Oregon Business

"Our city is better than your city."

The hardware cluster is just one piece of Apple’s Oregon connection.

Now the Bend area’s unemployment rate, at almost 16 percent, is one of the highest of any metropolitan area in the nation. “For sale” signs dot desert-toned, unfinished subdivisions. Luxury furniture stores downtown are going out of business. San Francisco chefs have fled.

Bend-based PV Powered Inc., which makes key components for solar panels, has received a multimillion dollar investment from a Vancouver investment group that could help triple the company’s size in two years.

“We cannot wait for businesses to come,” Allen said. “We know we have to do something not only to aid the current businesses we have in town but to draw more business into town that makes sense for Prineville.”

Once upon a time not so long ago, developers seeking magic money poured $4 million into a "Lord of the Rings" subdivision here complete with hobbit holes and thatch-roof houses.

CenterSpace Software’s NMath product suite provides object-oriented components for mathematical, engineering, scientific, and financial applications on the .NET platform.

One of Oregon’s major business groups backs some budget-balancing tax measures, including an increase in the corporate minimum tax and a three-year surcharge on corporate income taxes.

Think of the market as iTunes for digital maps.

While automakers are toiling to produce electric cars that will fit the demands of American drivers, Ashland-based Barefoot Motors is on the verge of turning out heavy-duty ATVs that can go 50 miles on a charge costing about 90 cents.