Microsoft Taiwan Corp (台灣微軟) announced the launch of the Microsoft Innovation Center at the Nangang Software Park in Taipei yesterday, in a bid to help local partners improve their research and development (R&D) for software engineering and the Next Generation Web.
The company said that although Taiwan is a global OEM/ODM leader in computer hardware such as notebook computers and motherboards, there is room for improvement in terms of innovation, design and software development.
“The [goal of the] establishment of the Microsoft Innovation Center is to invite our engineers to come from Microsoft R&D centers and share their knowledge with our local companies and clients,” Microsoft Taiwan general manager Davis Tsai (蔡恩全) told a press conference yesterday.
PHOTO: WANG PEI-HUA, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsai said 100 engineers would work at the Microsoft Innovation Center, with 20 R&D engineers from the US and 50 engineers from the Greater China region to work with 30 local Microsoft engineers.
Microsoft said that Taiwan was in a unique position in terms of infrastructure technologies and because of local strengths in sectors such as services, cloud computing, mobile devices and networking.
“Now is the time to get closer by supporting innovation within this country and making sure that Microsoft is as strong a partner as we can be to local companies so that we can innovate together,” said Nigel Burton, general manager of Microsoft China’s Greater China development and platform evangelism division.
Burton said that Microsoft believes this is a period of change for Taiwanese companies.
Local firms should focus on developing new skills as the country has a distinct opportunity to become a leader in engineering, architecture and innovative technologies, he said.
Taiwan should expect strong competition from other Asian countries in the software sector, however, and needs to hone its skills in managing people and teams who may not always be in Taiwan, he said.
“The establishment of the Microsoft Innovation Center can help bring together people in different companies and countries, but under the leadership of engineers and architects in Taiwan,” Burton said.
Microsoft’s local cooperating partners include Cyberlink Corp (訊連科技), Advantech Co (研華科技) and ERA Digital Media (年代數位媒體).
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