2011 Data Center Fight Club–Google, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, & Zynga

In Data Centers a “Fight Club” metaphor can be used to describe the secrecy behind a competitive group.  Where little is said out in the public.  The big fight in 2009 was a Google vs. Microsoft for PUE and efficient data centers.  PUE is now a common term and even used by some to specify data centers. 2010 Facebook has emerged as a competitor, and there are many other companies that tops in their category like Twitter, Skype, and Zynga.

TechCrunch discusses the talent wars for top engineers.  Data Centers are not mentioned in the article, but none of these companies can exist without data centers.

Begun The Talent Wars Have – Why Twitter needs a London HQ: Google Engineers

by Mike Butcher on December 30, 2010

We’ve reported before about how the escalating warfor talent in Silicon Valley is effectively creating a kind of arms race between tech companies.

For example, Google is offering employees a 10% pay increase for 2011; companies like About.me are getting acquireddays after launch; and job postings in the IT industry are shooting to astronomical levels. Even Google’s Eric Schmidt has admitted to this battle.

Facebook, Google, Zynga and Twitter are hiring like crazy – and this insatiable desire for staff is likely to spill over into other countries. And perhaps the obvious first target outside of the Valley is London: English speaking, and a magnet for existing tech people in Europe working for US multinationals. And the latest to consider extending its reach there is Twitter. Europe is highly attractive to Twitter, since its advertising markets, particularly the UK where Twitter has exploded in adoption, are waiting to be milked.

Twitter’s first office outside of the US, will be headed up by Katie Jacobs Stanton, the company’s head of international strategy. Stanton was recently in London, where the UK government has been going all out to try to woo tech companies with its ‘East London Tech City’ policy.

What gets little press is the talent battles these companies have to find the best data center staff.