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Its a 2-way pitch between Dublin & Zurich and an announcement is due in the next month.
The new Euro HQ will be for technology, sales & marketing.
Nothing official has been released (that I know of)
Johnser
Zurich is a business city and not so much technology based (yes i know there is exceptions)
Whilst Ireland seem to have some problems when it comes to Internet connection speeds, will sure be interesting to see the outcome.
Would probably entice a few more companies in as well particularly if G have their IPO....
Ireland is a low cost country and a member of the European Union (EU) whilst Switzerland is a high cost country outside the EU. My bet is that Google will choose Ireland.
One thing for sure is intensifying adwords and sponsored listings sales.
Another thing would be pushing the portal services in Europe, which to this time are US only, like news, stocks, Froogle, etc.
For the technical side of things Google probably wouldn't need a HQs here. Local operations for datacenters are already working.
Maybe get in touch with Googleguy now while you can & book him in!
:)
Ireland is a low cost country and a member of the European Union (EU) whilst Switzerland is a high cost country outside the EU. My bet is that Google will choose Ireland.
True, but Zurich is situated in the middle of geographical Europe, while Ireland is like far away. From Zurich you can get to all major European cities in about an hour by plane.
Oh, and there are lots of very qualified people.
Did I mention ski resorts? ;)
Oh, and maybe Google is planning to open a bank account? And Switzerland is very attractive on the tax side.
Sinner (writing from ..., yep, you got it :))
Those may prove to be major factors along with language.
There is also the beer factor: all that Stout Mmmm! :)
hey wait... google's not gonna hire an SEO. Irish or not...
sigh.
I live in Ireland and personally would not move my company here if I had a choice, in fact I'm currently focusing on moving my company abroad in the coming months and some things are pending, as soon as they pass I am outta here, broadband is far too costly here, which would be exactly what Google or any web based company would need.
Why select either Dublin or Zurich over let's say London? I think they should move there!
[edited by: Chico_Loco at 8:25 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2003]
Now, what if Google had been located in Virginia, like AOL?
Corporate culture at AOL was negatively affected by their rigidly conservative environment and they were slow to recognize the next step forward (in their case, broadband). Unless you want to be close to the CIA, Virginia is a lousy place to headquarter a tech company.
I'm not comparing Ireland or Zurich to Virginia (I don't know either), but a business would have to think about the effect from the local culture, and where the talent wants to live.
[edited by: martinibuster at 8:34 pm (utc) on Jan. 30, 2003]
The general population here are not as technically superior as in the USA, or even the UK. In other countries ISP's can put up banners locally etc.. but do that same thing here and nobody will really understand "huh -- what is a web host?"
I'm not 100% certain about the UK, but I would imagine it's a step more forward than here, simply because it's a larger country and has more broadband and more investment, so that for me would be another reason also to move there?
One factor that might creep in is subsidies. AFAIK most of Ireland has "regional status" for subsidies & "inward investment".
Google, or any other company for that matter, may be better "located" in one of these areas :)
... and I doubt bandwidth costs are a concern.
from what I remember, the tech industry boom in Ireland came mainly from the extremely low corporate gains tax that corps moving in have to pay. Hence, Intel Ireland, and about a million big tech companies have large plants there.
I'm not arguing against Ireland. Just pointing out a fact.
Also, it might be a disadvantage having an EU headquarters given the heavy-handed Internet legislation in Europe. One European company told me they basically can't even use cookies on their site due to privacy regulations. And Google have already been taken to court due to content laws in Germany and France.
Also, low corporate tax regime - critical one would have thought?
Bandwidth-wise, one would think they could get this sorted fairly handy?
Market-size - Someone mentioned London? Can't see any advantage there over Dublin. I live in London & theres tonnes of biz here which I doubt will be as plentiful for me when I move to Dublin in next 12 months - (For quality of life reasons)
But thats me - Can't see Google having that problem. Buy a Dell PC in the UK & you speak to Limerick I think it is. Why wouldn't that work for G?
J
The bandwidth is certainly more expensive in Ireland due to continual neglect by the government in favour of the ex-monopoly ex-state telco. However the datacentres are well connected.
The tech support would be for the European search appliance clients and branded search engine users of Google. Though as a call centre type operation, Ireland would be well able to support it since it has a lot of call centre operations. As for the technical side of things, Ireland would certainly have the people for tech support and call centre operations. Though it would be interesting to see if Google does any real research in the European HQ.
Perhaps this is the opening phase of the Google-Yahoo war?
Regards...jmcc
(I finally get my site to #1 on Google for 'biggest Irish search engine' and Google wants to move into my backyard. ;) )
I expect they'll set up the European head office in Ireland, but hire and keep all their key European staff in London and just go back to Ireland for board meetings every so often.
I live in London, and Google is one of the very few companies I would actually love to work for (and I believe they could find a niche for me). Unfortunately, I think it would conflict with my other "interface" to Google, which is a great shame for both parties. Bah!
A few words -
Aol
Microsoft
SAP
Oracle
Sun
Dell
Apple
Lucent
to name but a few, all doing core development for US and European markets............the tax breaks are going or in some cases gone.........whats left is a large pool of highly experienced and well educated people who have a unique and successful way of dealing with American multi-nationals.
