back to article Microsoft invades 'city of friendly people'

No desperate city is safe from the data center builders employed by Microsoft and Google. Microsoft has announced plans for another $500m server and storage farm - this time in the Chicago suburb Northlake, the "city of friendly people." The US data center complements a $500m plant going up in Dublin and others already in place …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    few people

    I wonder if they know how they treat data centers in Chicago.

  2. Symrstar
    Black Helicopters

    Given...

    the ninja like nabbing of network hardware in the area Micro-slouch has their work cut out for 'em. But then agian they are known for pooring money in to sinkholes (need we not mention V*sta, Crap Box, Crap Box 360, the list goes on).

  3. Dale Morgan

    Be fair

    Microsoft have released some good products, the xbox 360 is an excellent games console.

    Microsoft just need to learn to get their products working propley when they release them, not years later.

  4. Vaughan Trevor Jones
    Flame

    Quite right

    @Dale I must agree with you. As you say lots of MS products at the start seem to be pretty crappy but after a few months/years they do seem to improve. I personally think Windows Vista is the perfect example of this. Anyway back to the subject any ideas on how many more centers MS is going to build?

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    The Wembley stadium of Data Centres.

    So, it'll be a couple of years late, it'll actually cost more like $2bn than $500m, when they switch the servers on the power will trip and they'll be plunged into darkness, the seats will be a funny colour, the plumbing won't work and they won't be able to walk on the raised floors without the tiles lifting.

    But they'll be able to play football in it if it's not raining.

  6. martin

    MS Dublin

    But what does Dublin or Chicago or wherever get out of it? Couple dozen jobs? Why do these cities want data centres so bad?

  7. Demian Phillips
    Thumb Down

    Whats in it for the cities you ask?

    Bragging rights and a lure for other companies.

    In the USA, what a city will do is stupidly give the company free millions in custom build infrastructure as well as say 10 years tax free status. If they are not well connected they just get the tax free status.

    So far I know of two companies that created the promised jobs and other things in the contract. I can no longer count the number of companies that have screwed cities dumb enough to offer these kind of deals.

    It all ends up being paid for by the taxpayers in the end.

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