Is Montana the Next Big Data Hub?

rye (208438) writes "Montana is positioning itself as the next hub for big data and cyber security. With companies like Symantec and IBM investing heavily in high-tech development, the opening of University of Montana's new Cyber Innovation Laboratory, and statewide competitions such as this weekend's Montana Cyber Triathlon (which had the coolest trophy ever), the momentum is strong. Cheap labor, cheap space and the Northern Tier backbone (with stretches over 600 miles across the width of Montana) are all contributing to the new tech growth. Even Congress is jumping on the bandwagon: Montana Rep. Steve Daines, a member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security, recently said 'Technology has removed geography as a constant.'"

Comments

Nope.

[DrPBacon]

Not really.

An educated workforce

[Anonymous Coward]

An educated workforce is still a geographical constant. Montana isn't exactly known for its world-class educational institutions. And cattle ranching doesn't need a whole lot of education.

Re:An educated workforce

[datapharmer]

Try it yourself. You might find out that to be successful at it requires skill and education. I have family there that are one of two families left in a several hundred mile radius that are still farming successfully. All the rest gave up or gave out. Between droughts, harsh winters and fluctuations in feed prices it isn't as easy as watch some cows munch grass, and yes, they are educated and have dedicated fiber running straight to the farm that far surpasses the quality of dsl I can get in the city here in Florida.

Re:An educated workforce

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently they aren't educated enough to know what anecdotal evidence is.

Re:An educated workforce

[plopez]

Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent. It is only in grad school that differentiation occurs. Logic is logic. Java is Java. Differential equations are differential equations no matter where on the globe you are.

Re:An educated workforce

[ShanghaiBill]

Most STEM degrees at the undergraduate level are equivalent.

Take ten people with CS degrees from MIT. Take ten more with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. Give them each a programming assignment that should take about an hour. It is highly unlikely that the results will be "equivalent".

Re:An educated workforce

[Bengie]

A good STEM degree doesn't just signify knowledge, but also understanding. Learning how to identify the best tool for the job, or even creating a new tool, requires more than just knowledge.

Re:An educated workforce

[CRCulver]

My experiences cycling across South Africa last winter, where I often stopped for the night at a local farm because there wasn't anything else for the next 100km, did much to disabuse me of the notion that large-scale farmers and ranchers are uneducated. Many of them had done rigorous university studies in the big city before coming back to the middle of nowhere, and they still kept up with the latest scholarly literature to maximise gains.

However, their education was specifically on fields useful to farming and ranching such as chemistry, biology, veterinary sciences, economics, etc. They had no background in computer science, and though they had a network brought out to the farm to allow them to track e.g. feed prices, they didn't know much about how said network or their computers worked. So, I understand the OP's suspicion that Montana may lack an educated workforce capable of luring IT firms.

Re:An educated workforce

[plopez]

Why do you say highly unlikely? If everyone completes the same basic courses then that is evidence their intelligence is about equivalent.

Re:An educated workforce

[callmetheraven]

Nope. We're all toothless hillbillies. Montana is horrible.

Re:An educated workforce

[plopez]

Measuring understanding is hard. But I will contend that if two people get equivalent degrees with equivalent grades their understanding will be approximately equivalent. And I will also posit that real depth of understanding only comes after several years of experience.

Re:An educated workforce

[ShanghaiBill]

Why do you say highly unlikely?

You have a serious detachment from reality if you think Univ of Phoenix graduates will, on average, perform as well as MIT graduates.

If everyone completes the same basic courses ...

But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have better instructors, more rigorous standards, more and harder assignments, and more competitive students.

Re:An educated workforce

[Anonymous Coward]

In one way that is almost humorous. I attended a small private university to get my CmpE/EE degree. It was very rigorous and grades were not inflated, a fact that is known regionally. Some years after I graduated, I had a recruiter tell me that he'd rather hire one of our 'C' students than most 'A' students from the big state school.

I took that with a grain of salt until I went through graduate school at two other state schools, both with good reputations. I truly feel that 1/4 to 1/3 of the graduating engineers that I taught would never have survived through the first year at my alma mater. And yet they had the same grades (as a grad student, I had to follow a prescribed methodology and curve in grading) and the same diploma.

While I don't anticipate quite the same magnitude of difference, I do expect that a CalTech, MIT, or similar grad, with equivalent grades, to be at least as good as and probably better than those from my undergraduate university.

What I will say is that that that top students from any institution will likely be similar in initial ability on entering the marketplace. Those are the people who are truly motivated, suck in knowledge like a sponge, and would have excelled anywhere they went. They are also, however, anything but the average student.

Re:An educated workforce

[Anonymous Coward]

Just anecdotal, obviously, but my .02..... if they are a Univeristy of Phoenix student, you may be right the vast majority of the time, no comparison to MIT, but UoP has a dropout rate that you might not believe, most of the folks I know who GRADUATED from UoP, who actually stuck it out, did so because they were already in their fields professionally, just without degrees and were getting the paper just so that their resume would make it past the HR droids the next time they applied for a job that listed a BS in something as a requirement. This being the case, most of the UoP Comp Sci GRADUATES I have known (not students), were pros with a lot of experience who would likely have shown up the MIT grads without breaking a sweat. I knew one guy who had already bee a developer for 10+ years and had used/ was using just about every tech you could imagine, just with with no degree, but decided to get the paper from UoP just so he had it. He'd probably have compared to the MIT graduates pretty damned well. I know 4 people who all graduated from UoP for the same reasons.... I've known a lot more know-nothings who started and dropped out, which was probably best because the guys who did get the degree all said the program was shite.

Re:An educated workforce

[riverat1]

Both Apple and Facebook put data centers in Prineville, Oregon which is a place I wouldn't consider any more advanced than Montana. Apparently they haven't had problems attracting workers.

Re:An educated workforce

[BosstonesOwn]

they did it for the costs. parts changers are cheap, and power and bandwidth are cheap there as well.

When you have a parts changer, but good sysadmins across the globe you can do that. with remote kvm's and now most servers with good baseband management tools, it's cheaper to have good sysadmins do the cleanup and setup work from half a world away.

Pay the sysadmins to automate most of the process and have cheap parts changers on hand and it's easy as sin to keep a datacenter running well. It's pricey but the sysadmins are constantly busy across multiple datacenters and it lowers cost.

Re:An educated workforce

[nmr_andrew]

But they are NOT "the same". Classes at top tier schools have ... more competitive students.

Frankly, I think you could have left the rest of your list out and this would be the answer. Better/more competitive schools draw a generally better caliber of students. I've studied and/or worked at enough different institutions of higher education (small liberal arts college, Ivy League uni, 3 different state universities) that I'll say this as fact, and I know a number of people who've taken courses/gotten degrees at Phoenix or equivalent, usually because it was necessary for their continued employment.

This isn't to say that there aren't good students at these "lesser" institutions. In fact, I'd say the very top students have a similar level of talent/intelligence across the board. Many good students choose to stay local for various reasons: financial, family, etc. The real difference is in the bottom 50% or so of the student bodies. At a top school, these students are still generally decent, at least they don't struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time. At the lower tier schools, it's a very different story.

Re:An educated workforce

[SB9876]

Modern cattle ranching actually requires a ton of education if you want to be at all successful at it.

Re:An educated workforce

[marnues]

It absolutely does. I worked for the largest Tech Engineering firm in the state a few years ago. It's relocating to Denver, so there goes all the talent. And I mean all the talent. Filling seats was about the hardest part of our job. No one else was doing what we were doing in Billings, the largest city. Of course, Bozeman and Missoula have cheaper student labor, so maybe they can make it work there. But those are also the most expensive cities so the cheap part is out the window.

Re:An educated workforce

[Reziac]

Where are your people at? I've got rancher relatives up by Fort Benton myself. And yeah, it not only requires skill and education, it requires good judgment and good risk assessment, because nothing is a 100% sure thing in agriculture.

And as to the educational level... it's so much better in MT than, say, California (I can attest, having lived about equal time both places) it's not funny. But don't believe me, believe the Census data:

This was current as of 2007, but it's enough to illustrate trends:

For population 25 years and over in Lancaster, California:
* High school or higher: 78.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 15.8%
* Graduate or professional degree: 5.6%
* Unemployed: 11.2%

For population 25 years and over in Bozeman, Montana:
* High school or higher: 94.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 49.5%
* Graduate or professional degree: 15.6%
* Unemployed: 9.5%

(Lancaster CA was doing significantly better than nearby Los Angeles. Bozeman is about typical for MT.)

Montana State University is among the top schools in the world for Engineering, Chemistry, and Architecture. In fact my sister (who is a partner in a big architectural firm in CA that has offices worldwide) recruits mostly from MSU, because, in her words, that's the only place she can find competent prospects.

Re:An educated workforce

[Reziac]

You could make this a little more fair by pitting one person with a CS degree from MIT against ten people with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. ;)

This ad brought to you by Montana!

[Anonymous Coward]

We have electricty you know!

Cheap Labor

[CastrTroy]

Cheap labor seems to be the thing that stands out the most. I would think that labor is only cheap in Montana because land is cheap, and therefore people can live for less money. When even a modest house is , you don't have to wonder why they have to pay people so much to work there. Even if you pay the workers the same amount, you can attract a lot of talent because they'll be able to live that much more comfortably.

Re:Cheap Labor

[alen]

maybe for you, but for a lot of people you have to pay them more to live in a place with no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food

and generally any place where the only kinds of restaurants are american food

Re:Cheap Labor

[CastrTroy]

Missing link and words

When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco, you don't have to wonder.....

Re:Cheap Labor

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, I think there needs to be a happy medium ground somewhere. Paying $1,000,000 for a house isn't my idea of a good time, but neither is travelling 300 miles every time you want to do some shopping. The point is, there's no reason for everything in be in one place. There are plenty of cities with a reasonable cost of living, that don't required that you forgo a modern lifestyle.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing link and words

  When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco, you don't have to wonder.....

I have a house of the same square footage as that San Fransisco example, which cost me 16% as much just outside of Chicago and you know that house in San Francisco doesn't sit on a half-acre lot either.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying Montana has no star bucks or ethnic food? I assume these data centers will be around Billings or Missoula, not a random small town, both places have multiple sushi places, thai food, indian food, and a host of other ethnic foods.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahaha, forgo a modern lifestyle, what do you think we all burn would heat in the winter and have to trudge through snow to the outhouse? Seriously, i would like to know what you think is missing for modern lifestyle, is it sushi, because we have plenty of that, i eat it more than burgers. and i don't waste my money on starbucks, but if you want too i don't think you would have trouble finding one, no whole foods, but that's ok, where do you think the organic farms are anyway? We have a couple Asian markets even, so you can make your own thia food, if your that worried about it. Our network infrastructure is not bad, we suffer from the same things as every other community, too few choices do to duopoly status of the existing players, but my 30Mbps connection isn't bad, and it doesn't go down nearly as often as my internet did in florida, and 4g coverage is getting there, Verizon has been up for awhile, and at&t is starting to get theirs going now, like i said its not the greatest, but its not that bad, you can actually go out of town a bit and still have signal. Would it be nice to have a little more choice, sure, but its not lacking anything you need to live a "modern" lifestyle, whatever your definition.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

it does site on an earthquake fault line though, and it's close to the ocean!

Re:Cheap Labor

[Sporkinum]

At least they have both types of music. Country and Western.

Re:Cheap Labor

[ColdWetDog]

Missoula (the U of M town) is sort of like a pre Starbucks Austin. Fairly liberal, small but vibrant community. Lots of problems, but nothing unusual in that. Great hiking, camping, skiing.

There are worse places to live, by far.

Re:Cheap Labor

[ColdWetDog]

Lest anyone be concerned, the last time I was in Montana, I saw plenty of paragraphs and capital letters.

Re:Cheap Labor

[LWATCDR]

" no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food"
7 Thai restaurants in Billings.
8 Sushi in Billings
45 Coffee shops including Starbucks.
No Whole Foods but the Good Earth Market and Natural Grocers can fill the bill for a lot of people and you also have Costco.

Re:Cheap Labor

[gsslay]

Pardon me, while I snort with derision at the notion that Starbucks is a measure of sophistication and diversity.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah not sure if I'm far enough from New Madrid to be "safe" when the next big quake occurs but at least they're only once or twice a millenia or so.

Couldn't give that much of a damn about being near the ocean really, I don't like the beach that much anyhow.

Re:Cheap Labor

[NatasRevol]

And getting closer all the time....

Re:Cheap Labor

[cve]

I hate it when I'm in farm country and can't find a Whole Foods to get fresh food.

Re:Cheap Labor

[luis_a_espinal]

Missing link and words When even a modest house is $1,000,000 in San Francisco, you don't have to wonder.....

Cold, hard facts like those where the ones that quickly disabused my wife and I from the notion of relocating our entire family to the Bay Area.

Re:Cheap Labor

[callmetheraven]

They got rid of Missoula during the "restore the valley" campaign. It doesn't exist anymore. And even then the whole valley is ten feet deep in snow until August.

Re:Cheap Labor

[luis_a_espinal]

maybe for you, but for a lot of people you have to pay them more to live in a place with no Starbucks, no Whole Foods Market, no sushi, no thai food

and generally any place where the only kinds of restaurants are american food

Have you ever heard of a phrase that goes like this? "Just fucking google it"?

I have a hard time thinking Montana folks would have difficulties finding organic food. Plus sushi and thai foods are pretty much as American now as chicken pie, you find them everywhere except in the poorest of towns (not isolated, but poorest, poorest != isolated.).

The only concern I would have to relocate to a state like Montana is the ability to live in a cosmopolitan city with several 4-year degree college options for my kids as well as the ease or difficulty of international travel (I prefer not to switch from one airplane to another, thank you very much.) Other than that, overpriced food staples are not the epitome of eclectic living.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF man don't *tell* them. Let them keep their delusions. We don't want their kind in Montana anyway. It's pretty great as it is.

Re:Cheap Labor

[itzdandy]

DUDE! Shut UP! There's no Indian food, no Thai food, no Sushi, no Lucky's or natural Grocers, no buildings over 2 stories, no stadium, the beer is really expensive, we have to look up wine in a book made from papyrus, and it's illegal to wear anything but a cowboy hat. seriously, it sucks here, don't come.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

"it sucks here, don't come."

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Maybe there is a secret there.

Re:Cheap Labor

[sandytaru]

It's so damn cold in the winter though. I got sent up to Brrrrville in December when there was a fresh foot of snow on top of all the old half-melted compact snow and I was very displeased at the 0F temperatures I endured.

Can't we comprormise and have MT be the home of the summer data center, and then have a winter data center down in Florida?

Re:Cheap Labor

[LWATCDR]

Sorry but I just used Yelp.
Part of me really wants to move to Wyoming. I was born here in South Florida and I am tired of the heat, traffic, and snow birds.

Re:Cheap Labor

[codecore]

I recall a couple years back that MT has the second lowest per capita income in the country, to which I say "Thank God for Mississippi!"

Re:Cheap Labor

[Rinikusu]

Having worked through montana, etc, well, I hope you like corn. And it's not even good corn, it's the stuff that's really starchy and is used to produce all those wonderful products that go into everything.

Farm country is now just one big monocrop monoculture just about everywhere.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pardon me, while I snort with derision at the notion that Starbucks is a measure of sophistication and diversity."

It certainly is a "measure", though perhaps not in the way its marketroids intended.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

Helena MT - Yes, Starbucks (Better yet, City Brew - a Montana Owned roaster!). Nope, no Whole Foods Market, but there are two other "real food" places once of which has been open since 1975. Wok and Roll Sushi begs to differ about there being no sushi here. Toi's Thai downtown would like a word with your stereotyping. Add in local bakeries, a couple other local coffee roasters and assorted other places..... Missoula and Billings have even more.
Oh.. wait... never mind... nothing like that in Montana... stay away..... :)

Re:Cheap Labor

[pr0fessor]

I live in a mid-west town population around 30k and have malls, 24/7 stores, fast food, pizza places, starbucks, other coffee houses and bistros, froyo, sushi, tia, italian, turkish. Not to mention all the places w/country cooking.

I'll be fair and say there are 4 towns in two counties slammed against each other with a state college in one w/total population around 130k. You can drive from one town to the next and only know because there is a sign.

Probably not far off from what to expect around Billings Montana which has 3 starbucks and population around 100k.

Re:Cheap Labor

[pr0fessor]

Try Topeka Kansas 200-300k will buy a nice place plenty of malls, starbucks, bistros, traffic is not that bad.

Re:Cheap Labor

[faedle]

You apparently haven't been to Billings lately.

It has all of the above.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Darinbob]

I had a coworker in silicon valley that telecommuted from Montana. He loved it. California salary, Montana cost of living, and good fishing.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't need whole foods when you can buy directly from local farmers

Re:Cheap Labor

[marnues]

The Starbucks to Walmart ratio has been used as a measure of exactly that for some time. Unfortunately Montana is well on the wrong side of that line.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

I have that much Thai and Sushi within a 15 minute walk of my house.

There's a reason all of the IT powerhouses are located in large coastal cities - their business is built on attracting people to come work for them. It's not like you're building a widget factory & need cheap land & un/semi-skilled labor to succeed. You need the best & the brightest technical minds. To lure them away from San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Boston, you need to provide things that just can't be found in a city of 100k people. ...and that's before you even start talking about the weather.

Re:Cheap Labor

[vandamme]

New York.

No, the real, New York, where we keep the mountains, trees, cows, and stuff. And we have Starbucks, but no place is perfect.

Re:Cheap Labor

[lsatenstein]

Cheap labor seems to be the thing that stands out the most. I would think that labor is only cheap in Montana because land is cheap, and therefore people can live for less money. When even a modest house is , you don't have to wonder why they have to pay people so much to work there. Even if you pay the workers the same amount, you can attract a lot of talent because they'll be able to live that much more comfortably.

There are many factors to consider for a data hub site. I would consider the following
a) Low summer heat to cut A/C costs. Winter cold where surplus heat would be absorbed to maintain the building temperature.
b) Reliable and low cost electricity supply (24/7) plus 4cents per kwh.
c) Multilingual labor (English, Spanish, French, Arab ) speaking
d) Talent for operations and enhancements for mostly unmanned operation
e) Cost of employee benefits.
f) Great universities around the Data Hub Site
g) State of the art high speed secure telecommunications.
h) Government handouts if full time jobs are created.

If I put the above points into a general requirement, Would you choose an American Site?
I live in Quebec Canada, and I would build that kind of hub in my backyard.

Re:Cheap Labor

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have brought your own reading material...

if you can't go to walmart at lunch time

[NemoinSpace]

Your infrastructure is insufficient.

Re:if you can't go to walmart at lunch time

[Anonymous Coward]

Your infrastructure is insufficient.

If you're using your lunch break to go to Wal-Mart then you're doing it wrong.

Not Quite, but Improving

[ReboMaxwell]

Being from Montana, and having been involved in the startup scene there, I can say that these developments are definitely an improvement but it still has a long ways to go. The main hangups for Montana are: -Remoteness (expensive to fly into / out of) -Lack of competitive talent (all the talent moves to bigger cities for work) But the pluses are substantial: -Great taxes (both current and previous governor, senators did a lot to improve tax situation for small-mid sized businesses) -Attractive work environment: proximity to Glacier Park, Yellowstone, lots of other great places to explore -As the article mentions, plenty of relatively cheap space to work in If they can manage to make the travel situation more fluid and less expensive, and find ways to keep top talent from moving to San Francisco or New York, they'll do well.

Upgraded backbone?

[Bengie]

To get from the Midwest to Cali, my trace route goes to Chicago, then Dallas, then Cali. Maybe with a stronger trunk going through Montana, we can get a route that goes a bit more northern for a shorter distance.

Technology has removed geography as a constant

[Overzeetop]

So, how's Montana doing on the whole "we love a diverse population that looks like the whole world" thing?

Re:Technology has removed geography as a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want a diverse population?

Re:Technology has removed geography as a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want a diverse population?

Because men of color wants a blonde wife.

Re:Technology has removed geography as a constant

[StatureOfLiberty]

'Diverse' the population, the easier it is to get re-elected?

Re:Technology has removed geography as a constant

[Anonymous Coward]

If the new arrivals bring MONEY that's no problem.

  Montana has the advantage that tech businesses aren't exactly going to drag slums with them.

The US is vast and it's practical not to just escape the city for suburbs, but for rural areas not infested by CHUDs.

is momkind the next big step in our (r)evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

was there ever any doubt? http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mom+kind+spirit+dna

Not enough people

[putaro]

Montana's total population is just slightly above 1 million. SF Bay Area is more like 7.4 million with a much higher percentage of tech workers. So, no, Montana isn't going to be the next tech hub because there aren't enough workers there. Might be a place for DC's if there's enough bandwidth.

Re:Not enough people

[Anonymous Coward]

That might not be a bad thing. I live in a city that went from 300,000 people to over two million in about 10 years, and houses went from $30,000 for a nice house to $250,000 for a place where you will be spending 45-60 minutes for a commute. To boot, there are not the Bay Area amenities and no parks either (well, except for Zilker, which requires a taxi to go to.) If you want a zoo, you have to drive 90 miles to another city.

I would be happy to move to a relatively small town of tech-minded people. It would mean that crime would be lower (tech people tend to be intelligent enough to properly defend themselves, or find a way to do that), the bigwigs that foul up local governments wouldn't consider that town a target, and if there are not amenities, they would be put in. Heavy snow? Not an issue if the town builds tunnels or covered walkways.

The trick is to keep the town tech oriented, but keep the celebrities and fashionistas wanting to remain in LA, NYC, or Austin.

Re:Not enough people

[RicktheBrick]

I can make a case for my hometown, Ludington, Michigan.
1. We have cheap labor hear.
2. We are close to several large cities(Chicago is only about 250 miles) and Universities(Michigan State, University of Michigan)
3. We have one of the largest pumped storage plants in the world for power.
4. A very small part of that water could be used for cooling. The temperature of Lake Michigan is still under 40 degrees.
5. We have 56 windmills in the county. There is a large potential area in the center of Lake Michigan for a huge number of windmills. There is a lot of wind there and no one lives there.
6. We have a harbor for recreational and commercial boating that has access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
7. We have a large state and national park and a lot of small inland lakes for recreation.
8. Lake Michigan keeps us cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than the rest of the state.
9. We do not worry about hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and even tornadoes as they are either never here or extremely rare.

Re:Not enough people

[Bengie]

And 10 years from now? Creating these datacenters will create demand for people to move or get educated.

Re:Not enough people

[Anonymous Coward]

To boot, there are not the Bay Area amenities and no parks either

I live in Minnesota and have visited the Bay Area a couple of times. Amenities, you are spot on: they are a little expensive, but they are there, and certainly more interesting and diverse than what we can obtain in Minnesota.

But what people in the Bay Area call "parks" we call "walking out your front door" in Minnesota.

Also, Muir Woods? I'm happy that there is some patch of land that still has trees in the Bay Area, but it was kind of sad seeing how many people flocked to that place on a holiday weekend. I can't imagine that there was a whole lot of "woodsy" feeling left by the time all of those people were packed into it. Having said that, I did encounter some very nice parks/woods/trails *well outside* of the Bay Area in Northern CA.

Re:Not enough people

[Aqualung812]

While these are good points, you did forget to point out the 2.7 metric fucktons of snow that Lake Michigan deposits on you.

Re:Not enough people

[weeboo0104]

My wife and I visited Ludington a few years ago. I love the West side of Michigan.
We were really impressed by the number of people that turned out on a Saturday morning the week before Memorial Day to plant flowers and beautify the town for Tourist season. If an employer looking for a Senior System Engineer was in Ludington or even Muskegon, we would move there in a heartbeat.

Re:Not enough people

[Rinikusu]

As others have stated, that might not be a bad thing.

For one, there's a chicken/egg problem. No reason to stay if there's no jobs, no reason to move if there's no jobs. But if there's jobs and a means to pay for people to stay/relocate, then that problem may solve itself. There's plenty of IT/Dev workers who've grown tired of "big city" life and the associated issues that come with it: Expensive Housing, Expensive transportation, constant congestion, tons of pollution (noise, light, sound, and environmental.. maybe even cultural if we want to bend a little), etc. For the right money, hell, I'd head to Montana, too. Gorgeous country up there. Just give me broadband and I'm good.

Re:Not enough people

[Anonymous Coward]

Michigan is full. Stay out.

Re:Not enough people

[jratcliffe]

That might not be a bad thing. I live in a city that went from 300,000 people to over two million in about 10 years,

No, you don't. Assuming you're talking about Austin (given the Zilker Park reference), the Austin Metro Statistical Area was 1.83 million in 2012. In 2000, it was 1.25 million. That's some serious growth, but it's nowhere near 300k to 2 million. The MSA had 300k people in 1960, but I guess "300k to 2 million in 50 years" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Re:Not enough people

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be happy to move to a relatively small town of tech-minded people. It would mean that crime would be lower (tech people tend to be intelligent enough to properly defend themselves, or find a way to do that), the bigwigs that foul up local governments wouldn't consider that town a target, and if there are not amenities, they would be put in. Heavy snow? Not an issue if the town builds tunnels or covered walkways.

The trick is to keep the town tech oriented, but keep the celebrities and fashionistas wanting to remain in LA, NYC, or Austin.

You just described the Research Triangle Park region of North Carolina.

Re:Not enough people

[putaro]

Probably not. Datacenters don't employ very many people. It's easy enough to fly in specialists to set them up and debug the really ugly problems.

Monwhere?

[flyingfsck]

For those wondering where it is, Montana is the US boondocks somewhere south of Canada.

Re:Monwhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, that just confused me more, and now I am not sure what the difference is between Montana and New England. (Also the rest of the US.)

Re:Monwhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

just the way we like it.

Re:Monwhere?

[ColdWetDog]

Montana is where dental floss comes from.

Re:Monwhere?

[plopez]

Frank is that you?

Re:Monwhere?

[NatasRevol]

Actually, Montana is completely north of the southern most point of Canada.

http://kottke.org/14/05/us-sta...

Re:Monwhere?

[callmetheraven]

Montana is full. And it sucks here. We have two seasons: Winter (9mos) and Fire (3mos). There are no jobs. Don't move here. Please.

Re:Monwhere?

[s1d3track3D]

I might be movin' to Montana soon
Just to raise me up a crop of Dental Floss

Re:Monwhere?

[itzdandy]

yes, it's miserable here. maybe the worst place in the entire world. I'd leave, but that's the thing, you can't leave. It's like prison.

Re:Monwhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, it's miserable here. maybe the worst place in the entire world. I'd leave, but that's the thing, you can't leave. It's like prison."

Naw, prison you can leave, It's obviously Hotel California.

Re:Monwhere?

[Darinbob]

Montana is also known as Big Sky Country. This is not necessarily because the sky is bigger, but because the gound is smaller.

Re:Monwhere?

[gabrieltss]

When I was stationed up there in the middle 80's there were two season - Winter and July. Winter was -40 most of the time and I remember 6 foot high snow drifts up against the buildings. It was colder than a witches tit there. But had some good deer hunting in Augusta.

Re:Monwhere?

[Reziac]

Instead of posting photos of Glacier and Yellowstone, we should post pictures of ... oh, say the old part of Butte. That'll keep the undesirables out. ;)

Re: Monwhere?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't know where it is stop looking. We like it that way.

Economics

[jamesl]

Companies used to locate based on availability of transportation -- rivers, ports etc. Now it's a data pipe.

Re:Economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Transportation still matters when you're making physical goods.

Re:Economics

[Anonymous Coward]

My employer makes physical goods, our vendors have zero problem getting us material and we have zero problem getting our product to our customers, even in the middle of winter, on time or even early. Sure we might have 4000 flights a day coming/going from major cities, but we have zero problem getting goods shipped nationally or internationally year around.

Re:Economics

[Sporkinum]

And how much the state is will to pay in tax breaks to get them there. Here in Iowa, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have all put in or are putting in, large data centers.

Re:Economics

[Kjella]

With outsourcing they'll move the the business halfway around the earth if needed, it's not really the pipe they come for. You'll get nowhere without a talent pool that's interesting to somebody.

Recruiting?

[anlashok]

I would think if this was even somewhat true it would be evident from attempts to recruit talent from outside Montana. I haven't heard or seen any postings to attract experienced talent. This sounds like another "Promote the story to get more funds from the government" and press for the local politicians to start another mediocre fake Silicon Valley. Another place to put technology that only needs cheap inexperienced labor from the local schools. A warehouse for servers where the only talent needed is ability to push a button for hard reboot and pull out a drive or motherboard... A+ Certified only requirement, unless thats too expensive. The more experienced employees will still be elsewhere remoting in when needed.
Or am I just being too harsh :-)

Re:Recruiting?

[sandytaru]

Eh, my company had postings for at least 3-4 tech positions for our Montana data center in the last six months or so. They're not as numerous as they are for the big cities, but they exist.

Re:Recruiting?

[GameboyRMH]

Nope, just right. Every country wants to get their own knockoff Silicon Valley with these cargo-cult antics. But they can't copy what really matters:

The brand name which is tied to the location.

You can put together all the skilled employees and overvalued half-baked ideas you want, but outside of the original Silicon Valley they are worthless. No VCs are looking to blow cash on their startups. Startups don't even get called startups, they use the full name, "unsuccessful small businesses," which is what pretty much all of them are unless a big pile of cash falls in their laps. And when they hit it big but continue to lose money at an alarming rate like Groupon etc? Nobody claps their hands, believes really hard and keeps dumping money into them. Investors run from them like rats from a sinking ship whose tails are on fire.

You can't copy Silicon Valley's reality distortion field by building fiber links and holding startup expos any more than you can copy Dubai's oil fields by building mega-skyscrapers and rolling back womens' rights.

Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to wonder how Montana will be a tech hub of any sort when their broadband coverage is so poor. You can get DSL if you're in a city or near a ski resort. Fiber and cable are out. Heck even their mobile phone coverage is second worst next to Alaska.

Re:Broadband

[ridlo]

Broadband is getting better. We just started an ISP in Helena, offering up faster speeds than Charter and Century Link. We can get 100 Mb up/down to anyone in the downtown Helena area. Expansion on the existing range is already in motion as well.

Re:Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

Treasure state internet FTW

Don't think any place in Canada is a good place

[Anonymous Coward]

But then what do I know.

Re:Don't think any place in Canada is a good place

[flyingfsck]

Well, Montana is in the USA you dum-dum. It is so poorly developed, the people drive hundreds of miles north to Calgary in Canada to shop.

Re:Don't think any place in Canada is a good place

[HornWumpus]

Canada's in Montana...

Re:Don't think any place in Canada is a good place

[Reziac]

Actually it's the other way round... folks from Calgary are often seen shopping in Great Falls (prolly not so much now with the oil boom and all the growth on northward, but when I was a kid there, it was very much so). Never heard of anyone doing the opposite.

Why is the coolest trophy ever...

[lfourrier]

...not in liquid nitrogen ?

Facts are your Friend, Not Generalizations

[Aero77]

Google Maps, search nearby, Starbucks, Sushi, Whole Foods.

cheap for data center cooling, too

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the places where you can freeze a bunch of water in the winter and melt it during the summer to provide cooling for the data center; and that's if it's not just pulling in outside air to do the cooling. Most of the year the daily high is 70F, except in June, July, August.

And it's not like you need teams of software developers standing by: it's a data comm facility. I'm not sure the staffing problem is as big as some of the commenters have claimed. Yes, it's a pain to get to Montana quickly, but if all you're doing is trucking a bunch more server racks., then you're probably in just a good a situation in Montana as anywhere else.

BTW, I'm sure you can get sushi and all the modern stuff in Bozeman. Montana isn't all that backwards.

Re:cheap for data center cooling, too

[mlts]

Assuming some backhoe resistance on lines, Montana makes sense for data centers. It is well out of the way geographically from the more populated areas, and other than winter, there isn't much in the way of natural disasters that could come that way. As stated above, the cold climate makes it perfect for a data center.

Only downside is that people would have to live quite near the data center if a blizzard happens, but done right, that shouldn't be much of an issue if planned right.

Re:cheap for data center cooling, too

[mrchaotica]

...other than winter, there isn't much in the way of natural disasters that could come that way...

What about the Yellowstone caldera?

Re:cheap for data center cooling, too

[Anonymous Coward]

How will Old Faithful affect a data center hundreds of miles away? The caldera is inactive. There is a far higher risk of twisters in southern states, than an old volcano suddenly popping its top without warning.

Re:cheap for data center cooling, too

[Anonymous Coward]

...other than winter, there isn't much in the way of natural disasters that could come that way...

What about the Yellowstone caldera?

Meaning "frequent" disasters, like tornado seasons or a very active fault line. Anyhow you'll have much bigger problems than getting your email when Yellowstone erupts.

Re:cheap for data center cooling, too

[Reziac]

Blizzards happen all the time, but we've got these newfangled contraptions called snowplows... in fact we're equipped to deal with winter in the extreme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Okay, so that's way up in the high country, but I've never seen it to where you couldn't get around in town or couldn't get from one town to the next if you really had to.

Getting a kick out of these replies...

[Mefesto44]

As the Network Administrator for the largest independent Primary Care facility in Montana I'm getting a kick out of these replies. Montana is awesome. Like, REALLY awesome if you enjoy the outdoors. I love to fish, snowmobile, hike, dirt bike, cruise the lakes and rivers, kayak, snowboard, camp.... this place is heaven on earth. However, be prepared to take a significant pay cut to live here. My current position pays me almost less than half of what my job would pull in major metropolitan areas. This fact alone is why a lot of people would never consider living here. Property taxes aren't cheap for homeowners and first time home buyers are in for a shock that the cheapest decent homes on the market in my area are selling for around $250,000 - $280,000. I moved here from Atlanta about 20 years ago and some of my friends are scoring 3,000 - 4,000 sqft homes under $200,000 that are REALLY nice. Combine the high cost of first time home ownership with low wages and you can see why it isn't very attractive to live here on paper. But, if I have to be honest, I LOVE it this way. It keeps the big open spaces open (for now), population centers aren't overcrowded, and our populace is generally very happy and content. Usually I enjoy telling people this place sucks so they don't even think of moving here.

Re:Getting a kick out of these replies...

[ColdWetDog]

He's lying folks. Really, his salary is $500K / yr, he lives in a 4000 sq foot mansion that he paid $100,000 for and he gets all the bison he can eat. He's just not very social and doesn't want neighbors.

Just like the rest of us.

So, lets all move to Montana and say 'howdy'!

Re:Getting a kick out of these replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Got my first full time software development job in Missoula and can barely afford my rent much less buy a house. I love it here in Montana and will probably look into a career in forestry(GIS / surveying) so I can live and work out of town. If there are tons of opportunity for high paying jobs in Montana cities I've not seen it. I'd love to get paid enough to settle down here.

Re:Getting a kick out of these replies...

[DerekLyons]

As the Network Administrator for the largest independent Primary Care facility in Montana I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

Indeed... every time one of these stories gets posted, we get a flood of the same kind of replies "it's not McHipsterville, so nobody will want to live there". Get the hell over yourselves Slashdot. Not everyone is a McHipster.

Re:Getting a kick out of these replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

In highschool when you were invited to a party, did you go blabbing about it to the whole school then, too? Jerk. Don't ruin a good thing for everyone else.

In case anyone was wondering, this guy is totally lying. Montana doesn't have internet or electricity, and everyone rides horses. Cars are a luxury. I have to drive to Washington every morning to check /.

Re: Getting a kick out of these replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently purchased a house in Atlanta. If anyone is buying 3-4000 sq ft houses for under 200k that is in the Atlanta area I would love to see it because that's just not what's happening around here.

Re:Getting a kick out of these replies...

[Anonymous Coward]

He used a very carefully worded sentence there: "largest independent" being the operative word. That would likely rule out Community and St. Pats, since they're much larger organization.

Anyhow, there are some clues such as "the Network Administrator" which points to his being a single-man shop.

So, no, not going to be pulling 500K a year from that. Maybe 60K to 75K a year.

Water

[fermion]

Back around 2000, I saw firms considering moving from location that had abundant water and power to locations that did not have abundant water and power. I thought they were crazy, but you the lemming push for everyone to herd and go over the cliff is great.

I don't know if Montana has power issues, but I do know that they felt is was worthwhile to sue Wyoming over what amounted to about 10,000 acre feet of water.

And, of course, as mentioned, if you have data. There might be a backbone, but that is like saying California had a redundant electricity grid, except for the time it did not.

mynuts won; kudos to /.

[Anonymous Coward]

good sports good spirits & a variety of motives since linux was a pup...

Considering that the next story...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is about Kerry defending the US surveillance practice, I don't see any place in the US as a hub for anything medium to long term.

I've been there

[Anonymous Coward]

Montana's outdoors is really breathtaking, and it's definitely not overcrowded by any standards. So looks like an ideal place for introverts and nature people. There's one big minus from my perspective though: everyone you talk to is a hunter, and often a very passionate one, and this really permeates the culture and daily life. "Gun-crazy Americans" comes to mind (I'm from Canada). If you prefer your nature bloodless, you may feel uncomfortable there at times.

Re:I've been there

[ColdWetDog]

While there is a grain of truth to that, don't over do it. Yes, you have to get used to a gun culture, but it's remarkably low key. It's just 'normal'. Most hunters (certainly not all) understand that some people don't like to see bloody real things or talk about them. Most rural folks are rather polite and even fairly tolerant.

It might do you some good to be around a culture that just uses guns as tools. Yes, there is a smattering of scary militia types, but you find them pretty much everywhere except downtown NYC. Even with those clowns, if you don't bother them (well advised), they won't bother you.

Here in Alaska, it's not unusual to see someone hitching down the road with a hunting rifle. And getting picked up. Humans can get used to most anything.

Re:I've been there

[trybywrench]

if i had mod-points i'd give them to you. I wish more people realized that you don't have to be terrified of a gun. I live in Texas and no one seems to care about guns, not here in Dallas, not in Austin, not out West or anywhere. It's just not that big of a deal. Folks you don't have to live in fear, it must be exhausting to have to constantly worry about whether or not everyone you see owns a rifle.

politicians get it wrong.... again

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology has removed geography as a constant....

No, tech has enabled global communication and that's about it.

You still need hard products and services, which Montana doesn't have (facilities, schools, airports, etc...) though it offers great recreational and low cost of living.

Also, living in 75deg weather than 20 in the middle of Jan is a geographic constant tech can't fix.

It makes no sense to be in SV

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, this is the way to do it. Instead of insisting of being in San Francisco and surrounding areas, these companies went somewhere else, developed the talent and will have reduced costs significantly.

No bitching about lack of talent or not being able to find qualified people. They have a problem and they solve it. That is effective management and leadership..

Just remember that when you hear the tech entrepreneurs bitch and moan: they are amateurs (who got lucky) and have no business being leaders or managers.

And remember that the next time folks want to disparage managers.

NE Montana

[Anonymous Coward]

I do IT in NE Montana. It's pretty remote. I love the 5 minute commute but it is 3 hrs to the nearest Walmart.

Re:NE Montana

[Anonymous Coward]

but it is 3 hrs to the nearest Walmart

That's a bonus. Sign me up!

Re:NE Montana

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, local stores have most of what you need right away, otherwise there's Amazon, etal... I save a lot of money not buying stuff I don't really need.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Montana sucks. Please don't move here...I mean there.

Montana: guns, snares and few jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have heard how a 17 yr/old exchange student from Germany as killed in a man's garage. Though the Missoula DA plans to press charges the "Stand Your Ground" laws(brought to you by the lovely NRA and friends) will show the killing was justified.
You can still use snares, yes snares to kill animals. Huge controversy here as many peoples pets are getting caught and hurt in these snares.
Then there was a case of a "hunter" who killed a man's dogs thinking they were wolves.
Due to the 19th century mentally of the majority of Montanan's wolfs are bad for the environment and take too many elk the hunters would get. The ranchers, not very different than Bundy(rancher who refuses to pay grazing fees in Nevada and talks about "Negros".) also like to see the wolves killed.
Many years back a rancher did ask the US Senator how was it working with the N-word in DC?

If you are non-white try finding a job not so easy..

Why Slashvertisments always hit Betteridge's law?

[MikeTheGreat]

Whenever someone Slashvertises something on /. with a post whose title is a question then (at least) one of us always brings up Betteridge's Law Of Headlines. If not directly, then indirectly (like this).

So why do they keep doing it? I gotta believe that if someone's paying for it that at least one customer would follow up with the results at least one time (and send feedback to whichever company/-ies slashvertise for them)

(Yes, my subject should be "Why do Slashvertisements...", but I ran out of characters :) )

I'm moving to Montana

[Megahard]

Gonna be a dental floss tycoon.

I like this plan.

[thevirtualcat]

In 30 years or so when I inherit my parents' home in Missoula, I'll be sitting pretty.

In the mean time, I can go visit them and enjoy the pre-Fairfax/Loudoun County-ized state of the area.

This seems like a win-win situation to me.

Parent is referring to Austin

[TuaAmin13]

Just FYI, the parent is referring to Austin, TX. They had a huge population growth period but the city was under the mentality of "If we don't build it, they won't come." They were wrong, so Austin has something like the 4th worst traffic in the US and a cost of living somewhat like Atlanta.

Montana

[Anonymous Coward]

Only cities that I know of are Billings, Missoula and Helena. The photos that I've seen of Montana Glacier Park (I think that is the name) is nice too.

It'll be interesting to see how companies build data centers in a rural state. Not many big airports I think. At least Montana has big highways to bring in heavy equipment. Or the construction crews can use a local firm to build the data center. Can''t comment about labor except that the population of Montana is low. Not only would the company need to bring materials in for construction, but the companies may need to bring or hire IT professionals (programmers, QA people, Managers, administrative staff) Good luck finding local IT professionals. I mean that in a good way.

I wonder if building data hubs to Montana will usher in more tech jobs. Maybe airlines will provide more service to Billings, Missoula and Helena and some rural cities. Maybe the rural cities will have office parks a few miles down the road with a park-and ride/car share lot nearby. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the smaller cities and towns will change when/if after big data centers are built in regards to infrastructure, public transit and the local economy.

Oh my soul for mod points!

[DerekLyons]

Oh my soul for mod points!

Yeah but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It snows 11 months out of the year and you need to know how to ride a horse. Seriously you're going to ruin my 8 minute (12 by bike) commute. Plus it will be annoying if we need to get another area code. Stay away...

Montana is Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the Yosemite caldera turns it into an ash-laden, molten wasteland.

Montana's privacy laws don't hurt either....

[zerofoo]

http://www.thewesternnews.com/...

I hope so

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in DC right now, but I loved visiting MT and it would be awesome if some major data centers cropped up there. Reasonable housing prices, gorgeous country, not great, but not bad air travel and awesome skiing.

Idaho

[Anonymous Coward]

I moved to Idaho from California in part for that reason. Cheaper cost of living, cheaper housing, etc. The problem to overcome is the same in Montana as it is in Idaho. If you're not from there you're on the outside and looked upon with suspicion. You're seen as poluting their population. Even though I'm a republican, like the outdoors, have a lot of the same interests as many people here they find out I'm from out of state and they just don't like me.

Re:Idaho

[riverat1]

I hear you. We have a saying here in the Beaver State: "Don't Californicate Oregon".

Montana LOVES business

[GodfatherofSoul]

You can't quit us!

Bullshit. I live in Montana.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every state is trying hard to develop a tech industry, Montana is no exception. Working in the "tech industry" in Montana, I can tell you the reality of Montana doing that is a longshot at best. It's a bitch to hire anyone, MSU doesn't graduate enough CS students and few others want to move to a state where wages are generally low.

Pros: awesome place to live if you like the outdoors, the quality of life is fantastic, there's not that many jobs but enough to keep a talented person employed, you can quickly cut through red tape and get things done

Cons: the datapipes in Montana suck and are overpriced, lack of tech talent with most of it going to the few medium sized companies (e.g. Oracle and Zoot), few support companies, appalling infrastructure, very little cutting edge work is done here, transportation costs and flights are expensive

Montana is generally 5 - 7 years behind the rest of the tech curve. For example, the local telco - 3 Rivers, charges $1200 per month for a 50x5 MB connection. Until last year, it was damn hard to even get more than a 10MB connection in Bozeman. You can get 4G coverage in a lot of places, but the reality of living in the mountains anywhere is that cell connections suck. If you go 20 minutes outside of Bozeman in any direction (except straight west) you're out of cell coverage.

Have some stats!

[Anonymous Coward]

Note the States with low murder rates. They aren't afraid of armed humans, they understand that all the cops can do is tag the victims after the crime, and their laws reflect this.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord

Even in States with higher murder rates, murders are usually goblin-on-goblin and other demographics lead peaceful lives.

My neighbors often shoot on their rural property, and once asked if the noise bothered me. I responded that target practice is the sound of freedom, the more they did the merrier, and that no intruder in his right fucking mind would cross their property to get to mine. If I didn't have other hobbies I'd join them, but I shoot my share. I've spent plenty of time in the hunting and gun culture, and enjoy the friends I've made there. There is nowhere I feel safer or more comfortable than a gun show.

This famous geek gets it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/

MT already is a favorite place for the wealthy too

[Facekhan]

The Big Sky area of Montana is already full of vacation homes and ranches of wealthy VC types so its not a big stretch that they might choose to plop a Data Center there. Still I think it is far more likely that you will see more data centers copping up in SLC because of the NSA. All the big government contractors will be putting boots on the ground in SLC and they can't co-locate at the NSA facility.

SF, NYC, and DC are just so expensive.

Bozeman, Montana

[Anonymous Coward]

A recruiting company wanted me to move from Canada to Bozeman, Montana for a sysadmin job about 4 months ago.

Just a data point.

Easter half of state is all misslie silos

[gabrieltss]

I was stationed there in the middle 80's - pretty much the eastern half of the state is minuteman III missile silos. Good old Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls!

Re:Easter half of state is all misslie silos

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand the christmas half is all Santas

tier 3 data centers Already exist in mt and are Em

[Anonymous Coward]

If you build it .. They will come. Data centers are too much of a commodity for the market in MT to explode. Its too late and the market has laid this to rest.

It's true

[Anonymous Coward]

Stay out, it's terrible here.