MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem

telso writes "Microsoft will be opening a new software development center in Vancouver because of difficulties getting workers into the US. The company said the center will 'allow the company to continue to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the US' It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas have affected America's tax and knowledge base."

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas are has affected America's tax and knowledge base.

Starting with you.

Obligatory

[Sneakernets]

Outsourcing, eh?

Don't underestimate Ballmer

[njchick]

If Google opens its R&D center nearby and lures some programmers from MS, we'll see chairs flying over the border into Canada.

Re:Shrinking something, anyway!

[Ucklak]

Well they have to take the money to fund the XBox 360 3 year warranty [zdnet.com] from somwhere.

KB article number ?

[Starteck81]

Is there a knowledge base article number for that work around? I'd like to see which systems are affected.

Re:The new steel-worker

[jfroot]

Yeah.. you really don't want to have to move to Canada. Let me tell you aboot my day today:

During the 3 hours when the sun will shine here, I emerge from my igloo to play the government required hour of hockey. Then after I have finished I go hunting for my family's dinner with my trusty bow and arrow. Once home with my cariboo meat, I will sit back down in my igloo, crack open a Molson Canadian and watch one of the two channels we get up here, CBC and the Curling network. And this was a good day, some days it is too cold to even leave the igloo. I can't wait for global warming.

Re:LOL

[Itninja]

I saw that too. Trying to read that sentence will did gave me a headache.

Microsoft R&D?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Wait... Microsoft is forcing Apple to move to Canada? How does that work?

Perhaps A Career Change...

[Sawopox]

is in order. First of all, this [furnacefishmedia.com] gives hope that even as a geek, I'll have a chance.

Secondly, there's no shortage of excellent marijuana in Vancouver. After hours and hours of working for Microsoft, nothing will make you feel better than a few bong hits of BC bud. I think being really high makes Vista worth having. It's slow, you're slow. The nifty visuals are "trippy" and while it's paging out to disk, you can munch.

Re:Mod parent up Plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada has very strong labor laws

Canada has very strong labour laws ...

There, fixed that for you.

Re: Mod parent up Plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask yourself, why are they moving to Canada and not India/China if low wages is all they are after?

Could they be moving to Canada because:

-it has a very similar social, economic, and political environment to the US which makes it good for business
-Canada has 'open borders' for highly skilled and educated foreigners (yes, even Americans)
-Canada has very strong labor laws protecting the immigrants: they have the same rights as the natives, can switch employers, won't be deported (in fact, "ratting out" a bad employer can them a permanent visa, as happened to a bunch of welders recently)
-Canada believes in cultivating the best and the brightest, no matter where they were born

Or it could be because Vancouver, Canada is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Redmond, Washington; in case Ballmer should ever feel the need to throw a chair at someone in R&D.

Pfff...

[WIAKywbfatw]

When do you find time for lacrosse?

Re:Mod parent up Plz

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada is also a central global haven for terrorists because of such liberal laws that diminish its citizens into meaninglessness. Such a weak and feminised country could only survive because its next to the US.

Re:I call BS

[jbr439]

"Pay them enough" reasoning is BS: the fact that I could sleep with the entire Swedish bikini team at once if I "paid them enough" is immaterial if I just plain cannot afford the price, OK?

As a purely hypothetical question, what's the going rate for the Swedish bikini team?

Re:Mod parent up Plz

[Odin's Raven]

Canada has very strong labour laws

Canada has very strong labour laws

Canada has very strong labour laws, eh ...?

There, fixed that for you. :-P

No -

[gadlaw]

"If you are asking Microsoft to pay you more than another similarly skilled candidate based on geography or nationality then you are just asking them to subsidize you." No, you're asking an American Company to employee Americans. An American company that earns it's money in America and then goes on to say that the United States makes it hard to employ lower cost workers from other countries and then whines about it being unable to pay American workers less doesn't deserve a lot of sympathy. And when you parrot that 'Global Economy' propaganda you're merely helping to pass on that big lie. The American government needs to tighten the foreign workers visas because they are being used to kill off the jobs of higher paid American workers. And big companies have a tendency towards doing evil to their employees when government doesn't look out for the workers. Whether it's 19 Century Mining companies that would charge their employees a dollar a day for the use of the tools and pay them 90 cents or it's Microsoft outsourcing jobs from Americans so as to squeeze that last penny out for the shareholders.