Google looks to flash new surrounds

Google is following in the high-tech footsteps of many Silicon Valley companies before it by dreaming big and building or leasing large new offices to accommodate a swelling employee roster.

On Wednesday afternoon, the search giant announced plans to build a one million-square-foot campus at the Nasa Ames Research Center, not far from its Mountain View, California, headquarters, which is dubbed the "Googleplex".

Of course, some Silicon Valley companies are easily identified by their buildings. Oracle's shimmering green towers, for example, are a landmark for drivers on the Valley's Highway 101. And Sun Microsystems turned a historic mental-health facility just a 20-minute drive south from Oracle into a major office park.

But numerous others with grandiose plans overspent in the Valley's boom years, only to be humbled when the tech bubble burst. That includes Silicon Graphics, whose former offices Google is now subleasing.

Perhaps one of the best-known examples of the campus curse is Borland, which moved into its controversial $70m facility just south of Silicon Valley by 1994. Since then, Borland, once the second-largest independent software company in the world, has been soundly trumped by Microsoft, has experimented with changing its name, and is now not even among the top 10 software makers.

Google is, however, more likely to overcome the odds - considering its influence and the challenge it poses to Microsoft.

Elinor Mills writes for CNET News.com