Excellent news regarding Microsoft. More big employers in town will hopefully keep driving up the local high-tech salaries which are still fairly low (Vancouver Sun article mentions average being only $75k. It is still cheap to hire employees in Vancouver vs. in Silicon Valley or other big cities in the States.
There is currently lots of demands for software developers and they can easily have several job opportunities and can go far in negotiating their salaries. it's difficult for the company hiring process, but a very positive thing for all the employees.