When Thomas Kurian landed the CEO role at Google Cloud, he was welcomed as a respected technologist and executive bringing 22 years of needed enterprise chops from Oracle for a substantial undertaking: turning an underdog into a heavyweight contender for meeting major corporations cloud needs.
At the Google Cloud Next conference in early 2019, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai introduced Kurian, then about three months into his tenure, as a tremendous leader with a powerful vision who already had met with hundreds of customers and partners and whose personal productivity is testing the limits of G Suite and Calendar.
Before leaving Oracle, Kurian had been its product development president since 2008, reporting directly to founder and chairman Larry Ellison. In early 2018, it was Kurian who unveiled Oracles ambitious plan to build up its own cloud capabilities with a massive buildout of its data center footprint and services using machine learning to automate routine operations. Growing differences with Ellison over Oracles cloud direction including Kurians desire for a multicloud approach reportedly led to his departure.
Three and a half years into his tenure at Google Cloud, the bet on multicloud has been a key foundation of Kurians reshaping of the No. 3 cloud provider around infrastructure, data analytics, cybersecurity, collaboration and communication, and industry-specific products and services. In his view, the next decade of cloud computing is likely to look very different from the first 16 years of its evolution.
Google Clouds success can be seen in its financial results revenue has increased some 230% since Kurian joined Google Cloud, and is on track to exceed $23 billion this year and customer adoption from the likes of Deutsche Bank, Ford Motor Company, Mayo Clinic, Univision and the U.S. Air Force, Kurian told Protocol in a recent interview.
There's always more to be done at all times, but clearly we've had a lot of success these last three years, he said.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Read our other story on the evolution of Google Cloud here.
Is Google Cloud enterprise-ready or is it still a work in progress, and what are the indicators of that?
It's the customers who indicate that. And given the number of very large customers from stock exchanges, to large telecommunications companies, to big banks, to hospital systems, manufacturing companies that are running large systems and using our cloud to run the core parts of their business I would say, yes, the answer is yes. We've really, really transformed, and most of our largest customers have been super successful in adopting and using cloud through the work they've done with us. So we definitely feel very confident we're doing that.
Where do we have more work to do? Obviously, we have a certain size and scale. We want to expand to more countries, to more industries, and there's a lot of work going on to expand both our data center footprint around the world, as well as our sales, distribution and service organizations around the world. So there is more expansion that we want to do globally to bring our technology to more countries, more places.
Where do you see the most opportunity to expand globally?
We've expanded significantly overseas in Europe. We are growing very quickly in Latin America. We're expanding in Asia to many more markets. We are quite strong in the big markets, which is India, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, greater China and ASEAN, but there's always more places in Asia, whether that's in Thailand, Vietnam, etc. Similarly, in Latin America, there's a lot of potential for growth. There's more that we want to grow in Japan. We are expanding our presence in Africa. So there's a lot more other geographies that we want to go to in addition to expanding in our core geos, whether that's the U.K., France, Germany, United States, Canada, etc.
How market-share-oriented is Alphabet when it comes to Google Cloud? And if not market share, what is it using as a metric for success?
Despite the growth that people have seen so far, the market is very early in its transition, and so we see the market potential in three different ways. First of all, many customers have not yet transitioned [to the cloud]. Secondly if you look at surveys from Gartner, IDC, the analyst firms, they will tell you that almost all large customers plan to use multiple cloud providers, which was not true a few years ago.
So when you look at the market, whether that's new solutions like analytics or cybersecurity, these are all new segments that are opening up for cloud. We think the market is in its early stages. So we're investing for growth and investing in terms of both our investments in capital, data centers and our global network, in products and in go to market. And we're doing it in a thoughtful way. I think you've seen our financial results, and both the growth and the improvement of profitability because of the growth speaks for itself.
Sundar Pichai and Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat have said that Alphabet is in it for the long term with Google Cloud. Is there any timeframe under which you have to meet a certain measure?
No, when we say long term, five to 10 years. If you look at the cloud market data today versus five years ago, it's vastly different.
Five years ago, if you talked to customers, there was a lot of anxiety that if you go to the cloud, will it be less secure, as an example. Today, cybersecurity tools that we offer in our cloud are being used by large retailers, large financial institutions, large telecommunications companies. A market segment that did not exist in the cloud five years ago cybersecurity tools is now being created in the cloud as a new opportunity for people to go after. So in our view, we are looking at growing our business, diversifying the product portfolio in a thoughtful way. And how the market looks in five years or 10 years will be quite different than the way it looks like today.
Is Google Cloud's embrace of multicloud a big selling point, and what are customers with a multicloud strategy coming to Google Cloud for?
If you went back and looked at our announcement in April 2019, where we said we are going to enable multicloud and what we mean by that is you can build applications that can co-exist across clouds, you can do analytics that spans data that sits across clouds, you can use our machine-learning tools to access information and get better insights from data and inference across clouds that was not possible before then. It's become almost a norm now in large companies, where they want to use the best of the best from different cloud providers.
People come to us for our infrastructure. Many people come to us for our analytics and large-scale data processing and databases. Others come to us to protect their systems with cybersecurity. It really depends on the customer and which part of the journey they're on. Infrastructure, analytics and data, and cybersecurity are typically the top three that people choose us for.
Do you see any holes in your technology or areas that you want to beef up?
We're always looking at where we have areas for potential growth and where the market itself is changing, and then either we organically build new capability or we acquire.
As an example, if you look at our rationale for Mandiant [a detection-and-response cybersecurity company that Google Cloud announced it was buying for $5.4 billion in March]. There are two primary challenges we see that organizations have with cybersecurity.
First of all, very few organizations, if any, know whether they're truly secure. Almost every cyber breach for most organizations are black swan events. They thought they were secure prior to it; after it occurred, they realized they were not secure.
Infrastructure, analytics and data, and cybersecurity are typically the top three that people choose us for.
The second is people want a platform. Today, the challenge most organizations have is they don't have the capability to understand what occurred to cause a cyber breach, [to] analyze which of your systems have been compromised, [to] remediate that through workflow and then test whether you, in fact, are secure. We have two of the pieces. We have the analyze whether you're being compromised [piece] and then remediate the breach through workflow.
We realized in the front, we needed really great threat detection and response capability. Mandiant brought us that. And then at the end, after you've gone through all of this, you have to actually be able to test whether you are secure from the breach if it were to happen again. Mandiant also has the capability to do that. So recognizing that combination would complement what we had, we chose in this particular instance to say, Let's acquire a company that will complement our products and fill it out.
We wanted customers to have a very high-end, relational database transaction-processing platform based on an open platform. [In May,] we announced a new product at [Google] I/O called AlloyDB. It's designed to allow people who are running large-scale transaction systems, but to use a much [more] open platform database to process large-scale transactions with great performance and reliability.
The second thing we saw was people really love our BigQuery [serverless data warehouse] technology. They like the fact not only is it a very scalable, analytical platform, but it also allows them to access and analyze data across clouds, meaning you could have your data in another cloud, and you can still analyze that using BigQuery. You don't have to move all your data to our cloud for the purpose of analysis. We then felt that you would want the equivalent capability for something called a data lake, and so we announced a product called BigLake, an evolution of our analytic platform to support the notion of a large-scale, very scalable data lake that can run across data stored in multiple environments.
So these are all areas where we look at the needs of customers, we look at what we can help them solve. In the case of Mandiant, we chose to acquire because we think they're an exceptional team, and they have exceptional technology and exceptional expertise. In the case of these other two products we've chosen to build out ourselves.
Which vertical industries are getting the most traction for Google Cloud?
We have traction in many industries. If you look at financial services, we have a lot of traction with our data platform, analytics, machine-learning tools and AI. If you look at retail, we are a huge part of the ecommerce infrastructure as well as the retail store transformations that are going on. If you look at health care, many pharmaceutical and biomedical companies use our platforms for molecular modeling, genetic analysis of all kinds, etc. what's sometimes called high-performance computing. If you look at public-sector agencies, many state governments, for example, in the United States are using us to transform health and human services, transformation of their mobility and transportation departments, etc.
Telecommunications is another one. We have a lot of capability in media, given our expertise in streaming and other things from the work we've done historically with YouTube and how we're bringing that to customers. A lot of people during the pandemic spent a lot of time gaming, and our platforms have helped some of the largest games in the world.
What's behind Google Clouds recent reorganization of its sales and customer success teams? Was the previous setup built in 2019 under former global sales president Rob Enslin not working? And when you reorganize these teams again, are you worried about the signal its sending the customers?
We've talked to many customers and partners. I've talked to over 100 of them in the last week alone, and over 200 in the last two weeks. Customers' and partners' feedback are the rationale for [why] the changes make sense.
When we started in 2019, we were largely focused on acquiring customers. When I say acquiring customers [I mean] winning new customers, because we had very few. As we have ramped our business, increasingly, the sales organization that's working with the customer to identify new opportunities in the account, and the customer success team that ensures the projects are going well, and the team that works with partners like Accenture, Deloitte, etc., all need to come together, because the salesperson is identifying the opportunity, the customer success coordinates the engagement with the partners, etc. So they all need to work in one coherent fashion, right at the point of client engagement.
We integrated the two organizations in each geography so that they could be much more effective working with customers. The feedback internally from our own teams and the feedback from customers and partners has been, we really like what you've done. So we're very confident in the quality of our leadership, in what the changes have been, how the changes have been made. And we remain committed to making sure that this change will help our customers grow and mature their relationships with us.
What are top customer complaints or challenges that you're trying to address?
Our biggest challenge right now is expanding globally. There's demand in many countries where we don't have presence. There are lots of places we'd like to take it to, and building an organization to support those expansions is obviously something that we spend a lot of time on.
Are any of your enterprise customers asking for more help to cut costs given inflationary pressures, and what are you doing to address that?
We have a team from our professional services that works with customers and our technical account managers to do what's called cost optimization. Cost optimization is, you're running your workload on our cloud, you have a certain pattern of usage, [and] we observe the pattern of usage after you've got to some steady state and then we teach you how best to modify the way in which you're using the cloud to be much more efficient in cost. We have tools that show people how to do that. It's a methodology that we offer, and it's also something we make available through our services teams to support customers. It's something that's been ongoing for the last two years, and certainly for an ongoing basis.
Throughout the pandemic as well as now, [customers have] come to us saying, Hey, I'd like to have you help me reduce my costs in this area or that area, and we work with them. It's part of getting them to be efficient in using our cloud. We think the more effective we can be at teaching them how to optimize, the more they will use in the future.
Read the original post:
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian: Cloud computing is on the brink of a new era - Protocol
- ISSCC 2024: Inside AMD's Zen 4cThe Area-Optimized Cloud Computing Core - News - All About Circuits - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Huawei Cloud: Infrastructure of Choice for AI with 10 Systematic Innovations Unveiled in MWC Barcelona 2024 - Morningstar - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Cybersecurity fears drive a return to on-premise infrastructure from cloud computing - Help Net Security - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Cybersecurity fears drive a return to on-premise infrastructure from cloud computing - HealthLeaders Media - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Huawei Cloud: Infrastructure of Choice for AI with 10 Systematic Innovations Unveiled in MWC Barcelona 2024 - PR Newswire - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- South Korea Boosts Cloud Computing with $91.5 Million Investment to Propel AI and SaaS Innovation - BNN Breaking - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Science ministry to invest 121.9 bln won in cloud computing industry - Yonhap News Agency - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Why Microsoft is spending billions on AI and cloud computing in Europe - ITPro - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Universities Migrate Research Computing to the Cloud - EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12 - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Top Cloud Computing Skills You Need to Know in 2024 - Simplilearn - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Best Cloud Tools of 2024: Unleash Maximum Productivity - Simplilearn - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Real-time Analytics News for the Week Ending February 24 - RTInsights - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Synadia Raises $25 Million Series B Funding to Meet Massive Demand for Multi-cloud and Edge Computing Driven by AI - PR Newswire - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- CEO Outlook 2024: 20 Solution Providers On The Cloud Moment - CRN - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- DigitalOcean beats expectations under the helm of new CEO Paddy Srinivasan - SiliconANGLE News - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Securing Kubernetes in a Cloud Native World - The New Stack - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- How to Build a Chat Interface using Gradio & Vultr Cloud GPU SitePoint - SitePoint - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Microsoft to invest $2.1bn in cloud and AI infrastructure in Spain - DatacenterDynamics - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Stannah looks to enterprise cloud software to lift IT systems - ComputerWeekly.com - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- AI vendor finds opportunity amid AI computing problem - TechTarget - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Nvidia Worth More Than Alphabet, Amazon - 24/7 Wall St. - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- VIB spearheads banking innovation with deployment of Temenos Banking Platform on AWS cloud - VnExpress International - February 26th, 2024 [February 26th, 2024]
- Why These 7 Cloud Computing Stocks Should be on Your Radar in 2024 - InvestorPlace - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- IBM to Buy Software AG's Cloud Computing and AI Assets for $2.3BN - Investopedia - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification in One Week - Medium - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- 3 Cloud Computing Stocks You'll Regret Not Buying Soon: December Edition - InvestorPlace - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Cloud Computing Market Predicted to Hit US$1,266.4 Billion by 2028 - TechiExpert.com - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- AWS chief Adam Selipsky talks generative AI, Amazon's investment in Anthropic and cloud cost-cutting - Omaha World-Herald - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Mangata Networks and Microsoft Partner on AI-enabled Edge Cloud Connectivity - AiThority - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Democratization of Cloud vs AI: A Case Study - Medium - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- 5 Drivers Behind the Growth of the GPU Cloud Computing Market - Visual Capitalist - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Report: AWS to reorganize sales teams amid slowing cloud revenue growth - SiliconANGLE News - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Don't underestimate vulnerabilities in the cloud. Adopt hybrid to stay protected - Best Enterprise Data Storage Software ... - Solutions Review - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Innovations, disruptions, transformations expected in 2024 Intelligent CIO Middle East - Intelligent CIO - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- IBM makes $2B+ deal to add more AI, cloud computing solutions - WRAL TechWire - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- How to Select the Right Industry Cloud for Your Business - How to Select the Right Industry Cloud for Your Business - InformationWeek - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Cloud Computing Market Set to Reach US$1,266.4 Billion by 2028 - Analytics Insight - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Cisco to Acquire Isovalent to Secure Cloud-Native Networking - Channel E2E - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Cloud-native applications: Unlocking the potential of scalability and agility - ETCIO - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Year-in-Review: 2023 Was a Turning Point for Microservices - The New Stack - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- If AI is the future, radiology needs to look to the cloud - Health Imaging - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- AI and Cloud: The Proving Ground for Regulatory Resilience in 2024 - Finextra - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Cognata Redefines Sensor Suite Selection Processes Through Digital Twin-based Sensor Simulation and Cloud ... - PR Newswire - December 25th, 2023 [December 25th, 2023]
- Microsoft and Amazon the focus of cloud computing probe - Proactive Investors USA - October 5th, 2023 [October 5th, 2023]
- Cloud cover benefits of being on the cloud - The Actuary - October 5th, 2023 [October 5th, 2023]
- AI, Cloud Computing among 36 FREE Online Courses Now ... - Philippine Information Agency - October 5th, 2023 [October 5th, 2023]
- Amazon Web Services isn't trying to win the A.I. race. It wants to own the road. - Slate - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- The Machines Behind the FinOps Curtain: Operationalizing Your Strategy with AI - ITPro Today - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Strengthening security in a multi-SaaS cloud environment - TechCrunch - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Oracle Introduces First Cloud Native Secure Cloud Computing ... - PR Newswire - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- The Power of Cloud Computing: How it's Transforming Database ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- From Headquarters to the Edge: The Future of Cloud in the Defense ... - MeriTalk - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- 6 Cloud Computing Companies Navigating the Digital Storm in 2023 - GovCon Wire - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Government Cloud Computing Market Size, Status and Business ... - University City Review - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Cloud Computing in Education Market Forecast, 2023-2029: The ... - University City Review - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Global Cloud Computing IaaS In Life Science Market Size and ... - University City Review - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- What is the Relationship Between IoT and Cloud Computing? - Analytics Insight - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- How Data Center Interconnect Platforms are Shaping the Future of ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Revolutionizing IoT: How 5G and Cloud Computing are ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- The Future of Cloud Computing: Database as a Service (DBaaS) in ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Overcoming Data Privacy Challenges in the European Cloud ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- The Future of Telemedicine in India: How Cloud Computing is ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud: What is the Difference? - Analytics Insight - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- A New Era of Data Management: The Growing Importance of Global ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- From niche to necessity: GFT's vision for cloud computing ... - Business Leader - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- ERP, Cloud Computing And Digital Transformation - CIOReview - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- UMD Smith Offers New January Start Date for MS in Information ... - Newswise - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- The Impact of Global White-box Server Adoption on Cloud ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Global Application Transformation: Unlocking the Potential of Cloud ... - Fagen wasanni - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- BFSI Sector and Asia-Pacific Spearhead the Rapid Growth of Cloud ... - GlobeNewswire - July 31st, 2023 [July 31st, 2023]
- Amazon is investing another $7.8B in Ohio-based cloud computing operations, state leaders say - The Associated Press - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- Google Cloud Platform: Everything you need to know about Google's suite of cloud computing services - Android Police - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- Amazon is investing another $7.8B in Ohio-based cloud computing ... - Wilmington News Journal, OH - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- 11 Key Executives in the Cloud Computing Industry in 2023 - Executive Gov - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- 10 Multi-Cloud Myths Debunked: Exposing the Facts - TechFunnel - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- How MTN and Microsoft will transform business operations with ... - TheCable - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- The Power of Cloud Computing: Revolutionizing Business and IT ... - Tech Critter - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- FTC Collecting Comments On Cloud Computing, CCIA Offers Input ... - Computer and Communications Industry Association - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- How AI and Cloud Computing Are Revolutionizing the Insurance ... - Techopedia - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]
- HPE Discover final analysis: Navigating the cloud computing ... - SiliconANGLE News - June 28th, 2023 [June 28th, 2023]