FARGO - Another company is shipping jobs to a remote land to find good workers for less money. In this case, the company is Microsoft Corp. But the faraway land is only two time zones away.

Six years after Microsoft acquired North Dakota's Great Plains Software for $1.1 billion, its acquired Fargo operations are growing. Besides building on Great Plains' software for businesses, Microsoft has built an executive briefing center and moved its payroll operations for the United States and Canada to the Roughrider State.

Dave Coulombe was born and raised in Montreal, and spent most of his life in major metropolitan areas. He moved to Fargo 14 years ago and joined Great Plains. He stayed in the Red River Valley after Microsoft bought the company.

"And we're still here," said Coulombe, 48, a general manager at the Fargo campus. "It's the best thing we've ever done as a family. I could move to Redmond (Wash.), but we've got great things going on at this site."

The campus of more than 1,200 employees is planning to expand from two buildings to three. New hires are coming from warm-weather areas to a place where subzero temperatures are common in the winter.

One reason for the growth, the company says, is the Fargo branch's ability to find talented employees who work for less money than those in Seattle and other cities - despite some reservations about moving to North Dakota. They come mostly from the Midwest.

"We compensate our people very well, but you don't have to compensate at the same level as you do on the East Coast and the West Coast," said Don Morton, the Fargo campus' site leader.

Microsoft has even looked outside the country to fill some positions, recently hiring five engineers from India who are admittedly "scared of winter," Morton said.

The world's largest software maker - whose chairman, Bill Gates, is the richest man in the world - pays competitively at all its locations, said company spokeswoman Katie Hasbargen. In North Dakota, Microsoft software engineers usually start at about $50,000 a year.

"Microsoft is definitely competitive in Fargo," Hasbargen said.

A $50,000-a-year job in Fargo is equivalent to a $62,000 salary in Seattle, Bankrate.com numbers show. The cost of living index published by Sperling Best Places lists the Fargo area at 86.4, compared to the U.S. average of 100. Seattle is listed at 144.4. And Bankrate.com figures show a house costing $240,439 in Fargo would sell for $410,540 in Seattle. The average monthly rent for an apartment is $660 in Fargo and $1,037 in Seattle.