Last year, Google bought the historic Pacific Press, site of a former Seventh Day Adventist publishing house, and a Mountain View landmark for over a century. It’s also currently home to an office of Microsoft. It used to be Tellme Networks, but Microsoft bought Tellme in 2007. Now they’re selling off part, but that’s another story.
So Google is now Microsoft’s landlord here. I’ve worked here since 2004. It’s a lovely little campus, full of trees. There are tall palms and redwoods, side by side.
I’m not sure I would have guessed there were several hundred trees, though, before the number tags appeared.
Every tree, even the little ones (but not the shrubberies) sprouted little numbered tags sometime in the last month or so. Nearby trees have sequential numbers, so it’s clearly some sort of inventory system.
The former Tellme bits that are staying with Microsoft will be moving to Sunnyvale soon, when the lease is up. Was Google worried that their tenants were going to abscond with the trees?
Inside, work continues as the final months of the office lease count down. Twelve years’ worth of memorabilia and swag are hauled out of a store room. There’ll be no room for this on the moving truck.