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How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

businessinsider.com

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Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#11

Post by partiallypro »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #8
pm90 wrote: post #6

> When pointing out that Microsoft also offers a computer vision API, translation services, and APIs for Office 365, and that IBM also offers weather data and language services, and so on, Greene's got a comeback ready. "We have Chromebooks." Is she joking? I can't see how they make Google's cloud more attractive than others. Am I missing something here? Edit: I also wanted to add that there wasn't much concrete info…

Like she said - Chromebooks are very secure and easy to administer. They're also the ideal choice for running Google Apps in the enterprise.

> Google Apps in the enterprise

Google Apps for business are so bad though, I genuinely don't know why a company would pick it over 365. I could maybe see an SMB, but 365 is so robust in its offerings and just so much better all around.

My former employer was on 365, my new employer is on Google Apps. It's like I've been thrown back into the stone age. (Went from a large corporation to a start-up.)

I feel like an SMB is not likely to do volume purchases of Chromebooks, but a large corporation is...which Google just fails at in their offering in the office space, imo.

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#12

Post by harshal »

msravi wrote: post #9

I moved from AWS EC2 to Google Cloud a few days ago. Google really seems to have beaten AWS, at least in pricing and flexibilty. On AWS (Singapore region) a 2-vCPU, 7.5G RAM instance costs $143/month (not including IOPS and bandwidth costs), while a similar one on GC works out to about $56/month. That's a massive difference. In addition, GC allows me to customize cores and RAM flexibly to a point, which is important…

Yeah, I've seen multiple folks putting off reserved instance commitments and continuing to pay on-demand costs since they don't want to get locked in for a year. Its a serious commitment for smaller companies.

The No-Upfront reservation options that AWS last year helped narrow the difference quite a bit - but Google automatic discounts for sustained use are so much better and less complicated for users.

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#13

Post by mythz »

pm90 wrote: post #6

> When pointing out that Microsoft also offers a computer vision API, translation services, and APIs for Office 365, and that IBM also offers weather data and language services, and so on, Greene's got a comeback ready. "We have Chromebooks." Is she joking? I can't see how they make Google's cloud more attractive than others. Am I missing something here? Edit: I also wanted to add that there wasn't much concrete info…

For most people Chrome Book's have everything you need since most Apps are available as a Web App, that's super simple since it hides the complexity of managing a Desktop OS, has instant startup, is automatically synced + backed-up, secure by default which is essentially impervious to viruses and lets you get access to all your work from any PC by just signing in to your gmail account.

Because of this I've replaced my parents virus-ridden Windows laptop with a Chrome Book, it's the only Desktop OS I feel safe leaving them with knowing that all their work/photos are backed up, and they're not going to be able to accidentally install any viruses.

Whilst they still spend most of their time on their iPads (which really hits the sweet spot for content consumption) they use Chrome Book for their few remaining productivity tasks.

It's easy to forget how daunting full-featured Desktop OS's are for non-technical people, hiding its complexity and centering all UX around Web Apps ends up increasing people's confidence since there's very little they need to understand in order to do what they need to do, which is generally just clicking the App they want to run - with all the remedial tasks are managed for them behind the scenes.

If I wasn't a developer I would likely just take a Chrome OS when traveling and as each year progresses Chrome OS becomes more appealing with there being less and less you need a Desktop OS for. IMO it's already the best option for running a company, e.g. most companies would save a lot of IT Admin costs if they switched to Google Docs + Chrome Books.

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#14

Post by [deleted] »

harshal wrote: post #12
msravi wrote: post #9

I moved from AWS EC2 to Google Cloud a few days ago. Google really seems to have beaten AWS, at least in pricing and flexibilty. On AWS (Singapore region) a 2-vCPU, 7.5G RAM instance costs $143/month (not including IOPS and bandwidth costs), while a similar one on GC works out to about $56/month. That's a massive difference. In addition, GC allows me to customize cores and RAM flexibly to a point, which is important…

Yeah, I've seen multiple folks putting off reserved instance commitments and continuing to pay on-demand costs since they don't want to get locked in for a year. Its a serious commitment for smaller companies. The No-Upfront reservation options that AWS last year helped narrow the difference quite a bit - but Google automatic discounts for sustained use are so much better and less complicated for users.

[deleted]

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#16

Post by kyrra »

partiallypro wrote: post #11
bitmapbrother wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like she said - Chromebooks are very secure and easy to administer. They're also the ideal choice for running Google Apps in the enterprise.

> Google Apps in the enterprise Google Apps for business are so bad though, I genuinely don't know why a company would pick it over 365. I could maybe see an SMB, but 365 is so robust in its offerings and just so much better all around. My former employer was on 365, my new employer is on Google Apps. It's like I've been thrown back into the stone age. (Went from a large corporation to a start-up.) I feel like an SMB…

What issue do you have with Google apps that Microsoft does better at?

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#18

Post by boulos »

manigandham wrote: post #2

Interesting article. For anyone working with Google's Cloud Platform, there are definitely changes happening both in product and culture. As a company that's used all the major clouds and vendors out there (AWS, Azure, Softlayer, GCP, Internap), Google's has been the best so far with simple fast tech that works. They are clearly behind in features and breadth of offering but I agree with Diane's statements that the u…

Whom would you like to reach? (sounds like PMs and/or engineers). I'd consider it okay that you ping me and I route your issues to the relevant folks (there's always going to be routing), but for existing customers most questions naturally should go through support (either directly or via requests from Sales when a customer contacts them). Are you an active customer who is having trouble reaching us? Or a prospective customer who doesn't find the current channels working? (I ask to know what to work on, not to accuse).

Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.

Re: How Diane Greene Transformed Google's Cloud

#20

Post by mkj »

msravi wrote: post #9

I moved from AWS EC2 to Google Cloud a few days ago. Google really seems to have beaten AWS, at least in pricing and flexibilty. On AWS (Singapore region) a 2-vCPU, 7.5G RAM instance costs $143/month (not including IOPS and bandwidth costs), while a similar one on GC works out to about $56/month. That's a massive difference. In addition, GC allows me to customize cores and RAM flexibly to a point, which is important…

You can't buy a GC instance in Singapore though? Not quite a fair comparison in that case!
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