Grady Burnett, Director of Global Online Sales and Operations at Facebook, said in a statement, "We are delighted to formally announce that Facebook will open an online sales and operations office in Austin.  The area’s world-class educational system and talented workforce give us the means to quickly establish a strong outfit."

"Strong" works out to at least 200 employees, by the way, making the new office a rather significant investment.  It’ll represent a fair amount of growth, too, since Facebook’s actually supposed to hire 200 Texans instead of just relocate a lot of current employees.

Burnett acknowledged, "We look forward to building our team here in Austin and enjoying all the wonderful things the city has to offer."

Finally, in other Austin-related news, don’t forget that SXSW has begun.  WebProNews is on hand to bring you live video coverage along with the usual articles and recorded interviews.  This promises to be a fun (and informative) conference.

Fittingly enough, Perry’s office announced the development with a Facebook note.  In it, he stated, "Facebook’s expansion in Austin will enhance the area’s robust technology industry, create 200 jobs for Texans, and strengthen the economy in Central Texas."

There were also a few figures implying that $1.4 million isn’t an insane bribe, as the Texas Enterprise Fund has already doled out more than $388 million to create another 52,000 jobs.

Finally, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said, "We’ve been exploring various options around the U.S. to establish an additional online sales and operations office and we’re grateful to the assistance we’ve received from the Governor’s office and the state’s leadership in discussing the possibilities in Austin. . . .  Austin, with its deep talent pool, would allow us to hire the high-caliber employees we need to properly serve the people, advertisers and developers that rely on our service."

Which all sounds very nice.  The one remaining step (aside from choosing a site and actually building and staffing the office) is to get the City of Austin’s okay.   A vote should take place in the near future to settle that matter.

Google has leased some office space in Austin, home of the South By Southwest conferences. They will seek local talent from the University of Texas, where Google already has a book scanning relationship with University libraries.

The Daily Texan said Google has sought local space for some time. They leased 25,000 square feet of local offices and likely plan to move in this spring.

“The company will occupy the second floor of the Scarborough Building on Sixth Street and Congress Avenue, said Bill Anderson, broker for Office Leasing Advisors Inc., which aided Google in locating the property,” the report said.

Job postings on Google for engineers and on MediaBistro for account managers and enterprise sales reps appeared online in recent weeks. We suspect the enterprise folks may be put in place to work with nearby Dell Computer, in an effort to boost Google’s search appliance sales.

There will be a side benefit to the local office space. 25,000 square feet should provide plenty of room for sleeping bags and partying Googlers taking in the SXSW festivities in the future, unless they get the keys to the offices sometime before the film or music events start in March.