Orange County’s employment base of about 63,000 high-tech jobs ranked No. 13 in a 34-market report released by Chicago-based JLL.
Silicon Valley’s 213,594 high-tech jobs were far ahead of No. 2, Boston, with 145,484 positions. OC trailed No. 7, Los Angeles, which had 98,311 jobs. It ranked ahead of San Diego, No. 16, with 51,571 jobs; San Francisco, No. 17, with 49,368 positions; and No. 20, East Bay, with 48,223.
Orange County’s diverse technology sector features a strong corporate base, a highly educated workforce, and strong patent generation, according to the fourth annual High-Technology Office Outlook published by the real estate management, consultancy and research firm.
The county is home to several industry leaders, including Broadcom Corp., Blizzard Entertainment Inc., Western Digital Corp., Vizio Inc. and Kingston Technology Corp.
The market lacks the early-growth-stage companies found in West L.A. or the Bay Area, but “Orange County might have the highest potential for growth,” said Scott Wetzel, an executive vice president in JLL’s Irvine office.
He said OC has two critical fundamentals working in its favor: a very educated labor pool and quality of life, top reasons entrepreneurs and chief executives establish or relocate companies here.
A branding effort to position the local technology sector as a major global player has never taken root, partly because the industry has played second fiddle to others over the years, including the aerospace, savings and loan, and mortgage sectors.
“We’re a total sleeper market,” Wetzel said. “Orange County can bust out of that reputation pretty quickly.”
‘Heroes’ Draw Fans
Blizzard Entertainment Inc.’s first free-to-play video game has amassed more than 20 million global players since its March release.
“Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” is on pace to crack $100 million in revenue in its first year, proving some industry naysayers wrong who doubted the Irvine-based company’s evolving business model and the loyalty of its fan base, which is steadily dropping subscriptions for the World of Warcraft franchise hit.
Expect that impressive total for the spinoff Warcraft card game to balloon when it’s released on Android and iPhone smartphones, likely before the year is out.
Hearthstone is now available only on PCs, Macs and iPads.
Besides the fun factor and quick play, growth has been buoyed by big e-sport tournament events around the globe, Chief Executive Michael Morhaime said in a recent conference call.
Blizzard recently announced a yearlong competition that will pit global players in a face-off in November for a $250,000 purse at BlizzCon, the company’s fanfest held at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Seagate One-Ups WD
Irvine-based storage products maker Western Digital Corp. has been one-upped by rival Seagate Technology in the terabyte race.
The Cupertino competitor became the first company to release an 8-terabyte hard drive, besting Western Digital’s 6-terabyte version launched late last year. Similar to Western Digital’s offering, the Seagate drive is targeting the lucrative enterprise storage segment, which is expected to fuel modest hard drive growth through 2018 in the cloud services and big-data boom, according to Stamford, Conn.-based industry tracker Gartner Inc.
Seagate’s new drives, unlike Western Digital’s, aren’t utilizing helium to achieve high-density and low-energy use, according to a recent blog post on investor website Seeking Alpha.
Western Digital, the world’s largest disk drive maker in units sold and revenue, has annual revenue of about $15.1 billion.
