Google Cloud bracing itself for solid acquisition round

Google Cloud bracing itself for solid acquisition round

Google Cloud under the leadership of new CEO Thomas Kurian would go on a takeover path. Insiders suspect that Kurian will use a solid acquisition policy to close the gap between the Google Cloud and competitors Microsoft Azure and AWS.

Thomas Kurian, ex-Oracle, takes over the role of Google Cloud-CEO from Diane Greene this month. Greene, although a big name in the world with a past as co-founder of VMware, failed to give Google’s cloud department the speed boost needed to catch up with Microsoft Azure or AWS during her time at the helm. According to Business Insider, analysts expect from Kurian another more aggressive approach, which should help to bring Google’s cloud offerings more into the sight of large enterprises.

Missed opportunities

Greene, as CEO, saw a number of opportunities pass her by. For example, she failed to get sufficient support for the acquisition of Red Hat, causing IBM to suddenly start running with the valuable Linux specialist. GitHub didn’t end up at Google either: it was Microsoft that ultimately paid enough money. These missed opportunities, combined with a lack of embracement of the Google Cloud by large companies, have resulted in Microsoft and Amazon leading the way in terms of market share.

Microsoft and Amazon remain the champions, with Google in third place when it comes to adoption, and only fifth place if we rank the cloud providers by turnover. In that case, according to its own figures, Google had to give way to IBM and Oracle in the past quarter.

Take-over experience

So Google needs to present itself in a credible way. According to analysts, it will look at both enterprise prospects and developers. For the latter, Google Cloud can strengthen its position by, for example, acquiring development software specialist Atlassian, a track that has been whispered in the corridors since last year. There is also speculation about Slack. For Enterprise customers, Google could fill its portfolio with the acquisition of ServiceNow, Business Insider speculates.

At least Kurian has experience with takeovers. At Oracle, the man profiled himself as the master of acquisitions. Given the man’s experience and the position of the Google Cloud in the market, there is little reason to think that he will be doing anything else as of this month. If the predictions are correct, we can therefore look forward to an exciting period for Google, during which the cloud offerings can grow very rapidly.

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This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.