Microsoft has announced plans to open a new software development center in Canada. In this context, the Redmond company will grow its existing footprint in this country starting with the fall of 2007. The new software development center will be located in the greater Vancouver, British Columbia, area. This is not unusual for Microsoft. The company has divisions in a plethora of countries around the world, and Canada was already one of them.

"Microsoft is a global company, and our greatest asset is smart, talented, highly skilled people," said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. "Our goal as a company is to attract the next generation of leading software developers from all parts of the world, and this center will be a beacon for some of that talent."

Microsoft revealed that the new Canadian group will deal with the same issues as the development centers in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel. In addition, Microsoft has already established research and development centers in the I.L, India, China and the Silicon Valley in the U.S. Microsoft plans to tap into the local resources of the Vancouver area, and potentially attract the people kept out of the U.S. by the hassles of immigration. Microsoft already accounts for approximately 80,000 employees, with over 46,000 of its workforce just in the U.S.

"In collaboration with our Redmond head office, we determined that opening a regional development center in Canada would create a tremendous opportunity for Canada," said Phil Sorgen, president of Microsoft Canada. "We have long advocated that Canada would be a wonderful place to locate Microsoft development. We have burgeoning high-tech and software industries and a globally envied quality of life, and our cities represent exactly the kind of environment that leading information workers want to live in. This center will help Microsoft remain globally competitive while providing strong economic benefits to British Columbia and Canada."