Microsoft headquarters are located in Redmond, Washington, USA. It's actually a beautiful place. They have a little computer museum there, with an old Altair, and a piano controlled by Windows. The computer history movie that they show is kinda MS biased, but that's to be expected.
One thing that no one has ever studied is how the geography of computer campuses has influenced computer goals. Microsoft's campus is beautiful, with lots of trees. Compaq is from Houston, in a lush, green, and disgustingly hot/humid environment. Dell is from Austin, the most liberal city in Texas. Apple grew up in Silicon Valley. The first servers that became the backbone of ARPA were produced in New England, and designed at MIT. I believe Novell is from Salt Lake City, Utah.
I think it would be interesting to see a comparison between alpha bugs, beta bugs, ship bugs, local politics, temperature, and vegetation.
