Snyder Helps Microsoft Open Southfield Tech Center
Gov. Rick Snyder helped Microsoft Corp. dedicate its new Technology Center at the Southfield Town Center Tuesday.
"As governor I get to go to a lot of cool places, but I'm a nerd at heart -- how could you not love coming here?" Snyder asked of the 17,000-square-foot high-tech playground.
Snyder said the center was a place where the auto and other industries could "bring in new thoughs and new processes and new innovations" to help Michigan grow.
He also joked that as a former Gateway Corp. executive, "I go back to Windows 3.1," and was part of the first-ever negotiations to bundle Microsoft Office into a computer.
John Fikany, vice president and general manager in charge of Microsoft's "Heartland district" operations in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, said the technology center would help Microsoft customers meet the relentless imperative for speed in business today.
"The continuous theme today is speed, in everything we do," Fikany said. "Accelerated innovation requires technology, and it requires new partnerships, and that is why we built this center."
He said its 10 staffers are "our best technology people and business transformation experts."
Fikany said the technology center differs from Microsoft's 19th floor Town Center training center. "This is a completely different experience," he said. "This center provides the unique experience of literally immersing you into the technology, in a hospital room or the shop floor or in Beijing."
Indeed, the center features not only conference rooms named after innovators like Da Vinci, Wright, Ford and Newton, but also an immersion center that can be set up as anything from a home to an office to a medical center.
Fikany said automakers and suppliers will obviously be heavy users of the center, but so will consumer products, financial services, health care, distribution and hospitality companies, as well as nonprofits.
And, Fikany noted, "this multi-million-dollar center was built in the most challenging economic times. I want that to be a testament and a statement to Microsoft's belief in the potential of Michigan."
Drew Costakis, technology center director, said the center has already been used by several clinets -- a local bank to build their new Internet platform for online banking, another client building a Voice Over Internet Protocol system uniting voice, video and desktop. Another health care client is using the center for an offsite brainstorming session.
The center is one of only nine such centers Microsoft has built. The nearest is in Chicago. There are others in New York City, Boston, Atlanta and Reston, Va.
