Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Google puts new Cambridge digs on display

By Christopher Calnan

Speaking at Google Inc.'s new 60,000-square-foot office in Cambridge, Gov. Deval Patrick said he wants to encourage such technology companies to grow in Massachusetts -- but hopes they will establish themselves beyond just Cambridge, reaching out to other parts of the state.

About 60 people -- mostly local media members and bloggers -- attended an open house event at Google's Cambridge office that included demonstrations of Google products such as Friend Connect and Android that were developed in Cambridge.

The Cambridge office is one of just three that Google operates with a fully staffed engineering department, media sales and online sales departments. The other two operate in New York and at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Patrick said he wants to spread more of the technology industry's economic benefits across Massachusetts instead of clustering them around Cambridge. "Google is part of an industry that's central to much what we're known for -- technology undergirds it all," Patrick said this morning at the Kendall Square facility.

Patrick wasn't concerned that Google wasn't a locally based company. "They're all part of our economy," he said. "We want to encourage growth of this type of business outside this neighborhood."

Previously, Google had housed about 100 workers in 25,000-square-feet at the Cambridge Innovation Center, also in Kendall Square.

Google officials said the company now houses 175 workers at the Five Cambridge Center office, just two blocks away from where it first landed in the bedroom community of Boston. Officials declined to disclose the total number of employees Google would eventually employ in Cambridge.

The new office, which opened in February, is spread out over four floors of the building and includes plenty of primary colors, lava lamps, a mural of Fenway Park -- and the requisite foosball table, along with a billiards table and a ping-pong table.

Friend Connect, a service that helps website owners provide social features for visitors that was released in a preview version Monday, is the only Google product solely developed at the Cambridge facility, site director Steve Vinter said.

Android, a platform for mobile phone applications, is also developed in Cambridge but in collaboration with other Google facilities, vice president for mobile technology Rich Miner said.

Google operates 35 engineering offices, 10 in the United States, but the company encourages "collaborative engineering," spreading single projects out among developers in several locations, Vinter said.