By Filipe Pacheco

ONE MORE SIGN THAT BRAZIL “THE SLEEPING GIANT” is seen as wide awake: One of the legendary giants of the technology industry has launched a project to strengthen its presence in Brazil.

Microsoft, which has been in Brazil since 1989, inaugurated last week in São Paulo its biggest technology center in Latin America – and its first in this country – the only country besides China where Microsoft manufactures the Xbox 360. The 1,300-square-meter (14,000 sq ft) facility is located by the shores of the Pinheiros river, in the heart of the business center of Avenida Luis Carlos Berrini and very close to Vila Olímpia, where most of the national and foreign tech firms have their headquarters for this country or for Latin America. It is one of the most expensive business areas in the city.

There are Microsoft Technology Centers already in 17 other countries around the globe, including Mexico – but the size of this new one makes it clear that the company recognizes the big market that is Brazil. Microsoft says it is investing about US$ 10 million in the site. More Brazilian MTCs are planned for Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador.

One of the main objectives of the São Paulo center is to provide a simulated enterprise IT environment in which developers, partners, innovative startups, and clients can design, test, and implement new technologies and solutions.

The center has spaces built to look like a corporate office, with the usual IT infrastructure. Inside these spaces, “scientists” can check out new products and services and “interact with natural interface solutions, besides accessing industry lab solutions and multitask rooms,” according to the official announcement of the MCT.

Fábio Souto, director of Microsoft Technology Center Brasil, tells Sourcing Brazil that users of the facility will be able to “visualize everything technology can do for them; experience, in real life, how each solution is applicable to their own situation; and discover how a solution runs on their particular platform and what types of results are achieved.”

The MTC is equipped with 700 terabytes of hosting capacity and a datacenter with 360 processors. The project has been implemented in alliance with the local branches of 15 different partners, including AMD, Brocade, Dell, EMC, Emerson, HP, Intel, Jabra, NetApp, and Panduit. For those companies, it offers a place to test and show off their solutions made to run in a Microsoft environment.

Microsoft says that the new center will also be available to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), students, and entrepreneurs who participate in initiatives such as Bizpark, a program to foster entrepreneurship, and Imagine Cup, known as the “computing world cup.” Startup Weekend will also be able to stage its local events here.

Incubators

At the event to officially open the center, a “protocol of intentions” was signed by Microsoft and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which declares that six incubators will be set up to boost innovation and support Brazilian startups. Each of these incubators will be responsible for hatching and tending to 10 new businessThere’s a certain marketing angle to corporate tech centers. Microsoft obviously wants Brazilian businesses to license and run its software and buy its services. It also wants, and needs, people to come up with products that rely on Microsoft software. One way to promote its message, its products, and its approach, is to win over the young generation of programmers who will be coding business applications (and Xbox games) in a few years. Get them using Microsoft tools and learning how to develop software for Microsoft environments.

This tech center is an opportunity to reach out to that generation. If the center actually opens its doors to students and not just Microsoft business partners, and if it had the right curriculum, it could be a place that trains up talent for IT services companies. Not a place that teaches only .NET but Javascript and all the other languages in demand by outsourcing companies. It could become another place where young Brazilians, and older ones too, develop or bolster their technical talents.

Courses or classes are “not the main intention of the MTC,” Souto says, “but it will also serve as a source for increasing the capabilities of professionals in some cases.”