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First Microsoft, now Google comes to Madison
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by Cara Harshman
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
On the heels of technology mogul Microsoft establishing a research lab in Madison, a second Fortune 100 company will establish itself around the state Capitol next fall.
Internet giant Google will open an engineering office downtown in the fall that will be operated by two University of Wisconsin alumni: retired professor emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering James Smith and 1980s computer engineering graduate James Laudon.
The office, set to focus on hardware and software systems design, will open at 301 S. Blount St., just off of Williamson Street.
Guri Sohi, chair of the computer sciences department at UW, said the university is responsible for attracting a household-name company to Madison.
“It’s going to really put both the computer science and the electrical and computer engineering departments at the university, and the city of Madison, on the map as being major players in information technology, as well as the knowledge and the brain power responsible for creating a lot of that technology,” Sohi said.
In a statement to The Badger Herald, Google representatives said, “We are opening an office in Madison because the city offers an excellent quality of life, a deep local talent pool and commitment to education at all levels, including the University of Wisconsin.”
Sohi said Smith has been a prominent figure in computer architecture — the design of computer systems — for many years and is a reason the search engine website came to Madison.
“[Google] wanted Jim, Jim wanted to stay in Madison and so they decided to come to Madison,” Sohi said. “He did research in computer architecture, an area in which UW-Madison is widely acknowledged as having the preeminent research group in the world.”
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the upcoming arrival of Microsoft and now Google to the downtown landscape is an “untold opportunity” for UW students to work.
“It’s awesome that Madison is now home to these preeminent high-tech companies,” Verveer said. “For many years now we have tried to foster Madison as a welcoming place to do business with an emphasis on both biotech and high-tech companies.”
UW announced a partnership with Microsoft last week that will establish a research laboratory on West Main Street before the school year starts this fall.
UW computer sciences professor emeritus David Dewitt will direct the lab that will employ UW graduate student assistants to work with Microsoft code to research problems with database systems.
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