Apple is building an engineering in Seattle. Does that sound like nothing? Keep in mind what company Seattle is the home of.
Seattle is home to Apple’s biggest rival, Microsoft. This is their first engineering office in the northwest. They’re moving there because of the area’s booming software engineering talent and online infrastructure. It seems to be a strategic move to improve cloud technology, which is built in Seattle. In fact, the meat of this Seattle Apple office is going to be a group of engineers who worked at a cloud company called Union Bay Networks. Most Union Bay employees are now calling themselves Apple employees. Did Apple outright buy Union Bay? Everyone’s keeping tight lip about that one. Apple’s not the only one settling in Seattle. Tech companies from Google to Facebook either have or are in the process of setting up engineering offices there because of the talent pool the northwest offers.
Many are welcoming this move, as technical companies bring in jobs and revenue. A high ranking official of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says this is great. Well, competition has always been great for business. Now it’s going to be great for one US metro area. I certainly hope all this cloud improvement competition actually improves the cloud. But Seattle isn’t the only place in the US where great engineering talent is growing. What other cities can Apple, Microsoft and other major tech companies move to?
*Update: As it turns out, Christian Bale will not be playing Steve Jobs in the new movie coming out, as was blogged about last week. Sources say Bale felt he just wasn’t right for the role. But Seth Rogen’s name has been thrown around to take the role of Apple co-founder Steve Woziniak. Who will be the best actor to play Steve Jobs?