Post by earl on May 15, 2007 14:27:02 GMT
Microsoft is close to making a $500million investment in Dublin, creating up to 250 jobs.
The software company, one of the country’s biggest employers, is looking to build a massive data centre at Grange Castle in west Dublin, which would employ skilled technical staff and house tens of thousands of computer servers.
The project is well advanced, but has yet to be fully approved.
‘‘We can confirm that Ireland has been selected as the preferred location for the development of a data centre, which would meet the growing demand for our online services,” Microsoft said in a statement.
‘‘However, final confirmation for this project is yet to be secured and therefore it is inappropriate to provide any further details at this time.”
A decision on the project is expected later this year. Microsoft set up in Ireland in 1985 and employs 1,200 full-time staff and about 700 contractors at four centres in Dublin, including a European operations centre and a product development centre.
The firm is investing heavily in a small number of data centres worldwide, as it sells an increasing amount of software and services over the internet, rather than on packaged CDs.
If it is approved, the Irish centre would be similar to a new Microsoft centre in Washington.
That centre involves an investment of about $500million and will employ up to 250 people, according to reports in the US. The first phase of that project measures 470,000 square feet and will ultimately be expanded to 1.4 million square feet.
Data centres require big sites – the Washington centre is built on a 75-acre site - and consume large amounts of electricity to power the computers and to run cooling systems.
Microsoft has strict criteria for selecting data centre sites, including access to a reliable electricity supply and good international network connectivity.
www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS-qqqs=news-qqqid=23619-qqqx=1.asp
The software company, one of the country’s biggest employers, is looking to build a massive data centre at Grange Castle in west Dublin, which would employ skilled technical staff and house tens of thousands of computer servers.
The project is well advanced, but has yet to be fully approved.
‘‘We can confirm that Ireland has been selected as the preferred location for the development of a data centre, which would meet the growing demand for our online services,” Microsoft said in a statement.
‘‘However, final confirmation for this project is yet to be secured and therefore it is inappropriate to provide any further details at this time.”
A decision on the project is expected later this year. Microsoft set up in Ireland in 1985 and employs 1,200 full-time staff and about 700 contractors at four centres in Dublin, including a European operations centre and a product development centre.
The firm is investing heavily in a small number of data centres worldwide, as it sells an increasing amount of software and services over the internet, rather than on packaged CDs.
If it is approved, the Irish centre would be similar to a new Microsoft centre in Washington.
That centre involves an investment of about $500million and will employ up to 250 people, according to reports in the US. The first phase of that project measures 470,000 square feet and will ultimately be expanded to 1.4 million square feet.
Data centres require big sites – the Washington centre is built on a 75-acre site - and consume large amounts of electricity to power the computers and to run cooling systems.
Microsoft has strict criteria for selecting data centre sites, including access to a reliable electricity supply and good international network connectivity.
www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS-qqqs=news-qqqid=23619-qqqx=1.asp