From: Linda (joelinda1@home.com)
Date: Fri Jun 02 2000 - 15:41:24 PDT
http://www.stockhouse.ca/news/viewstory.asp?id=339119
Microsoft Happy In Seattle, Won't Move To Canada
Reuters - 6/2/00 2:36:00 PM
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. [MSFT] and Canadian officials on Friday poured cold water on reports authorities in British
Columbia were trying to lure the software behemoth north amid its antitrust battle with the U.S. government.
Microsoft, which has been in the Seattle area since the late 1970s and employs nearly 20,000 people in its sprawling corporate
campus in Redmond, Wash., said it was staying put.
``There is no truth to the reports of any intent to move the company,'' Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said.
A report on the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Web site said that by moving its headquarters into Canada, Microsoft would
frustrate attempts by U.S. anti-trust officials to break up the company.
``Microsoft believes we will win this (antitrust) case in the (U.S. federal) court of appeals and we are very happy here in Seattle,''
Cullinan said.
The BBC report said officials in British Columbia had offered to do a deal with Microsoft that could include a loan to build a new
headquarters.
B.C. Investment Minister Gordon Wilson, whose office was cited as the source of the offer, said the rumor that the province had
offered an incentive deal began with a California newsletter on technology stocks.
``I haven't had any formal talks with anyone with Microsoft,'' Wilson told reporters in Victoria, the province's capital.
Other Canadian observers said it was unlikely that the world's biggest software company would pack up and move.
``I wouldn't put much credence in it, quite frankly,'' Darcy Rezac, managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, said of the
BBC report.
``Microsoft may have its battles with the U.S. government, but it's an excellent corporate citizen of Seattle. The suggestion that they'd
move their headquarters to Vancouver would be wonderful if it were possible, but I just wouldn't put credence in it.''
``I think it's just a little bit of puffery coming out of California by people in the industry who think that Microsoft has been badly
treated.'' said Frank Came, executive director of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission (VEDC).
Cullinan said Microsoft has received suggestions over the years from countries such as Norway, Ireland and China that it should
relocate its headquarters or build a large presence outside of the United States.
Microsoft, founded in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1975, relocated to Bellevue, Wash. in January 1979 and to its current Redmond site in
1986.
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