| Panasonic sinks roots in Calgary Breaks ground on $13-million design centre to develop software for hand-held devices Carol Howes Financial Post December 21, 2000 CALGARY - The arrival of the latest tenant in Telecom Triangle on this city's northern edge is sending a signal: Calgary is coming of age as a wireless hub. Braving the first blast of winter weather, officials from electronics giant Panasonic broke ground recently on a $13-million design centre that will develop software for Internet-enabled hand-held devices. Panasonic joins Nortel Networks Corp., Telus Corp. and others whose wireless research is transforming the Southern Alberta city into a key centre for what has proven to be one of the hottest sectors of technology. The company's choice of Calgary over nine other cities in Canada and the United States as the site for its second North American research centre speaks volumes about Calgary's strengthened ability to attract international players with household names to its wireless community, industry observers say. "This really reflects the fact that we are an internationally focused city and that we have the ability to provide a business infrastructure that can support a company of this nature," said Brian Pow, a technology analyst with Calgary-based Acumen Capital Finance Partners Ltd. "Calgary's been looked at before but these are really the first guys to step up to bat." When Panasonic's centre opens next June, it will house 175 engineers and support staff working on next-generation wireless protocols. Construction of the new building was scheduled to begin in October, but Panasonic delayed the sod-turning ceremony while its Tokyo-based owner, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., worked out concerns over tax issues. The three-storey, 76,000-square-foot building won't be the largest but it will be one of the more prominent in what has come to be known as Telecom Triangle or Technology Park. It is here, not far from Calgary's airport, where facilities for Intel Corp., Rogers AT&T Wireless, Sanmina Canada ULC and others have sprung up like daffodils over the past few years. Panasonic is promising top wages, benefits and a new challenge to draw from a 60,000-strong high-tech workforce that is still so tight that most have worked together at some point in their career. Mike Wuerstl, director of operations for Panasonic's Wireless Design Centre, said there are only a handful of cities in North America that have a stable, talent pool with the right experience to do the job, and Calgary is one of them. Through an elaborate referral process, potential job candidates are being courted over lunch. "There's a lot going on" in the Triangle, said Mr. Wuerstl, scanning the park from Panasonic's temporary offices. "A lot of engineers change jobs here, but they just walk across the street. That's what makes this such a tight-knit community. They still go to lunch with each other." Panasonic's path to its groundbreaking was swift. Only late last year the company began searching for a site when its wireless North American headquarters in Suwanee, Ga., determined it would soon outgrow itself. David Blue, a principal with Seattle-based The Hunt Group, which conducted the site search, said if it had come down to number-crunching, Calgary wouldn't have been first. "The ultimate decisions over why you do things is more experiential than they are statistical," he said. "We have all kinds of charts and graphs that told us we should be doing this in Mississauga (just west of Toronto). But Calgary was ultimately a better choice." Calgary had several things in its favour: lower taxes, a lower-valued currency, proximity to key U.S. cities and availability of real estate. But even more important was its talent pool of software engineers, and how difficult it would be to persuade them to move to another city. "Calgary is known as one of the more difficult places to recruit out of," said Mr. Blue, who also conducts Canadian recruiting for U.S. firms. "It's common for a company to move a manufacturing facility into an area to take advantage of tax and a lot of the economic benefits. It's not uncommon, and I think you'll see it become more common, where you see companies move to the intellectual, or human capital, like this Calgary facility." Charles Reichert, director of Infoport, a division of Calgary Technologies Inc., said there are a number of other international firms, like Panasonic, that are taking a look. "Many companies still consider Calgary, surprisingly enough, an untapped market for skilled workers," said Mr. Reichert, who is helping to find a site for a "Fortune 200 electronics manufacturing company." "If you do your study of growing cities and the cost of doing business and the availability of workforces, Calgary rises to the top or near the top for many of these companies." chowes@nationalpost.com |