Microsoft Puerto Rico inaugurates new $2.5M office

Alvaro Celis, general director for Microsoft’s multi-country Americas division and Cleber Voelzke, general manager of the Puerto Rico operation. (Credit: © Mauricio Pascual)

Microsoft Puerto Rico is looking to change the way people work in Puerto Rico by practicing what it preaches.

On Wednesday, the company inaugurated its new $2.5 million, 13,000 square-foot headquarters at the City View Plaza complex in Guaynabo, where it has implemented its new corporate “New World of Work” philosophy, through which employees are given the flexibility to work wherever they feel most comfortable.

That is a concept that the majority of Puerto Rico businesses have been hard-pressed to adopt, despite the benefits.

“Our company has the mission of empowering people to reach their maximum capabilities and the ‘New World of Work’ concept plays a great role in that,” said Alvaro Celis, general director for Microsoft’s multi-country Americas division, who was on hand to address the media and offer a tour of the company housing the latest concepts in technology that will be incorporated for the benefit of employees and customers.

In 2005, Microsoft founder Bill Gates sent an e-mail to all of the company’s employees describing the ‘New World of Work’ concept. At the time, he spoke about “helping companies of all sizes maximize the impact of employees and workgroups, driving deeper connections with customers and partners, enabling informed and timely decision-making, and managing and protecting critical information.”

To achieve that, Gates launched a multi-year, multi-concept strategy to create software to learn from and adapt to the way people work, facilitate the flow of information and encouraging teamwork.

All of those ideas are being applied at the new Guaynabo office, which is occupying half the square footage in comparison to the former Metro Office Park location, Celis said.

The local subsidiary of the global software developer had been located in Metro Office Park for the better part of the last two decades. But in response to its sustained local growth, and the advent of cutting edge services designed to make the business experience better and more efficient, the company is moving to a new office where it can demonstrate its products, Celis said.