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Irvine Joins National Engineering-Jobs Heavyweights

Irvine has cracked the top 10 markets for engineering-jobs demand, according to a new survey by Monster.com.

The city, considered the tech hub of Orange County, was No. 8 for job listings for engineers over a three-month period. San Diego, home to chipmaker Qualcomm Corp. and a strong biomed and biotech sector, was No. 4. behind Chicago, San Jose and Houston.

Monster.com last week listed more than 580 engineering jobs in the Irvine area, one of the densest such employment spots in Southern California.

The growing city is home to Western Digital Corp., the world’s largest drive maker; video game maker Blizzard Entertainment Inc., which employs some 1,700 people here; and a bevy of chipmakers, including Broadcom Corp. and Conexant Systems Inc.

Roughly 7,800 businesses in Irvine collectively employ more than 181,000 people, according to market tracker Inside Prospects Inc.

Monster.com’s survey, which queried a cross-section of 200 businesses over two weeks in January and February, highlighted some national concerns that have plagued Southern California’s tech sector for years.

Nearly three-fourths of respondents said they’re challenged to find qualified candidates among a small talent pool nationally.

Only 39% believed they’ll be able to staff their engineering job needs.

The top engineering jobs in demand include those in industrial, mechanical, electrical, civil and electronics engineering.

Los Angeles, which has done a good job marketing itself as “Silicon Beach,” didn’t make the list.

WebRunners Opens Data Center

Irvine-based Web hosting, cloud and IT services provider WebRunners Inc. has opened its first data center in Orange County.

The boutique 3,000-square-foot center opened last month near the Irvine Spectrum and has already attracted new tenants, including El Segundo-based publisher Source Interlink Media LLC, the personal website for Nascar racer Ken Schrader, and Norms Restaurants, among others.

The data center provides collocation and infrastructure services, as well as storage and managed hosting.

“With the paradigm of cloud computing, there’s no need to build a massive data center,” said founder and Chief Operating Officer Blake Folgner.

The company specializes in cloud and virtualization technology, which allows potentially thousands of companies to run and store everything from operating systems and websites to data, all from one small data center location.

“We span everything from mom-and-pop shops to multibillion-dollar companies,” said cofounder Henry Clark.

WebRunners joins a small group of about 10 data center operators in Orange County, according to datacentermap.com.

The largest local provider, Englewood, Colo.-based Latisys Inc., recently started a phase of its Irvine data center expansion that will add 12,000 square feet.

Latisys opened its first OC location in 2007 near John Wayne Airport with 50,000 square feet. An initial expansion brought 38,000 square feet next door in late 2011. That location houses 17 companies and gets the addition of the latest 12,000 square feet.

WD’s Product Releases

Western Digital’s latest product releases highlight its strategic shift to diversify offerings away from PCs.

The Irvine-based company recently announced a family of products targeting tablets and data centers. The WD Se hard drive, set for release this month, is billed to lower costs for data centers while improving processing speed and power efficiency.

The drive, which can store either two or four terabytes of data, costs about $160 and $310, respectively.

The Travelstar 5K1500, branded under the Hitachi Global Storage Technologies name, has a storage capacity of 1.5 terabytes and is used with notebooks, external drives, gaming consoles and all-in-one PCs.

The company also recently announced a partnership with Milpitas-based SanDisk Corp. to debut a solid-state hybrid drive that pairs SanDisk’s flash memory technology with Western Digital’s hard drive expertise.

The thin WD Black, which features speedy flash memory performance, is targeting corporate customers as Western Digital aims to boost margins higher than the consumer segment offers.

Solid-state drives use chips instead of spinning disks to store data.

Western Digital is the largest drive maker in the world in units shipped and in revenue, which eclipsed $12.4 billion in the 12 months through June, the end of its fiscal year.

Sales from non-PC business lines are projected to account for more than 50% of annual sales this fiscal year, up from 35% five years ago, a company official said in a recent conference call. That would be the first time in Western Digital’s 43-year history.

Chris Casacchia can be reached at casacchia@ocbj.com

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