Fastest-Growing Firms

Orange County’s ties to the technology community are well-documented, but analysts note that the region’s hottest field right now is business software applications.

Last week, accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP honored 50 of Southern California’s fastest-growing tech firms.

Dubbed the 1997 Southern California Technology Fast 50, the annual awards program ranks the revenue growth of tech firms in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

To qualify, these companies must have doubled their revenue during the last five years and had a net income of at least $50,000 in 1992.

“There’s a lot of interesting open technologies evolving down here, especially in the communications arena,” said John Moulton, a partner in the technology practice at Deloitte & Touche. “It’s a switch, because most companies have been using proprietary systems for ages.”

The Orange County firms honored last week were Telecom Solutions Inc. of Lake Forest; The Automatic Answer of San Juan Capistrano; PairGain Technologies Inc. and Smartflex Systems Inc., both of Tustin; Smith Micro Software Inc. of Aliso Viejo; Viking Components Inc. of Rancho Santa Margarita, and Irvine-based companies Network Intensive, ATL Products Inc., Vision Solutions Inc., National Telephone & Communications Inc., Powerwave Technologies Inc., LeadingWay Corp., Imagyn Medical Inc., I-Flow Corp., Wonderware Corp., Orthodyne Electronics Corp., UCAR Composites Inc., Subscriber Computing Inc. and Endocare Inc.

P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com