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From a UX perspective I find GCP much better than Azure but I fear that Alphabet will get bored of GCP given how far behind AWS and Azure they are.

minsc__and__boo 5y ago
If anything, Alphabet will likely spin GCP off of Google and make it its own dedicated company under the Alphabet umbrella. Alphabet needs multiple revenue streams and Cloud is positioned to be a major one.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  Here in 10 years maybe, the coupling between Google and it's infrastructure is like the head over body. Cutting cloud out surely delights TK, but before that the other SVPs will make sure TK got to rebuild it's engineering workforce and leave the exiting on themselves. In other words, Google is totally fine to retain the core of GCP. I might be wrong though
  - minsc__and__boo 5y ago
    I think the bigger issue would be taking the tech developed by Google and porting it over to GCP as a separate company (i.e. like they did kubernetes, bigquery, etc.) Alphabet Cloud and Google could work out some easy service agreement. Worked for Coca Cola and Coca Cola Bottling company.
    - justicezyx 5y ago
      You cannot build a Borg over kuernets, like you cannot build baremetal VM over VM. One can get the abstraction. But the cost would be totally messed up, and some of the performance characteristics would be so bad that the whole ads business ecosystem probably would collapse. GCP can build on top of Google tech, but not the reverse.
suresk 5y ago
Understandable to be wary of anything Google offers given their track record, but GCP is way too big and strategic for them to get bored of it.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Are they really that into it though? Azure is clearly do or die for Microsoft. Amazon pioneered AWS so lots of true believers there. GCP (ie, customer facing piece) feels a bit like a me too thing no? Glad it exists to keep AWS a bit honest (Azure / Microsoft really has a different sales channel to me).
  - suresk 5y ago
    > GCP (ie, customer facing piece) feels a bit like a me too thing no? "Me-too" or not, it is approaching $20b/year in revenue, growing quickly, and about to the point where it could start throwing off a lot of cash. I don't know how you quantify how "into it" they are, but seems like they are at least a little bit?
    - slownews45 5y ago
      Historically their (internal) culture was a monorepo, keep things clean, refactor, OK to break things because you could also refactor the entire code / API. Sounds kind of awesome! The problem is externally this is total madness. You CANNOT just keep on breaking everything on your customers. I was very early on both AWS and GCP. There is literally no comparison between these companies in terms of cloud offerings and how much has been blown up, neglected etc on the GCP side vs AWS. This cloud stuff is going to be less "cool" than google is used to - it's going to need them to carry around some older API's (ie, technical debt) etc etc so they don't constantly screw their customers. So it just doesn't feel like its in their DNA. AWS is all about making customer happy -> that work well. Google is about cool tech and doing the new things -> that doesn't work well. Maybe spin GCP off with some old industry folks mixed into the new hotness?
  - codyogden 5y ago
    Yes. They are very ‘into it.’ I’ve spoken with plenty of execs at Google Cloud to know that it is a serious piece of Google’s business, that they are committed to GCP, and customers have no reason to doubt its longevity. This coming from someone who is known as Google’s biggest critic. (@killedbygoogle)
runnerup 5y ago
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/google-cloud-offers-a-model-for-fixing-googles-product-killing-reputation/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/google-cloud-offers-...
dodobirdlord 5y ago
Google Cloud's 2021 revenue is larger than YouTube's 2020 revenue. Nobody gets bored of $18B ARR that's growing at 50%/year. I've been seeing rehashes of this comment for ~2 years at this point, and it just gets more unreasonable with each quarter. When will this tired meme die?
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  > When will this tired meme die? Well there was a well-sourced story about a year and a half ago that Google leaders had a huge debate about whether to kill their cloud business, and gave it until 2023 to pass either AWS or Azure. So, maybe the tired meme will die in 2024? Note that there have not been similar reports about Amazon or Microsoft. Leaders at those companies don’t seem to be agonizing over whether to stay in the cloud business.

minsc__and__boo 5y ago

If anything, Alphabet will likely spin GCP off of Google and make it its own dedicated company under the Alphabet umbrella. Alphabet needs multiple revenue streams and Cloud is positioned to be a major one.

justicezyx 5y ago
Here in 10 years maybe, the coupling between Google and it's infrastructure is like the head over body. Cutting cloud out surely delights TK, but before that the other SVPs will make sure TK got to rebuild it's engineering workforce and leave the exiting on themselves. In other words, Google is totally fine to retain the core of GCP. I might be wrong though
- minsc__and__boo 5y ago
  I think the bigger issue would be taking the tech developed by Google and porting it over to GCP as a separate company (i.e. like they did kubernetes, bigquery, etc.) Alphabet Cloud and Google could work out some easy service agreement. Worked for Coca Cola and Coca Cola Bottling company.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    You cannot build a Borg over kuernets, like you cannot build baremetal VM over VM. One can get the abstraction. But the cost would be totally messed up, and some of the performance characteristics would be so bad that the whole ads business ecosystem probably would collapse. GCP can build on top of Google tech, but not the reverse.

suresk 5y ago

Understandable to be wary of anything Google offers given their track record, but GCP is way too big and strategic for them to get bored of it.

slownews45 5y ago
Are they really that into it though? Azure is clearly do or die for Microsoft. Amazon pioneered AWS so lots of true believers there. GCP (ie, customer facing piece) feels a bit like a me too thing no? Glad it exists to keep AWS a bit honest (Azure / Microsoft really has a different sales channel to me).
- suresk 5y ago
  > GCP (ie, customer facing piece) feels a bit like a me too thing no? "Me-too" or not, it is approaching $20b/year in revenue, growing quickly, and about to the point where it could start throwing off a lot of cash. I don't know how you quantify how "into it" they are, but seems like they are at least a little bit?
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Historically their (internal) culture was a monorepo, keep things clean, refactor, OK to break things because you could also refactor the entire code / API. Sounds kind of awesome! The problem is externally this is total madness. You CANNOT just keep on breaking everything on your customers. I was very early on both AWS and GCP. There is literally no comparison between these companies in terms of cloud offerings and how much has been blown up, neglected etc on the GCP side vs AWS. This cloud stuff is going to be less "cool" than google is used to - it's going to need them to carry around some older API's (ie, technical debt) etc etc so they don't constantly screw their customers. So it just doesn't feel like its in their DNA. AWS is all about making customer happy -> that work well. Google is about cool tech and doing the new things -> that doesn't work well. Maybe spin GCP off with some old industry folks mixed into the new hotness?
- codyogden 5y ago
  Yes. They are very ‘into it.’ I’ve spoken with plenty of execs at Google Cloud to know that it is a serious piece of Google’s business, that they are committed to GCP, and customers have no reason to doubt its longevity. This coming from someone who is known as Google’s biggest critic. (@killedbygoogle)

runnerup 5y ago

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/google-cloud-offers-a-model-for-fixing-googles-product-killing-reputation/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/google-cloud-offers-...

dodobirdlord 5y ago

Google Cloud's 2021 revenue is larger than YouTube's 2020 revenue. Nobody gets bored of $18B ARR that's growing at 50%/year. I've been seeing rehashes of this comment for ~2 years at this point, and it just gets more unreasonable with each quarter. When will this tired meme die?

snowwrestler 5y ago
> When will this tired meme die? Well there was a well-sourced story about a year and a half ago that Google leaders had a huge debate about whether to kill their cloud business, and gave it until 2023 to pass either AWS or Azure. So, maybe the tired meme will die in 2024? Note that there have not been similar reports about Amazon or Microsoft. Leaders at those companies don’t seem to be agonizing over whether to stay in the cloud business.