By Surya Suresh
The software industry is currently witnessing a massive battle for market share in the growing cloud computing industry. Several IT companies have made plans to move away from private data centres and shift operations to the cloud. Industry experts also believe that the cloud computing market will grow rapidly over the next few years, owing to the evolution of memory and CPU intensive technologies such as deep learning and blockchain. Google, believing in the same future for the cloud computing industry has also strategised to gain the maximum market share in this competitive industry.
Googles partnership plans
In an attempt to combat the inroads made by competitors such as Amazon and Microsoft, Google has decided to step up its partnership programme with Independent Software Vendors. These partnerships are focused on expanding the companys user base in the Asia Pacific and India, in particular. In an interview with Economic Times, Rick Harshman, managing director, Google Cloud Platform, APAC said, In India alone, there are 3,500 ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and they are not only trying to solve problems for Indian businesses but also trying to go global. Partnership programmes have been utilised by software companies in the past as well, owing to the local reach offered by domestic partners.
Backed by diverse services
While the partnership strategy is aimed at increasing market share, the company is also focusing on diversifying, expanding and improving its gamut of services in order to cater to the multifarious needs of customers. The company has set up more than six data centres in the APAC region alone and this includes one in Mumbai. There has also been a renewed focus on differentiating the services offered and this could benefit the company, given the intense competition in the sector. Google is focusing on providing servers to run machine learning and AI algorithms and this has certainly caught the fancy of programmers world over.
Google and the Indian market?
Owing to its early mover advantage, Amazon continues to dominate the Indian cloud computing sector and is certainly the most famous name associated with cloud services. Google is attempting to make par with Amazons dominance by fulfilling the requirements of India small and medium-sized businesses. Several of these companies work on emerging technology and require cloud services, not as a replacement for existing hardware but as a platform to develop products.
The company is also working on improving its market awareness by leveraging the large amounts of data that it possesses. Google has also entered into partnerships with third party applications like Salesforce to collect more data. This partnership strategy will certainly enable the company to reach out to SMEs in nooks and corners of the Indian market; a cloud services market that is projected to grow at a CAGR of 22%.
Future of the Cloud
Industry experts believe that the first cloud computing revolution is complete, with 60% of the global 2000 companies having already adopted cloud-computing infrastructure. The growth in the industry will come through the adoption of the cloud by individuals and SMEs. These stakeholders require technology to address unique needs, thus making diversification an important strategy for cloud service providers. As companies are being made to move vital operations and mission-critical data to the cloud, security becomes another important issue. Hence, market dominance of the cloud industry appears to depend on the ability of cloud service providers to ensure high performance, scalability and security.