Posted Dec 27, 2013, 8:23 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Abbotsford
Posts: 759
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BlackBerry falters, but its backyard is thriving
Pool of technology talent and easier immigration laws are attracting firms
24 Dec 2013
International New York Times
BY IAN AUSTEN
... unlike some cities that suffered when a big local business faltered, as Rochester did with Kodak and Xerox, BlackBerry’s backyard of Waterloo still bubbles with economic energy.
Technology companies large and small are coming here, about 70 miles southwest of Toronto, to recruit BlackBerry’s talent — and several of the companies are also setting up shop in town.
Google, a local presence for nearly a decade, was recently joined by its Motorola Mobility hardware subsidiary. Square, the mobile credit-card-processing service started by Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and chairman, opened an office. Cisco announced this month that it would create 1,700 research and development jobs within commuting distance.
And several start-ups that left Waterloo for the financing and talent of Silicon Valley, including Thalmic Labs, a gesture-control computing company, have come home.
... Even before the latest round of layoffs at BlackBerry was announced in September, several top technology companies, including Apple and Facebook, held recruiting nights in the area. Some companies that have swooped in for workers have tried to woo people to distant head offices.
But Mr. Power said Square decided that an office in the area would improve the company’s chances of hiring the best talent from the University of Waterloo, which has highly regarded computer science and engineering faculties and is a major part of the attraction for technology companies.
... The region has also tried to avoid a repeat of what happened in Ottawa, about 350 miles to the northeast, which experienced an exodus of skilled technology workers after the collapse of Nortel. A technology industry group in the area, Communitech, provides office space, mentoring and other services to startups and even large established firms.
... Although the jobs are staying in the region, they are concentrating in a different location. BlackBerry’s main office complex, just a couple of years old, sits on Waterloo’s most suburban fringe. Little but farms lies beyond it.
But many of the newer technology companies in the area, including Google, Square, MappedIn and Motorola, are in former industrial buildings in the heart of downtown Kitchener.
... For employers, he said, the competition to hire the best talent is less intense in Kitchener-Waterloo than in many other places, including California; employee turnover is much lower; and the community offers services like Communitech to help with recruiting. And because Canada’s immigration laws are more flexible than those of the United States, technology companies are also able to add talented foreign workers to the mix.
For employees, Mr. Phillips said, the area offers reasonable housing prices, good schools and other attractions. ‘‘I’ve been in Waterloo for almost 20 years now, and I really like the area,’’ he said.
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