Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are among the many prime three cloud providers suppliers, second and third, respectively, to Amazon Net Providers (AWS). Google Cloud, launched in 2008, lags behind AWS and Azure by way of market share regardless of its engineering prowess.
Credit score Suisse analyst Phil Winslow is bullish on Azure and expects the corporate to slender the income hole with AWS whereas widening the hole with Google Cloud. His argument is that Azure will profit from firms making large adjustments in the best way they construction their IT infrastructure, not simply shifting particular purposes to the cloud.
In line with a survey carried out earlier this yr, Azure has, in reality, surpassed AWS by way of reputation. Round 80% of respondents stated they used Azure, in comparison with 77% for AWS.
Nevertheless, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai lately stated that cloud is one in all Google’s fastest-growing companies. Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, final month stated that the corporate needs to simplify the entire know-how that organisations want. When it comes to market share, Google holds round 10% of the worldwide market in Q2 2022. Azure, however, sits in second place with a market share of 21%, in response to Statista.
(Supply: Statista)
Enterprise prospects
One of many elements that labored in Microsoft’s favour is its roots within the enterprise enterprise. That is one thing which Google lacks. Microsoft sells merchandise spanning from Workplace, Home windows, Dynamics to Outlook, and it was simpler for them to upsell its cloud providers to its enterprise prospects.
From the attitude of those firms, it made extra sense for them to go together with Microsoft as they already used its merchandise which their workers are aware of. Actually, a majority of the Fortune 500 is on Azure as they need seamless safety and APIs whatever the setting.
Google’s technique to persuade firms to do issues their approach and never take note of what the client truly wants didn’t assist their trigger both.
Furthermore, Microsoft has used methods equivalent to vendor lock-in, which isn’t new to the corporate. Through the years, Microsoft has efficiently leveraged its accomplice ecosystem to cross-sell its cloud options which has helped Azure emerge the second-biggest cloud service supplier globally.
Information centres
Google Cloud additionally lags behind Microsoft in relation to infrastructure. Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure is very large, and it’ll take Google lots of time and funding to match Azure’s capabilities.
Microsoft Azure doesn’t share the places of its knowledge centres; nonetheless, as per estimates, Microsoft operates over 200 bodily knowledge centres in 59 areas and 113 availability zones unfold throughout 35 nations. Additional, 19 areas and 51 availability zones are in improvement. Compared, Google Cloud operates round 30 knowledge centres in 35 areas and 106 availability zones unfold throughout greater than 200 nations and territories.
Nevertheless, Google is within the means of including 9 extra areas, which suggests Google Cloud can have knowledge centres in 44 areas by 2024. Throughout Google Cloud Subsequent 22, the corporate introduced Austria, Greece, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden as new Google Cloud areas.
Despite the fact that Google Cloud can’t compete with Azure by way of infrastructure, it does supply enticing pricing throughout all cloud providers.
Google Cloud Information Centre Location
Providers on supply
Each Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure supply a variety of providers to their prospects starting from storage and compute to networking. Each AWS and Azure supply greater than 100 completely different providers; nonetheless, Google Cloud solely presents round 60 providers.
When it comes to providers, Azure once more emerges on prime because it presents a well-rounded set of storage providers; comparatively, Google has lesser choices.
When it comes to compute providers, Google Cloud has essentially the most enticing costs. Nevertheless, what Azure presents is a reduction mannequin, which is enticing to current Microsoft prospects. Apart from, Google Cloud’s salesforce is small in comparison with each AWS and Google. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in 2019 acknowledged that their gross sales power is one-tenth to one-fifteenth the dimensions of the gross sales forces at AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Through the years, Kurian has extensively employed personnel to bolster its workforce in an effort to keep aggressive. Most notable was the arrival of SAP veteran Robert Enslin in 2019.
One factor that provides to Google’s benefit is that Microsoft has a way more tough studying curve. Nevertheless, for Google to overhaul Azure, it might want rather more than providing enticing costs and a smoother studying curve throughout all deployments.
Does Google lack focus?
Azure contributes to just about 27.5% of Microsoft’s income in comparison with Google Cloud’s 5.5%. Actually, Azure has emerged as an important vertical for Microsoft, bringing within the highest share of income. Nevertheless, Google nonetheless earns a majority of its income from advertisements and therefore, many argue that’s the place Google’s focus lies.
Analyst Charles Fitzgerald believes Google Cloud Platform is sort of a interest for the corporate. “When Google CEO Sundar Pichai will get up within the morning, the broader Google Cloud enterprise (together with G Suite) is, on a very good day, a distant fifth on his listing of considerations,” he stated. Nevertheless, it might be unfair to say Google lacks focus. Just lately, Pichai did stress that Google Cloud stays a key precedence for the corporate.
To remain aggressive within the cloud phase, in 2018, Google Cloud employed Kurian as its CEO to draw extra enterprise prospects and bolster its cloud enterprise. Since his arrival, one in all Kurian’s key focuses has been to make Google Cloud enterprise-ready and overcome the notion that Google didn’t know easy methods to generate enterprise gross sales and may solely do nicely as a product firm.
Up to now three years, Kurain has managed to make Google Cloud extra aggressive. Tom Galizia, world chief business officer of the Alphabet/Google follow at Deloitte Consulting, stated, “You don’t go from $5 billion [in annual revenue] to $20 [billion] in three years and never get to say that.”
Nevertheless, regardless of Kurian’s arrival, Google Cloud continues to function at a loss, and its market share has remained locked-in.
What’s subsequent?
Throughout this yr’s Google Cloud Subsequent 22 convention, the corporate introduced a collection of infrastructure and migration updates to raised assist organisations run on Google Cloud, on the edge, or of their knowledge centres. Google introduced Twin Run to assist firms migrate their decades-old mainframes onto the cloud. It additionally introduced new improvements in Google Workspace and its accomplice ecosystem.
“Google Cloud is what allows us to share innovation and funding throughout Google with firms, governments and organisations worldwide,” Pichai stated throughout the inauguration session of Subsequent ’22.
The tech main additionally introduced that it’s going to enable its prospects to pay for his or her cloud providers with cryptocurrencies from 2023. With a view to facilitate crypto funds, Google has teamed up with US-based crypto trade Coinbase.
