Cloud computing market exceeds expectations (Part 2)

Google could turn into amazon

As for cloud computing, here Google is in a strange position.

No one doubts that the Google Cloud Platform has both scale and technology, since the same data centers that run the Google search system, as well as Gmail, YouTube and all other services work with it. Every day, these services are used by billions of people.

Also, no one doubts the innovation of Google. When the Docker startup, which by then was widely known, presented its software for the virtualization environment at the operating system level the year before, Google announced that it was using similar technology in its information centers. Moreover, the corporation has made Kubernetes its application management technology available to the community.
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But Google has not been so easy to find popularity among the larger and more profitable customers that it needs, in order to be able to compete with other players in the cloud business.

In 2008 - two years before Microsoft opened the Azure world - Google introduced Google App Engine, a similar platform to help developers create their applications.

Despite Google’s head of cloud services, Urs Hölzle, “if App Engine was a start-up, it would be one of the bright lights of Silicon Valley,” its growth is incomparably small compared to the pace of development of Amazon Web Services in his early days.

Over the years, the existence of cloud services, Google has added some features that made them more competitive, and in 2013 the entire product was renamed, called the Google Cloud Platform. The company began to attract major customers such as Coca-Cola, General Mills and Best Buy, as more options for businesses were added to the cloud.

Google won the love of some developers who trust it more than Microsoft. Historically, Google adopted an open source philosophy and introduced many technologies to the world. (He can afford it, because more than 90% of the company's revenue comes from search advertising, and, of course, Google is not talking about opening its main search and advertising technologies to the world.) Although Microsoft Nadella has become much more friendly than ever, some pockets of developers still mistrust Microsoft - and probably never will.
Plus, very popular consumer products have already created a certain image of Google. “Google has this cool innovation factor,” says Anderson.

According to the company itself, Google can be competitive both in price and in technology, since in any case it is constantly expanding the functions and capabilities of its cloud for its own internal needs.

However, Google is lagging behind compared with the rapid growth of Amazon and the fast pace of Microsoft in pursuit of the leader.

All others suffer

It could be worse. All the rest have a lot of problems in trying to compete in the world of cloud services. They started later, and therefore are not able to create such a successful whirlpool, like Amazon, which started earlier and became a leader.

“It’s not yet clear what place the big IT players have in the public cloud,” says Forrester Bartoletti.

IBM has made huge investments in technologies such as IBM Bluemix and IBM Watson, which make it easy for developers to create applications in the cloud. But at the same time, the ubiquitous “cloud tendency” caused serious damage to the IBM equipment business related to the supply of equipment, gradually taking the company's revenue and casting a shadow on its prospects.

Now the main strategy of IBM is to “promote” the so-called “hybrid” cloud, which will allow companies to continue to work independently with some services, and others to outsource.

IBM has a big growth in its cloud business, if we talk about revenues, but most of this revenue is provided by hybrid cloud clients, so these are incomparable values.

The idea of ​​a hybrid cloud is well suited for huge government agencies and companies such as large banks that will always have their own computing power. But on the other hand, companies understand that they can transfer their tasks related to calculations to third-party specialists who can do their job better and faster than themselves.

Oracle also claims that its cloud business is growing, but not everything is so simple: Oracle turns to its existing customers (and this is a lot of huge companies) and forces them to try out the Oracle cloud using their “pushing” and discount tactics.

Currently, Oracle Cloud suits existing Oracle customers, which allows them to work in their large-scale databases and CRM applications. But customers who keep up with cloud trends will, in any case, leave Oracle. And those who remain skeptical of the clouds and do not want or can not try something new.

Bartoletti says: "Oracle knows that it cannot reach the wider developer market."

Meanwhile, the company is secretly working on a completely new proposal, which, according to Oracle, may be the right solution.

HP tried to compete for a place in the sun by creating its publicly available HP Helion cloud, but faced problems of growing to a scale that would make it viable. HP Helion's public cloud will close soon — in January 2016.

Rackspace Hosting became a competitor to Amazon Web Services at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, but could not stay afloat. After a series of unprofitable disappointing years, Rackspace recently announced that the company will be reoriented and will be engaged in support and services for the Amazon cloud.

In the meantime, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are slowly luring customers from old companies with their constantly declining prices and first-class features.

For example, Amazon recently launched a service that can be called the "Oracle Killer", as it is clearly designed to move Oracle databases to Amazon Web Services - and Oracle customers simply blew off the roof.

This trend is good for end users who get more flexible infrastructures for less money. Also great for Amazon and Google. After all, they do not need to, like other companies, defend a business based on earlier technologies. “These are all positive trends,” says Anderson.

“But if you represent Oracle ... then write is gone,” he adds.

According to Anderson, these players may well succeed in the short term, helping customers create the best data centers and applications thanks to their existing server infrastructure.

Just know that this will not last long: the fascination of hyper-scale in the software era has too much overwhelmed the world. “In the end, they all go to Amazon or Microsoft,” says Anderson.