I like that the parking garage forces the employee's to walk. Most multinational corporations just put the garage underneath.
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New Model Offers Detailed Look at Apple's Upcoming 'Spaceship' Campus [Updated]
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I like that the parking garage forces the employee's to walk. Most multinational corporations just put the garage underneath.
True, I thought the original idea of the circle was so that people who needed to be near each other, could be, but that it otherwise kept everything compartmentalized because of all the security you have to go through for each segment.
A major objection by residents to Apple merging their land and the 100 acres they bought from HP, is that people were using to jogging/walking around HP's former campus park. Now that road between the two areas will disappear and the pathways become Apple's private property with no access.
Wherever Google builds an office, they give out free WiFi to the nearby residents.
To celebrate their Austin expansion, Samsung gives a million dollars to the local UNICEF so that troubled kids can get help and an education.
In Cupertino, Apple refused to offer WiFi, and insists upon keeping their deal where the city has to refund half of what Apple pays in sales taxes each year. To the city, that's a loss of six million dollars, which is chump change to Apple.
For that matter, Apple pays no revenue taxes to Cupertino or California, since they funnel all that through a shell corporation in Reno Nevada. (Granted, many California based companies do the same.)
Apple also has made it clear in the past couple of years that they want their employees to stick around campus for lunch, instead of leaving to patronize local restaurants.
So yes and no. HP used to be the major employer in town, and they left. So Cupertino is wary of being dependent on any single company.
Does the new Apple headquaters contain just offices or does it contain a data center? Or both?
Because I doubt solar panels alone will provide enough power for a "datacenter". Perhaps they're for cosmetics. Something that looks good, but doesn't really do much.
Because I doubt solar panels alone will provide enough power for a "datacenter". Perhaps they're for cosmetics. Something that looks good, but doesn't really do much.
Because that's what businesses do. When they stop doing that, they stop getting investment, they stop making products, they stop getting revenue and eventually go out of business.
Plus what a couple others say more eloquently: They own the company.
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That was actually the very first thought I had when this was unveiled.
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It won't have a public datacenter (that is, none of http://*.apple.com will be served from the spaceship).
Software engineering and hardware engineering facilities have lots of computers though, and the servers will be installed in datacenter-like rooms. In my company's (pure software) main office there are three 20,000 square foot raised floor computer rooms, and about a dozen 2,000 square foot departmental computer rooms.
Apple is also putting in a large fuel-cell installation to "burn" natural gas for electricity. http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/31/1969051/apple-plans-nations-biggest-private.html
I like the building, and I'm in favor of building it. But is not true that the expense is almost all an accumulation of standard high end, or extra high end expenses. A lot of the cost is unusual and even experimental materials and construction practices. Now, I'm in favor of all that because Apple can afford it, can benefit from it, and is doing what amounts to basic research for buildings to follow. But there's more going on here than just a really fancy building. The same is often true of monumental public works like major bridges, airports, etc.
I think TallManNY has already solved what should go in the middle
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Seriously, I can't believe they didn't put a Home button app-icon shaped reflecting pool in there!
Hey, there is still plenty of time to change the plans a bit. Especially on something that isn't structural. Maybe just a few trees in a square formation to be the app-icon.
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It is just offices and enough server support for Apple's internal use. It doesn't contain anything like a data center for apple's customers. Despite that fact that this is huge, this is going to be high end real estate. They aren't going to put servers in fancy offices in a high rent district.
Imagine the free advertising if their HQ looked as you suggested, like a Home button, when seen from Google satellite imagery or even passing airliners.
The other poster's suggestion about the building being apple shaped was pretty good, too.
Any way you look a it, even if you don't like the shape, as a whole, it's going to be a gorgeous campus. I'm assuming no parts of the campus are open to non-employees? Like a park for locals to visit?
That model alone must have cost a couple of thousand dollars to make!
That is a very conservative estimate. Scale architecture models like that of that size and details easily hit $10K in cost. The amount of detail they have in there with the small people models, trees, cars and curved structures tell me the model firms bill to Apple was at least $15K to make that.
If it has lighting for dawn, day, dusk, night perspectives where the model's room lighting is controlled along with the embedded fiber optic lighting in the model, you are talking around $25K. Expect this to be in a visitor's lobby or the inevitable Steve Jobs / Apple museum in a few years.
My fav on that is flying over Intel HQ in Santa Clara. They have a huge "Intel Inside" logo on their roof. One of the better double entendre's seen in a while.
Putting more employees in a single location is expected to increase communication and collaboration.
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Trains? In Cupertino?
Looking cool is the point. The world's coolest company needs to have the world's coolest HQ. It's corporate branding.
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Actually there will be a shrine to Steve at the exact center of the circle. When you leave offerings there, you are rewarded with a recording of Steve's voice saying "this is complete s***."
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UNICEF doesn't provide services in Austin. It provides immunization, education, health care, nutrition, clean water and sanitation to children in developing nations.
Thank you, you're correct of course. I mixed up UNICEF and the United Way.
Samsung contributed to the Austin United Way to help local kids.
They also are contributors to UNICEF both monetarily and with expertise. For example, Samsung helped with solar panel equipped portable computer classroom trucks for children and adults in places like India and Africa.
Why exactly should Apple provide free wifi to anyone other than the employees inside its building? I wasn't aware corporations were obligated to to that. I can tell you the Fortune 50 company I work for doesn't do it.
And just curious what your source is for Apple not wanting employees to leave the campus for lunch. Have employees who work there told you that? Also, I thought one of Google's perks was free food for employees so I would imagine then not many Google employees are patronizing local restaurants either. I know I wouldn't leave and pay for lunch if someone was offering it to me for free.
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I believe this new building is supposed to be R&D. I wonder then is the 1 infinite loop location still the main headquarters where all the executives are.
No one said they had to provide free WiFi. Nor even that they are "required" to be good corporate citizens like many top Fortune companies which are involved in charities and projects in their home cities... although most people think that's a good idea.
The question was: why shouldn't Cupertino be overjoyed to have them? One answer is, why should they? Do they host parks for the public? Do they contribute extra to the community? No, they lock down their territory and haggle over a million dollars in tax refunds.
Remember when Jobs first presented the plan to the town council? Remember the mayor pitifully asking about WiFi downtown in return? She must've been wishing that Google had bought the old HP land instead.
No sir, it was news that was covered here last year when Apple started building cafeterias to keep the employees in the more outlying buildings from going off campus.
When United Way drops the Boy Scouts of America from their benefit list I'll send them money again. Until then, "United Way" equals "No Way".
I'm disappointed that Samsung supports the United Way, and have sent them feedback on that. One voice probably won't matter, but if enough voices say "don't support hate" it could.
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