In an answer to a question asked at the end of my talk on Monday, I suggested that mValent couldn't have been started in Perth because the market is too small. I didn't say the market is too small for software companies in general, just that certain types of software (and markets) require you to be close to the customer in the early stages so there need to be enough serviceable customers locally to sustain you in the initial years. In mValent's case, I don't think that's true of Perth.
I suspect that successful software companies based in Perth generally either have an ideal customer profile that fits more local companies or have a more mature market that is easier to service remotely.
The original post was in the category: entrepreneurship but I'm still in the process of migrating categories over.