Microsoft opening doors in Vancouver

My employer, Microsoft Canada, announced that they are opening a new software development centre in Vancouver in the fall of 2007. It looks like MSFT is joining the ranks of Apple, which opened a development center in Yaletown.

The Microsoft Canada Development Centre will operate as one of a handful of development centers outside the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters; the others are located in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel.

This is huge! I wish that the centre was going to be in Toronto. But this is a great start. It means that software products are being built in Canada. It will help bring additional talent and opportunities to Canada. Hopefully, the long-term impact will be to seed the Vancouver area with Fairchildren. This assumes that there aren’t fantastic design and development companies already in Vancouver, and that would be wrong. Here’s a short-list of existing companies:

It does make me wonder about the spinouts of other Canadian technology success stories. Where are the spinouts of Corel (is Halogen Software an offshoot?), RIM, Nortel?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • Greg Wilson

    <p>Didn't they do this once before? And then close it a few years later?</p>

  • Greg Wilson

    <p>You might also want to add ActiveState to your list of Vancouver tech companies ;-) </p>

  • http://www.third-bit.com/blog Greg Wilson

    Didn't they do this once before? And then close it a few years later?

  • http://www.third-bit.com/blog Greg Wilson

    You might also want to add ActiveState to your list of Vancouver tech companies ;-)

  • John Bristowe

    <p>There's also <a href="http://www.sxip.com/&quot; target="_blank">Sxip Identity</a>.</p>

  • Frederic Boulanger

    <p>For the offshoot of the said companies in ottawa, there is a genealogy tree reference that can be bought <a href="http://www.doyletechcorp.com/pubs.htm&quot; target="_blank">at Doyletech</a>. Unfortunately the genealogy three is not available online. Ottawa's history is around Nortel, Mitel, Newbridge, and then at a certain distance & Fulcrum, Cognos, and Corel. Halogen was co-founded and is ran by Michael Slaunwhite who used to be CFO of Corel, so it would qualify as an offshoot.</p>

  • http://blogs.msdn.com/cdndevs/ John Bristowe

    There's also Sxip Identity.

  • http://www.picpacwrack.net/fredboulangertech/fredstechstuff.html Frederic Boulanger

    For the offshoot of the said companies in ottawa, there is a genealogy tree reference that can be bought at Doyletech. Unfortunately the genealogy three is not available online. Ottawa's history is around Nortel, Mitel, Newbridge, and then at a certain distance & Fulcrum, Cognos, and Corel. Halogen was co-founded and is ran by Michael Slaunwhite who used to be CFO of Corel, so it would qualify as an offshoot.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3L5LFKELIHDOXOWXAMNVEBKTE4 Gbong

    I do think you probably did an great task presenting it. Ultimately I just noticed what I’ve truly been hunting for. Good thing you have this Microsoft opening doors. San Diego Air Duct Cleaning | San Diego Chimney Cleaning | San Diego Water Damage