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The Branham 300 came out today, and is a good barometer of Canadian tech. I've been following it for a few years now, and while the usual suspects don't change much, it's always good to see how they're faring on a relative basis. For me, though, it's more about the emerging companies and rising stars - those are the ones that catch my eye. The various lists around their annual update are published in Backbone magazine, and you can review those here.

I just wanted to share a few thoughts, but by all means, spend some time exploring the lists in detail - there are lots of interesting companies here.

First - as always - Canada is a small, highly concentrated market. As such, their Top 250 list of tech companies is led by the telcos and cablecos. However, RIM is the overall leader at $11.9 billion in 2009 revenues, well ahead of #2, BCE at $8.3 billion. For what it's worth, Nortel ranked #5 at $4.5 billion, and this may well be the last we'll see of them. Last year they were #1 on this list, but now RIM is really our only top tier/world-beating tech company.

In terms of revenues, things fall off pretty quickly after RIM. Only 11 companies in the top 250 are at $1 billion, and only 18 are above $500 million. Stepping down the line, only 45 are above $100 million, and only 80 are above $50 million. In terms of the rest, roughly half the list - 120 companies - are under $25 million. Any wonder why so little funding finds its way into this market?

Aside from RIM, two other telecom players are worth noting at the high end of the list - Aastra and Mitel. Both are in the area of $800 million, so with a couple more good years, they should soon join the $1 billion club.

Otherwise, some of the other telecom/IP companies on this list that are in my orbit include Vecima Networks, Peer 1, Platform Computing, Unis Lumin, Sigma Systems, Impact Mobile, Sangoma, PIKA and CounterPath. Wearing my Smart Grid hat, it's nice to see Redline Communications, RuggedCom and Matrikon on the list as well.

In case you're wondering, the global players aren't on that list - they have one of their own - the Top IT 25 Multinationals. IBM Canada is tops there at $4.9 billion, with HP Canada following at $4.3 billion. Five others are in the $1 billion club - Siemens, Xerox, Microsoft, Cisco and Apple.

Finally, I wanted to note the Top 25 Up and Comers. No sales figures here, just an alpha listing. Nice to see some Wesley Clover/Mitel presence here - Benbria, Magor and Teldio. Among the new wireless players in Canada, Mobilicity (DAVE Wireless) made the list. On that note, interestingly, I don't see Globalive in this report - anywhere. However, not surprisingly, mobile is one of the strongest themes in this particular list. By region, roughly half these companies are Ontario-based, and a third are from B.C. Only one from Quebec in this list - that is a surprise - would have expected more here. C'est la vie.

The Branham Top 300 is an annual survey of the Canadian tech sector, and as with all "lists", makes for good copy in the press. Backbone Magazine has been publishing this for a couple of years now - it's always a good read, and I've posted about it in the past. The 2009 Top 300 just came out in their April/May issue, and I wanted to touch on a few highlights.

The Top 300 covers a number of sectors related to tech, and I'm really only looking for companies that I follow. They also have several sub-lists for various categories within tech, and I want to simply draw attention to companies on these lists that are in my orbit. Many of these are clients and I'm an Advisor to some of them, while others I just follow in the course of my everyday work.

With that said, here are the kudos I'd like to extend to those who made these lists:

Top 25 Up and Comers: Fonolo, Protecode, Tungle, Vayyoo

Top 25 IT Hardware: Nortel, RIM, Mitel, Aastra, Vecima Networks

Top 20 Movers and Shakers: Counterpath, Sangoma, Espial Group

If you want to get a more thorough read on the Canadian tech landscape, there's lots to explore there, but on a high level the dynamics of this market remain the same. The top vendors are the usual suspects - Nortel, RIM, Celestica, Open Text, Mitel, etc. - and for service providers, you can pretty much count them on one hand - two at most. In short, Canada is a small market, with classic concentration of ownership, and the rest being tiny.

That's not to say these tiny companies aren't worth following! Regular readers of my blog know how world-class many of these companies are, and the Branham 300 definitely helps get them on the radar. Then it's up to people like me who have working relationships with many of these, to do some flag waving and in-the-trenches validation. So, here I am, telling you that if it takes the Branham 300 to turn you on to some promising Canadian tech companies, hats off to them. Now, if we could only find VCs willing to fund these companies...

Otherwise, the Top 300 is dominated by IT and software companies, most of which fall well outside my orbit. There's not that much in the Top 300, actually, related to the IP communications space, and those that are there are very small. I had expected to see more wireless players, and even though they had a list of top companies, there were only 10 of them, and none registered for me. Enough said - don't let that stop you from exploring the list a bit more. We've got great companies up here, and with our cheap dollar, it's a mystery to me why more of them aren't household names.