to keep track of it.  Qwitter used to provide that service, but it’s been absent without leave for a good long while.

So I hacked together a little Ruby script that when run shows me the folks that have unfollowed me since the last run and a little info on them.  Just add your username / password right up there at the top and let the disgruntledness begin! Enjoy.