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Microsoft: We're Razing Our Redmond Campus To Build a Mini City (zdnet.com)
Armand Winter shares a report from ZDNet: Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company will spend $150 million in transport infrastructure, public spaces, sports fields and green space. It expects the project will create 2,500 construction and development jobs. Microsoft's renovation budget is modest compared with the $5 billion Apple spent on its new spaceship headquarters in Cupertino, while Microsoft's Washington neighbor and cloud rival, Amazon, will spend $5 billion on a second North American headquarters, which will offer space for 50,000 people. "We are not only creating a world-class work environment to help retain and attract the best and brightest global talent, but also building a campus that our neighbors can enjoy, and that we can build in a fiscally smart way with low environmental impact," said Smith in a blog post.
... why some of these big companies just don't have their own official town/suburb already -- complete with homes, schools, police, fireman, etc. just to minimize the commute time.
The last quote I saw on the Apple campus was $2B. Did they spend another $3B to replace the seats in the Steve Jobs theater?
Don't worry, the corporate run city-state arcologies aren't a problem until they employ their own military. That's the point we hit full cyberpunk corprocracy dystopia.
Low environmental impact!? How can they say that without the level of irony in their heads generating a cosmic singularity that swallows the entire earth? Here's a tip to any Microsoft executives or developers reading; most cities in the world are already developed. If you are wondering about how to implement "smart cities", you should be wondering about how to implement it upon already built and lived in cities, not new developments.
They make the workforce inwardly focused, thinking that the marching orders given by the CEO and SVP said during the last few quarterly meeting, and the internal organization politics that people have to put up with, is 90 percent of what matters.
But as Bill Joy observed, most of the smart people in the world don't work for your company.
During the Steve Ballmer era, everyone at Microsoft concentrated on building stuff into Windows, with interop to the rest of the industry via "open standards" (mostly contributed by Microsoft) like XML and SOAP. But this same inward focus probably happens at most large corporations, especially those with one or more large, profitable platform businesses.
Look, this whole place is just filled with construction cranes, although Dubai has us beat on that score.
But are these passivhaus green buildings? Do they have solar roofs (yes, I know, you incorrectly think Seattle and Redmond are bad places for solar, but we get 80 to 100 percent solar output all year round, even when it's cloudy as the dickens and mist rains are falling)? Will they have lofted wind turbines like you see in Big Hero 6? On the Eastside, they aren't as green as Seattle City Light is, so that's a major concern.
Also, how many bike rental spots? And electric skateboards?
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And put up a parking lot.
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot.
They took all the trees
And put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half to seem 'em
You can just look at their current campus. They already have a baseball diamond and two soccer fields.
They essentially own everything between 148th ave, 51st, and Bel-Red Rd. Interestingly, Pactera Technologies, Honeywell, and Nintendo are all allowed in their turf. Ha, and "Posh Consulting" is right next door.
Both lesser known business incubators and cities have done just as much for communities at smaller scales in many parts of the nation.
Let your rank and file telecommute 80-90% and house them (and maybe even their families) at the resort the other 10-20% for a "working vacation" when face-to-face needs arise.
Why would anyone want to work at a "close-to-home campus" set up like the damn Ritz and then commute an hour or two daily back to a 3-bed box in the burbs?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
On their own, by barely paying taxes....
Maybe their projections point towards downsizing and reduced revenues. So they are redeveloping the property with the intention of being able to sell it back to the community at a high value.
They are pitching it as something modern, to appeal to their stockholders, or at least not spook them and undermine the company's future.
This user is CREIMER sockpuppet. See his normal account "cdreimer" had been modded down to terrible. Why?
-Making a steady stream of shitposts with amazon referrer links. If he can just pique your interest enough to follow his amazon link, then he'll collect a small percentage of the money you spend for the next 24 hours. He netted a whopping $3 a day off this scam and was quite proud of it.
-Constantly talking about child marriage. Underage Mexican girls are "about getting the most bang for your retirement dollar" and frequent use of the phrases "Underage sweet thing" and "Child brides are as American as apple pie". These are CDREIMER quotes he feels we've unfairly taken out of context so he's recently taken to his blog to explain that he means 16 year old Mexican girls marrying 50 year old american engineers, with village permission. He insists this is a popular romantic paring in the media there and it's every 16 year old mexican girl's dream to marry a fat old 50 year old aspie engineer!
So please mod down Anonymous Cashews and complain about creimer to slashdot management feedback@slashdot.org
I would suggest not replying to him like a normal person either.
I think it is incredibly smart for a long term thinking company who plans to relocate or downsize.
The housing's proximity to Microsoft's headquarters will make it extremely valuable. There is also the historical aspect, even if Microsoft relocates. And if Microsoft relocates then it is an incredible PR boost. Who wouldn't want such an incredible business that raises property values, and cleans up before they leave? As opposed to leaving an abandoned building behind like a deserted ghost town.
Go away creimer
Creimer why don't you tell us how it's ok for 50 year old men to marry 16 year old mexican girls "with village permission"
Sounds like a huge waste of resources. Guess microsoft hasn't heard of carbon reduction.
Iâ(TM)m 12 and whag is going on
We are not only creating a world-class work environment to help retain and attract the best and brightest global talent, but also building a campus that our neighbors can enjoy, and that we can build in a fiscally smart way with low environmental impact,
In other words, it is paid by fiscal optimization? Obviously, a new campus for Microsoft was in the general interest, and all citizen had to help the effort.
Iâ(TM)m 12 and whag is going on
These Pedobear Trolls want to fuck you AND your family's goats!
Nice place you got there. Be a shame if something were to, ah..happen to it. They build a city, we build a 30 foot wall all the way around it. Problem?
Do everyone a favor, just shut down.
glad to see they are providing a proper sport ground, i.e. the cricket pitch.
With the environmental cost of producing concrete, tearing down buildings ahead of time is basically always a huge net loss in the "green budget".
Until actual housing is mixed in, and the first floor of the each of the buildings is rented out as a public facing rental space (IE retail, restaurants, etc), the campus is still a private campus that the public cannot access and has no interest in going into.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Most of the big tech companies with large campuses already employ armed guards (though usually by proxy via a contractor security service)
The number of foreign graduates students is down sharply as a result of the surge in u.s. racism.
Maybe they are afraid- maybe they are disgusted.
But they are going to other countries in increasing numbers.
Tommorrow's best companies and best resources may stay away from the u.s. until it returns to more international friendly values.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And by "barely" you mean "paying what the law requires, just like you do"
Don't be a fucking hypocrite
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This user is a Pedobear Troll! Hide your chikdren and goats!
I've been to Microsoft's campus a couple of times, and it literally is like a college campus. There's huge buildings with a large amount of open green space. Back before Agile and DevOps, developers would have their own private offices. If I had to guess, this is their excuse to build more "team collaboration spaces". They could just knock down the existing buildings and consolidate everyone down into high rises since all they need is huge open spaces now.
I don't know about everyone else, but I can't concentrate on a problem if I'm crammed in with 20 people in an open space. The big problem with this is that it's going to take the management consultants who control HR at every company 20 or more years of studies to conclude this is a bad idea and start recommending putting knowledge workers back in offices.
Take me down to the Microsoft city
Where the UI's flat and security's shitty
Oh won't you please take me home
Take me down to the Microsoft city
Where upgrades are forced and there's no privacy
Oh won't you please take me home
I wanna go, I wanna go
Oh won't you please take me home
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Buying Chinese solar panels would be greener if weren't for the shipping (lots of diesel fuel for the boats). I'll conveniently ignore poly-silicon handling.
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As for the signature line, debugging triggers are a pain; stick to explicitly called stored procs and transactions.
Or they could use the $ to hire back the Windows quality control testers they fired.