Google is My Landlord?

My jaw dropped when I heard the news. 'Google Signs Deal to Buy 111 Eighth Avenue.' This is the second most sought after carrier hotel in the NYC market - some would argue that it has surpassed 60 Hudson Street in demand for space, due to the buildings ability to attract data and IP providers from back in the day. Google, who was a tenant of the building, has made its move to purchase it for $1.8 billion - making it the biggest real estate deal of the year. The company outbid more than a dozen other bidders.

Why buy such a huge building - taking up an entire city block near Manhattan's meatpacking district?

• The building has 2.9 million square feet - more than the Empire State Building.
• It is the third largest building in NYC
• Sits atop one of the main fiber optic hubs in New York City (the Hudson Street Ninth Avenue 'fiber highway')
• Massive telecommunications tenant list

I used to work for Telx, the Interconnection company. In 2007, Telx acquired the meet-me-room on the 15th floor from NYC Connect (owned by Taconic Realty Partners - one of the - almost previous- owners of the building). Telx now has space on the 3rd, 8th, 14th and 15th Floors of 111 8th Avenue - and all I can think of is 'Google is my landlord!'

Not only does Google control the rankings of websites positioned on the web - basically acting as a landlord for the Internet - but now the company is expanding directly into my backyard, my ears are perked and I'm listening.

In order to try to understand why they bought the building, I took a look at what data center facilities they already have. But that isn't an easy task. Back in 2008, Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge, stated that Google is rather secretive about its data centers. No one really knows for sure how many facilities the companies have, though, Miller is aware of at least 12 within the US (now 13), three under construction in Europe and potentially five others. The company also leases space in 3rd party facilities across the US. Since the article was written, Google held a Data Center Efficiency Summit where it unveiled its Data Center Container, and a video tour of one of its data centers. Data Center Knowledge has dedicated a whole 'channel' to Google on its website - which you can visit here.

I am fascinated by the move. I assume the company has quietly been buying up network assets - because what's the use of a data center if you can't get in or out of it. And with multiple DC's across the world, the company will certainly need to connect them for redundancy, cloud computing, resiliency, content delivery and more.

So we know Google is a fabulous search engine, Google TV, Google Phone, Google Email, Google OS, Google Video - what's next? Google 3D?

Posted by: Ilissa Miller, Managing Partner of Jaymie Scotto & Associates. You can read more by visiting Telecom News Now at: www.jaymiescotto.com/jsablog