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Asian Nations Battle for Google Data Center
1sockchuck writes "Google is pitting foreign governments against one another in a battle for a major new data center in Asia. In the past week, both the prime minister of Malaysia and economic minister of Taiwan have said their countries are leading candidates for the Google project, with Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam also mentioned as contenders in an 18-nation site selection process. Google typically invests $600 million in each new data center. Tech companies often use multi-site searches as a tool to coax incentives out of local governments, which sweeten their offers to outbid rivals from other regions. Google's Asian initiative appears to be taking this strategy to a new level, coaxing heads of state to invest political capital in their lust for one of Google's mega-datacenters."
With the exception of Vietnam, they're all pretty consolidated democracies...
Those countries that show any signs of implementing strict laws to protect the privacy of their citizens as well a enforcing strict limits upon how personally, psychological targeted marketing will be, will consider themselves right out of the running.
I would personally hope that Australia is right out of the running and remains so, it would be embarrassing to be considered a suitable data warehouse for proctology inc.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This takes Googlefight to a whole new level.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
They want the data center because $600 million talks pretty loudly no matter what country you're in, especiallyif you're a developing nation. Google made a mistake with China, and they've all but acknowledged it; they won't soon do the same thing. It's also pretty fucking naïve to say "All of Asia wants to control and censor the information available."
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Not all Asian nations are intent on suppressing their media, and it is ignorant to think so. $600 million is a lot of money, and developing Asian countries surely need that money injected into their economies.
They've already decided, and are just using the "process" to extract whatever additional concessions they can.
Think of it, people - dependable power, lots of fibre, stable social structure ... the decision will be made on the best tech merits, not "whoever throws the most incentives at them." After all:
So, they've already decided, and they'll use this as a way to both get a few more concessions, and to help avoid bruising other countries egos - they'll find a justification "all things considered, their bid was the best."
You heard it here first.
Google will be accepting bids from those countries that can show a long term commitment to the acceptability of the invasion of privacy of others and ensuring full legal protection for the use of that private data in any way that the googlite marketdroids choose ie. profits before privacy.
What makes you think they have to leave the states to do this? We've got people losing laptops with everything from nuclear weapons documents to half a million social security numbers with no encryption on them, and far as I can see, nobody's been fined a dime or spent an hour in jail.
Please help metamoderate.
Is there a somewhat up to date list of Google's data center locations on the Web? Everything I can find is outdated.
I'm not Filipino, but I've been there a couple times and there are some reasons I can think of which make it a good place to house a data center:
;-) Of course they love Linux all over asia, but a lot of Philippines businesses are warming up to Linux. Also, they love everything about American culture there so it would be a fun place to work.
1) Filipinos speak impecibly good English with little or no accent. I have no issue understanding them.
2) Philippines is a very westernized place; it would be easy for a western-based company to work or conduct business there.
3) They love Linux in the Philippines
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
do as you are trained... and kill the malaysian prime minister!
Everything that touches China gets reserve-engineered in a matter of months. Try getting the government to crack down on such clones and you'll find out how useless it is.
I would think twice before storing *any* valuable information on China-based servers.
I live in North Carolina and all this has come up recently with one they are building here. Basically, these are very poor tools for job creation. Only a very few employees of the data centers are highly paid engineers; most of the employees do relatively low-paying (for the IT industry, anyway) jobs of HW maintenance and site maintenance. Even if the jobs were halfway decent, even those huge data centers just don't need very many people to run them. In a shop like Google's, where the servers consist of rack after rack of the exact same thing, there just isn't much of the high change-ticket volume that drives the work at most corporate data centers.
Personally, I disagree very strongly with the sweetheart deal that they were handed here in NC. They are getting more-or-less complete freedom from taxes for a great many years on the facility, while sucking fairly large amounts of power out of the local grid, using not-plentiful water for cooling, and creating very few jobs. Little to none of the high-paying jobs will come out of the local labor pool.
SirWired
I`m not necessarily saying that Google's tactics here are evil but damn, strategies and actions like this certainly aren't resounding endorsements of that policy. I also noticed that no one else seems to have brought the policy up. Have we all just given up on the slogan? No one even bothers to call them out on it anymore? I wish I could still believe but it looks like everyone has lost faith in the apparently too idealistic policy.
While I'm sure Taiwan is crap country to live in, like you said. There does appear to be 145 countries more corrupt than Taiwan: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html It's leaders are not listed in the top 10 heads of state and it doesn't even get a mention in the Forbes most corrupt countries feature
However, because of people like you live there, I'll second that call to skip Taiwan. ;-)
M0571y H@rml355.
Seriously, why not Iraq? What better way to give their economy the kick in the ass it needs than to put Google's "All Your Base" datacenter there? A strong economy will stabilize Iraq, allowing us to get our people home, not to mention cementing relations between them and us.
Anybody want my mod points?
It's extremely unfortunate that Taiwan still has this reputation as a backwards nation and demonstrates the ignorance Americans have regarding the nation.
Unfortunately it's really the fault of the Taiwanese government and it's companies. The government has done a piss poor job of promoting the nation. They have an agency dedicated to promoting Taiwan's industry, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) which I've had the misfortune of dealing with on a few occasions; it's run by inept bureaucrats who lack imagination and commonsense.
The second problem is that Taiwanese people and companies in particular are exceedingly cheap. It's not so much that they cut corners like the Chinese do, but rather that they're not willing to spend a dollar more than is necessary to produce an acceptable product. This means their identity and branding is utter crap. It may seem insignificant but it basically insures that few people overseas every recognize the quality of their products. Related to that is quality product design which is sorely lacking.
Taiwan and South Koreans have comparable economies, and in fact, Taiwan has a slight edge in quite a few areas. It just that the Koreans were smart enough to invest in the right areas which has enabled their success internationally. Although, Korean companies did have the benefit of enjoying extensive government support which gave them the capital and flexibility to expand. Taiwanese companies have by and large been left to fend for themselves.
Another disadvantage Taiwan has is that they're lumped together with China. China produces crap so by default it's expected that Taiwan does too. Of course, it doesn't help that cheap goods were once all manufactured in Taiwan but then that stuff was once made in Japan as well and they've long since gotten over that stigma.
Taiwan has a strong economy; it doesn't have the growth China has, but it's far more stable and nowhere near as cutthroat an environment. It's got a stable government, the political infighting is no worse than anything seen in the US. There is some corruptions, but not really much worse than the US. It's nowhere near on the level of China or the rest of south east Asia. Again, it's comparable to South Korea.
The workforce is well-educated and they're hard workers. English has been mandatory in schools for a few years now. Even without the English curriculum many people can speak it. In fact, it's quite easy to get around on English alone, although being able to speak Chinese is always an advantage. Still, you'll encounter far more people speaking English in Taiwan than you'll ever find in Japan. Go into a McDonald's in Tokyo, ask for a Big Mac and they wont know what in the hell you're talking about. It's happened to me. Go into a shop even outside the big cities in Taiwan and it's quite possible to come across someone who speaks English quite well.
Taipei has an extensive subway system that's clean and punctual. It puts the New York system to shame. They now have a high speed rail line, thanks to Japan. This is especially beneficial considering that the major technology companies base their facilities in big science parks in Western Taiwan a good distance from Taipei.
Taiwan certainly has a higher cost of living than south east Asia and China, but I think the value afforded given their experience in technology makes it worthwhile. If they lose out on this opportunity I wont be surprised to learn it's because they've failed to market themselves properly. One thing that's always impressed me there is that when they need to get something done they just do it and they do it at a good clip. They don't get mired down in legal crap like we see in the United States and projects don't run excessively late and over-budget either.
On another note, Taiwan is extremely scenic with panoramas I'd argue are on par with anything found in places like Hawaii, especially in the east and south of Taiwan. If I had the opportunity to move back I'd take it.
This kind of comes off as a bit of an advertisement but that's because I'm tired seeing Taiwan maligned by people who don't really know what they're talking about.