Google finds more pliable programmers in the Rust Belt
The news that Google is opening up a headquarters for its Edwards advertising unit in Ann Arbor, Mich., is being desperately spun by local boosters as a high-tech shot in the arm for the region.
But there's another side to this story: Google has struggled with keeping its engineers -- to whom it grants unprecedented freedom to work on funky, exciting side projects -- focused on its core search and advertising markets, where it faces increasing competition from Microsoft and Yahoo. Projects like building maps of Mars are just more fun. And Google CEO Larry Page -- who graduated in 1995 from the University of Michigan -- appears to be tiring of cajoling cantankerous Silicon Valley engineers into working on bread-and-butter projects. In Michigan, Page can find legions of college graduates to order around -- and according to the Detroit Free Press, he only has to pay them an average salary of $47,000 -- a pittance in the Valley. 
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