I see a lot of people on here wondering why Google would just now add support to PHP. I don't work for Google, but I used to work at Microsoft. When Azure launc

I see a lot of people on here wondering why Google would just now add support to PHP. I don't work for Google, but I used to work at Microsoft. When Azure launched it tried to "leapfrog" the other cloud vendors by offering only Platform as a Service (PaaS). It offered superior benefits like high-reliability and geographic redundancy. Though, that was met with limited adoption. Why? Well, one of the major reasons was because it would require developers to write new apps or rewrite their existing apps from the ground up very specific to how Azure wants you to write it. This takes a lot of effort from a very specialized skillset, thus very expensive. Also, since you're writing it for the Azure platform, should you decide to switch to another provider, you'd have to rewrite your app again! What if you had a bad experience with customer support or billing? You'd basically be stuck. So Azure has since started offering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) options, which has far lower switching costs. This has had much greater traction and builds an ongoing relationship with customers. The customers become more familiar with the Azure platform and support offerings. If they feel good about their IaaS experience, they will consider learning some of the premium features and leverage them when they update their existing apps. I think adding PHP is a strategically smart move by Google to get more people using their cloud platform. Soon there will be new billing relationships signed off by thousands of businesses to host basic apps and WordPress installations. Assuming customers have positive initial experiences with Google's PHP hosting, it will become easier for Google to upsell those businesses to add premium cloud features for more advanced applications over the coming years.