The Bill Gates Show Comes to Canada

By Mark Evans
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Bill Gates rolled across the Canadian border yesterday to cajole the University of Waterloo’s computer science, mathematics and engineeer students to work for the software giant. In a speech to 650 enraptured students, he talked about the exciting prospects for the high-tech industry, the growing demand for smart developers and Microsoft’s prospects. In other words, Microsoft’s chief architect put on his recruiting hat and swung for the fences. At the very least, he got a local media coverage because, after all, it’s not every day that a Berkshire Hathaway director comes to town.

Our Take: It used to be a lot easier for Microsoft to lure talent to Redmond based on the promise of a large R&D budget and any number of exciting projects. These days, the “cool” companies where grads want to work are places such as Google and Yahoo, or any number of Web start-ups popping up as VC money starts to flow again. What Gates needs to sell is sizzle and while the Xbox is definitely hot, it’s a challenge getting top talent excited about working on the next version of Office or Windows.

For more analysis, click here.

Alice Adds: Sounds like 1996 all over again, when Netscape was cool and Yahoo was happening.