Microsoft will be nearly doubling its presence in Cambridge next year, bringing in about 450 workers by shutting down offices in Waltham.
The move was reported Monday afternoon by Mass High Tech based on a blog post by officials at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center, but the size of the move was unclear until Mayor David Maher revealed it at the evening’s City Council meeting.
“It’s a tremendous increase in overall numbers in Cambridge over the years,” Maher said.
The move will take place in August, putting workers in the One Cambridge Center office building in Kendall Square, “steps away” from the team already in place in 1 Memorial Drive.
The research and development team at the fortuitously named NERD will be joined by sales, marketing and services teams, said Craig Hodges, general manager of Microsoft’s Northeast District. Already at work in Cambridge are teams working on the company’s Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V), SharePoint Workspace, Microsoft Technical Computing, Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Office 365 products.
“Our campus brings us closer to leading academic institutions, and will allow us to further enhance our relationship with thought leaders at MIT, Harvard and other academic institutions,” Hodges said.
While Microsoft will be sharing One Cambridge Center with the startup incubators Dogpatch Labs and TechStars, the team at 1 Memorial Drive continues to rub elbows uncomfortably with Intersystems, a health care software firm whose chief executive and founder, Terry Ragon, spent $441,373 last year fighting a change in city laws dealing with corporate signs.
While most pegged their opposition on concern for the environment and preserving the look and feel of the city, it was a popular rumor that Ragon’s passion for fighting the change stemmed from his loathing for having a prominent Microsoft sign on his office tower.
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