Full Disclosure: The Bourbon Hipster is an employee of SearchAnyway.
As a Montrealer and a geek, I should be publicly flogged for missing this. A co-worker of mine has reported on the SearchAnyway Blog that Google and Yahoo are opening up shop right here in Montreal. Sanjay Mayar writes:
According to an article in La Presse (which, unless you can read French, don’t even bother clicking), Google has braved the great Canadian frontier and established a small R&D branch in Montreal.Their offices can be found at the stylish address of 1000 de la Gauchètiere, situated in the heart of downtown Montreal. A small team of 7 programmers and software developers have already been hired, with the expectation of 200-300 more to come.
[…]
La Presse goes on to speculate that Google’s recent acquisition of an Irish company whose employees frequented Montreal quite often was perhaps a factor in Google opening an office in the city.Sebastien at Praized Blog has noted that Yahoo! is hiring in Montreal as well, seemingly looking for more than just software engineers and developers. There is some speculation that with the presence of Google and Yahoo! in the city, Montreal’s net-savvy community will begin to communicate with each other in a fashion similar to Boston or San Francisco’s techies, and that Montreal’s status as a hub for online marketers will be greatly elevated. So much the better!
Now, we’ve mentioned before how Montreal is an Internet hotbed, but I wonder just how many Montrealers have what it takes to work with the biggest of brothers.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
only in montreal is this news. google has offices in every nook and cranny…
montreal: suddenly the city of low expectations?
February 9th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
A Google office in Montreal staffed with 300 employees seems pretty newsworthy to me. Plus, lets take into account Montreal’s pool of search marketing geeks / gurus coupled with strong software development organizations and other tech-related industries; this all serves to make Montreal that much more visible and attractive from a marketing perspective. An ad-tech conference right before Grand Prix weekend? Mamma and Google sponsoring the Jazz festival? The online marketing scene in this city is very grass-roots. It’s time for Montreal to grow up and play with the big boys.
Montreal: the city that’s leaving the kids table