Google Is Taking Over the Former Headquarters Of Palm Computing

Google has made yet another big land grab.

According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the search giant has leased the two-building, 285,000-square-foot complex that used to serve as the headquarters of Palm Computing, the now defunct manufacturers of the PalmPilot.

It's an interesting example of a common theme in Silicon Valley, as a rapidly growing company taking over the offices of a once-powerful firm. Palm controlled 80% of the market share for handheld computers in September 1999, but it was bought by HP in 2010 and shut down in 2011.

The space is in Sunnyvale, California, a couple of miles away from Google's headquarters in Mountain View. Google also leases 949,000 square feet in the city's Technology Corners complex, bringing the company's total to more than 1 million square feet in Sunnyvale alone.

Google has been on a tear lately - it's expected to close soon on a 400,000-square-foot office park in Mountain View, in addition to the 8-acre blimp hangar still in negotiation at Moffett Federal Airfield.

Tech analyst Rob Enderle explained Google's real estate frenzy to the Silicon Valley Business Journal: "They're in everything from longevity research to self-driving cars. They've got wearables growing. Their drone business could take off. Robotics could be bigger than PCs and smartphones combined and squared. A lot of these things they're going into are high growth, and if they take off, Google is expanding ahead of that."