The company, for instance, entered the snow-making market a few years ago and has sold its software to Cannon Mountain and The Balsams Resort in New Hampshire and to Jisan Resort near Seoul, Korea. Earlier this month, it shipped software to the U.S. Army that replicates the sounds of 25mm cannons and .30-caliber machine guns on the tanks that are used at the Combined Forces Training Center in California. AEC also creates software for fish hatcheries, drinking water systems, wastewater treatment plants, National Semiconductor, the Brunswick Naval Air Station and a pharmaceutical company. Thanks to software, AEC's sales have grown 20 percent a year for the past five years. Its work force has gone from six to 14.
Nobody is sure exactly how many software companies make their homes in Maine.
Industry experts put the number at 350 or so, with an additional 650 or 700 companies indirectly involved in the industry. The state plans to conduct a survey this fall to help it better understand such things as how big the industry is, what it produces, how many people it employs and where companies get their workers. They have an average of only four or five employees. They vary in size from single-person shops to companies such as DeLorme Mapping Co., which has more than 200 employees and relies on mapping software for more than half of its revenues. And, everyone agrees, the industry is just starting to take off.