When Google first came on the scene in 1998 not even its founders could fathom what its future would be. Initially, Google was created in order to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. It seems that goal has been accomplished as Google is the most visited web URL in the world and it the go-to search engine for people around the globe. While the company may have put a check mark next to one goal, it sees another opportunity in cloud computing to further its global reach.
Currently, Google’s place in the technology landscape resides mainly with the information aspect. They develop the Android operating systems and own websites such as YouTube and Blogger. Of course, we’re all familiar with their search engine prowess and their main source of income – advertisements.
Google Ads are everywhere. We see them when we search on Google, we see them on websites around the web, and we see them in our email. You’d be hard pressed to find a place where there isn’t a Google generated advertisement. Companies worldwide advertise with Google which gives them technology company something to hang its hat on.
Despite this success, it seems the company is putting its hat back on and charging after a new venture that it believes will outpace its advertising business within the next five years. That venture is the cloud.
In a recent interview at the Structure conference in San Francisco Google’s Urs Holzle, the Senior VP of Technical Infrastructure, said, “I think the cloud will actually turn out to be a huge business because it’s a service business” when compared to its current big revenue generator of ads.
Google has stiff competition in the cloud space including Amazon and Microsoft, considered its major rivals aside from Apple, who have yet to join the cloud computing arena. As it moves into the next phase Google hopes to compete with lower prices than its competitors, a move sure to generate some tension and perhaps some competitive price jousting the next few years.
One area where Google hopes to surpass its rivals is by focusing on enterprises, an area it lacks face time. While some people in major business do rely on things products like Gmail, Google Drive, and Docs Google has yet to break through in the enterprise space with any significance outside of its Google Search Appliance – which is essentially a personalized version of Google Search for enterprises.
This cloud vision is a fairly new one for Google, so it’s difficult to tell how competitive they will be in the cloud space, but it seems they are confident it will be a success. That success will take some effort, however, as Amazon and Microsoft were the first to act and also boast double and quadruple the availability regions, respectively, over Google. If anything is predictable it’s the fact that the next few months and years will certainly be interesting. The cloud service industry continues to grow each and every day – that’s a good thing for everybody.