By Tracy Fugere
Fargo, ND – This is the last year "Stampede 2001", the annual conference of Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, will be held in Fargo.
Microsoft Senior Vice President Doug Burgum says there is no correlation whatsoever between the movement of the "Stampede" to any movement of Great Plains.
"That would be completely illogical and unthinkable to move because our team members don't want to move. Our team members love living here in Fargo and we just made the major investment in the campus--the new Vista building which came online in the last couple of months. We had a dream from 1983 on--let's get all our team members in one spot. We're finally there. We've got a great campus and room for adding more. All those aspects of it are going great."
Burgum says the conference is moving to Minneapolis due to costs.
"From a facility standpoint, here we're still running the Stampede in the Ramada, the Holiday Inn, the Civic, and the Fargodome and that's great. But we'll spend $120,000 on busing because this is a town that doesn't have or need a lot of cabs. There's not a public transportation system. Our partners, in particular, pay about twice as much for an airline ticket to get to Fargo vs. if they just terminated in Minneapolis--which would more than cover the cost of a hotel room. Again, Minneapolis is making a big committment to a facility downtown where we can have the expo, the recognition events all under one roof at a cost that's lower than Fargo because the cost that's associated with all the logistics."
Burgum says it was a difficult decision to move the location of the conference but it's not a permanent one.
"...the way Fargo has been improving it's hotel infrastructure, maybe we'll have more airlines in here by then, the way the Fargodome has been making it's additions. Even the facility we're in right now (Fargodome)--this add-on to the Dome is what has allowed us to stay in Fargo a few years longer than we would've.")
The conference is committed to Minneapolis for the next several years and after that--Microsoft will reassess plans for a new location.