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Since
locating to the Research Triangle Region in 1999, Network
Appliance has found it fertile ground for hiring the
engineers and customer support professionals it needs
to grow.
So when the company - the world leader in unified data storage solutions - wanted to expand on the East Coast, it chose to move its staff of 150 to the Triangle.
"We know we can hire the people we need to grow in the Research Triangle Region," says Thom Bryant, the company's vice president of workplace resources, who oversaw the location decision.
"The cost of living and the quality of the educational system at the elementary and university levels are important factors overall in continuing to recruit a world-class engineering and customer support organization there. Our people want to be able to buy houses, raise families and know the education system is great."
Those regional advantages and a state Job Development Investment Grant helped the region overcome Pittsburgh, the other finalist, for the expansion. The company bought three empty buildings in Research Triangle Park with more than a half-million square feet of space. It announced plans to create 361 new jobs paying an average salary package of $115,000 per year. Long-term, the site can accommodate up to 2,000 workers.
Network Appliance’s expansion boosts and benefits from the region’s robust informatics cluster, driven by the region’s research universities and supported by its concentration of knowledge workers. Network Appliance offers data storage solutions that provide seamless data management, simplified backup and recovery and reliable remote office access at the lowest total cost of ownership. Network Appliance generates more than $1 billion in annual revenues providing solutions that power Yahoo! e-mail, help petroleum companies run complex simulations to search for oil and gas, and enable biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms to discover new drugs.
"The world is creating huge amounts of digital content, and it all needs to be stored and managed," Bryant says.
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