Jeff the Great's Top Technology Companies in Portland

The Portland Business Journal on March 9th, 2012 published a list of the Top 25 Technology Companies in the Portland area. They ranked using number of global employees but also listed the number of Portland area employees. Effectively, this is a list of the largest tech companies with a presence in Portland.

Wow, did they miss the boat. Of course the likes of Xerox and Intel made the list (#1 and #3 respectively), but the omissions and selections get more and more odd as you read down. For example, at #25 they list Infinity Internet with 27 worldwide employees, 26 in the Portland area. You mean to tell me that the 25th largest tech company in Portland only has 27 employees?

So I did some research and quickly discovered that the Portland Business Journal blatantly ignored local companies that were obvious choices for the list. They even ignored multiple companies that they wrote about in the very same March 9th issue (Fisrv, Monsoon, Axium, Symantec)!

So out of respect for the great companies that were omitted for the list, here are some that should have been mentioned. The figures in parenthesis are my estimations of local employees based on data collected from LinkedIn plus a sprinkling of my personal knowledge.

• Act-On Software (over 60)
• Avnera (about 60)
• Axium (about 80)
• CD Baby (over 200)
• Clearedge Power (more than 100)
• Digimarc (over 100)
• EasyStreet (at least 30)
• Elemental (about 60)
• Fiserv (as many as 300)
• Galois (about 35)
• iovation (over 75)
• Janrain (110)
• Jive Software (200+)
• Monsoon (about 84)
• Netflix (about 200)
• Pixelworks (about 32)
• Puppet Labs (about 40)
• Rumblefish (about 30)
• Urban Airship (about 60)
• Shopigniter (about 30)
• SolarWorld (hundreds)
• Symantec (100, even after layoffs)
• Synopsys (about 300)
• Thetus (about 50)
• ViaWest (at least 25)

This isn't even an expansive list, there are more but I had to stop researching! Even the big guys have a presence here. Microsoft has about 150 in the Portland area, and Apple has at least 175 (both retail AND engineering). Finally, I didn't even list companies with fewer than 20 employees which I stumbled upon in my research. There are easily a few dozen tech companies with 10-20 local employees.

So, Portland Business Journal, I find it hard to believe you when you say "every attempt is made to ensure the thoroughness and accuracy of the list." It is especially frustrating when the only avenue to communicate errors and omissions is to send "corrections and additions on company letterhead to..." followed by your mailing address. Company letterhead, really? Why can't I just email you a list?

-Jeff the Great