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Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

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Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#71

Post by lern_too_spel »

lacker wrote: post #43

I was working at Google when AWS launched in 2006. The internal message was, we don't want to build a competitor. We have the technology to compete in this area, but it is fundamentally a low-margin business, whereas reinvesting in our core business is high-margin, so we should keep our infrastructure to ourselves. I wouldn't say the Google strategy was wrong per se - their stock has about 10x'd since then. But it's…

> The internal message was, we don't want to build a competitor.

Which is a fundamentally wrong analysis. Managed compute, network, and storage was going to happen whether or not Google got into the business, helping build Google's competitors. The only difference is that Amazon gets to collect the rent.

Just like Microsoft, which made bad decisions about the Internet but grew anyway so continued to reward its execs, Google completely fumbled in cloud but grew in other places and continued to overcompensate its execs.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#72

Post by tpmx »

rstupek wrote: post #32
tpmx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really just the UI that's better designed in GCP compared to AWS? I find the "better designed" thing seems to apply to most aspects.

I never have any luck figuring out how to do most things in GCP. The disjointed UIs, the documentation that is out of date, etc leave me just going back to AWS.

I had such a different experience when I was trying out the two platforms in parallel about fours years ago.

I came from a background where we'd created/ran all of these kinds of services in-house - simply because we started building our stuff before AWS/GCP existed in any meaningful way.

Anyway, after switching employers four years ago I had a greenfield project. I had zero investment in either platform. (I had joined a hardware company with a responsibility to build the software org. Side note: don't do that. I now understand why hardware-centric companies often can't do software - the CEO and other key people in sales/marketing simply don't understand the field at all. And that does matter. They won't even be able to understand if you're doing a good or bad job.)

My impressions were:

1) AWS had many more services than GCP

2) GCP services were generally designed better, more carefully thought out, etc. I felt that AWS APIs were designed without a very large amount of thought put into it, on an individual basis. I imagined Werner Vogels laying out edicts for a generalized service API design, and the individual teams all had to follow them, or else. And then the individual team built each service, without being able to change the general API design guidelines.

GCP services meanwhile seemed they like they were built by a smaller (and more talented) team with more team cohesion and communication. They traded a better design for a slower API/service output over time.

3) GCP was cheaper.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#73

Post by duxup »

Aperocky wrote: post #57
duxup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal story: I was working on a personal project where I wanted to try a "server-less" setup and I found Google's firebase authentication pretty handy and when I was looking into Firestore I found these handy videos on Youtube that Google made that I thought were pretty good introductions ... and they even updated the videos here and there so they weren't up to date. I felt like I understood how things worked pre…

Have you tried aws cli though? The whole thing is 100x easire in the command line and the documentation is 1000x better. There's even help pages you can get as you type in help. aws s3 help basically list a bunch of option to deal with s3 and you could read through and do exactly what you want. Not saying that console are useless but AFAIK all possible action through console can be a command that's (probably easier).

I'll check it out for sure.

The thing that bothered me was that each entity, like S3, domain hosting, everything else I did felt like an island.

Google's version felt like a "solution" in terms of things being related documentation wise and everything else.

I fully admit that given a different situation I could feel differently about Google.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#74

Post by [deleted] »

jon-wood wrote: post #58
whoisjuan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people keep saying that GCP UI/UX is good. Is it because of Firebase? Because granted, that's a very nice UX. But when you log in to the GCP console that thing is a fucking mess. Way more complicated than AWS, with a very subpar UX... And don't get me started with their documentation. What a piece of crap. It's like nobody thought that things of this nature require a clear hierarchy. It's just a blob of concepts…

My theory on this is that the web console isn’t actually the real UX for cloud providers - their API is the UX, and the web console is just a thing that they fling in at the end because everything is meant to have one

[deleted]

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#75

Post by ehsankia »

outside1234 wrote: post #56
sidcool wrote: post #48

How much are AWS and Azure worth?

More. A lot more. Azure is growing 20 points faster than GCP and from a much higher base too (and I will point out that it is in Microsoft's DNA to run this sort of business, unlike Google's).

How is it in Microsoft's DNA? They've always run the software, not the hardware. And for Azure, they just took all their Office customers and rebranded them as "Azure" customers, pumping their cloud numbers.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#76

Post by exacube »

lacker wrote: post #43

I was working at Google when AWS launched in 2006. The internal message was, we don't want to build a competitor. We have the technology to compete in this area, but it is fundamentally a low-margin business, whereas reinvesting in our core business is high-margin, so we should keep our infrastructure to ourselves. I wouldn't say the Google strategy was wrong per se - their stock has about 10x'd since then. But it's…

I feel they entered the business because they AWS showed the industry that it actually has pretty good margins.

However, I think the sentiment is probably true that selling VPS is low-margin over the long-term, but i think the margins come from the other bits: global economies of scale, good infrastructure management & practices, and providing their proven internal technologies (ML/AI, managed distributed services). Long-term, it seems like Google could come out the winner, but only if the other aspects of business are also done well (like sales). It seems like Google Cloud is picking up market share, but still far away from the 3 As (AWS, Azure, Alibaba)

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#77

Post by VikingCoder »

lacker wrote: post #43

I was working at Google when AWS launched in 2006. The internal message was, we don't want to build a competitor. We have the technology to compete in this area, but it is fundamentally a low-margin business, whereas reinvesting in our core business is high-margin, so we should keep our infrastructure to ourselves. I wouldn't say the Google strategy was wrong per se - their stock has about 10x'd since then. But it's…

I would say the Google strategy was wrong.

For every AWS API with significant adoption, Google should have implemented it. Make transitioning from AWS to GCE as simple as possible.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#78

Post by ignoramous »

pointytrees wrote: post #49
nexuist wrote: post #19

Not one mention of AWS. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I hadn't read this submarine article before. This just blew my mind. I've got so many ideas for promoting my side business now.

The content farms (and Wikipedia) are modern day version of the print publications.

Wouldn't it be ironic if pg was paid by a PR firm to write this piece? :D

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#79

Post by notyourday »

dwoozle wrote: post #66
manishsharan wrote: post #14

I do not want to sound like a nay sayer but which responsible enterprise CIO would put their stack on Google Cloud. They have a well deserved reputation for being unresponsive and opaque and downright irresponsible with their customers' infrastructure.

Enterprise CIOs get an entirely different experience from Google than you or I do. It’s like the difference between flying Concorde and flying as a stowaway in the nose wheel landing gear.

If that's the case I absolutely hate to know what is the experience that you have.

Google is absolutely clueless in sales to enterprise. The only thing that they throw at enterprise is CAF and everyone has CAF, it is just called something else.

Re: Google Cloud Worth $225B, Deutsche Bank Says

#80

Post by tonyedgecombe »

chillydawg wrote: post #68
frostyj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought margin on the cloud business is pretty high...

It is today, but it won't last. As automation tooling gets better the barriers to entry drop and competition kicks in and lowers prices. You can see it already: Aws are constantly lowering their prices. It's not just to be nice, they're competing hard.

I suppose it depends on the amount of lock-in they can achieve, if it's hard to move from one provider to another then that will keep margins higher.
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