BOSTON-The Greater Boston office market experienced a strong final quarter of 2011 and Richards Barry Joyce & Partners’ vice president of research, Brendan Carroll, is optimistic that 2012 will see similar gains. In Q4, company analysts found that absorption in the sector reached 861,000 square feet, making it the highest such quarterly amount since the third quarter of 2007. Additionally, Q4 vacancy rate dropped 0.4% to 15.4%.

“Both Google and Microsoft are committed to expanding their presence in a major way in Cambridge over the next couple of years,” Carroll explains in an interview with GlobeSt.com. “We also know that in Cambridge itself, Biogen Idec is going to move to a 495,000-square-foot headquarters. These demand-drivers for the most part are going to affect the urban core and Boston and Cambridge occupancy over the next couple of years.”

Carroll believes that the area’s “diverse array of industries” will assist in bringing down vacancy rates and generating absorption. And there are some big names interested in Greater Boston space, running the gamut from Google, to locally-based Akamai and others like the out-of-market Pfizer. According to Carroll, it seems that 2012 will not only bring reasons for these and other companies to stay, but hopefully for more firms to come to the area. He cites 1.6 million square feet of office product that is already 100% pre-leased. He also feels that these businesses (and others like TJ Maxx and Marshall’s owner TJX, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Staples) are drawn to Boston’s identity as a “knowledge-driven market in an increasingly knowledge-driven economy.”