Google, Arizona State getting cozy but not ready for marriage

A symbiotic relationship is building between Google and Arizona State University. ASU has been renting out space to the Internet behemoth in hopes of forming lasting partnerships in technological development, reports the Arizona Republic.

"Before you get married, you date a little while," said Rob Melnick, associate vice president for economic affairs at ASU. "That's what we're doing. We're going out."

What ASU gets out of the affair is a boost in research and reputation. Google gets resources that might be hard to come by otherwise.

Some of the projects in the works:

• ASU has provided Google with 17,000 photos to create a giant map of the Red Planet at Google Mars
• ASU is switching all of its email and instant messaging to Google Apps for Education
• Google employees serve as guest speakers and adjunct lecturers at ASU and are on advisory boards for engineering and computer sciences.

It's clear that both parties want this to be a long-term arrangement because they are planning new projects in areas such as bioinformatics, which uses computers to analyze biological data, and environmental sustainability.

"Clearly, we're looking at a long relationship," said Douglas Merrill, Google's vice president of engineering.