WORKERS TO START: Company cites our lifestyle and relaxed immigration laws
ASHLEY FORD AND KATE WEBB
Province
Move over, Silicon Valley. Microsoft Corp. said yesterday it will open its first Canadian software development centre in Greater Vancouver this fall.
“I think it’s great news for Vancouver and all the municipalities in the Lower Mainland,” said Mayor Sam Sullivan.
Microsoft has not yet singled out a location but says the centre will be operating in September, initially with 200 highly skilled workers from Canada and around the globe.
The global software company, chaired by Bill Gates, currently employs 900 people in Canada, but with this new centre less than three hours by car from its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, that number could double in the next few years.
The announcement has led to comparisons of B.C.’s burgeoning computer technology industry to the birthplace of the microchip.
“If you look at Silicon Valley, it started out small, but there was research and development that started at the universities, which in turn sparked small start-up companies, which brought more companies into the area and it fed on itself,” said Bernie Magnan, chief economist for the Vancouver Board of Trade. “The same thing can happen here in Vancouver.”
Magnan said that even without this latest boon for the industry, information technology jobs in Vancouver now outnumber forest products jobs, 70,000 to 60,000.
Both the mayor and Magnan also brought up the commercial lure of Canada’s immigration laws, which are more relaxed than those in the U.S. The ease of recruiting foreign workers was cited by Microsoft as one of its reasons for the move.
“We will be posting for jobs soon and our real-estate advisers are looking for a building that will be able to house several hundred workers,” said Sharif Khan of Microsoft Canada.
Microsoft Canada president Phil Sorgen said the company has long viewed Canada as a “wonderful place to locate Microsoft development.”
“We have burgeoning high-tech and software industries and a globally envied quality of life and our cities represent exactly the kind of environment that leading information workers want to live in,” he said.
“We are not surprised that other organizations would see the appeal in opening an office in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, with such a significant talent pool,” said Greg Wolfe of Business Objects software development company, which has 1,500 employees in Vancouver.