Mark:
You wrote:
..."The commute to Alameda is too onerous for Wind River to benefit from the concentrated labor pool in the Silicon Valley, but they still must pay the relatively high wages of the Bay Area. Half of their employees live in Alameda (an island with limited space) and this has forced them to waste valuable management resources diversifying into the real estate business..."
How do you know this? Have you taken a poll of WIND's employees?Maybe WIND's employees are scattered around the Bay Area. With Alameda being in the center, it is a logical place, not to mention, familiar already for thier employees. Also, being a global company, a lot of thier people are scattered in the US, Europe and Japan.
Here is what WIND says on thier home page Corporate Backgrounder:
"The company is headquartered in Alameda, California and has direct sales offices in twenty-one locations throughout the United States and
Canada. In addition, the company has sales operations in France, Germany, Israel,Italy, Korea, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom and distributes its products in Japan through its majority-owned joint venture Wind River Systems K.K"
This covers quite a bit of area. Sorry to nit-pick but it just strikes me as not a very thought-out statement to make. Since we know they have "skunk-works" in France, why not in other areas that have good engineering pools as well? It is very typical for people in the Bay Area to travel from San Francisco to San Jose, Oakland or even Alameda or reverse. Companies like AutoDesk, Computer Assoc., Geoworks, Ascend Communications and others have offices in Alameda or closeby. I'm sure they attract some people as well.
just my opinion...
z
P.S. i have a friend that works down the street from WIND. |
