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Google Businesses Cloud Microsoft

Google Vows To Build Leading Cloud For Enterprise Windows, Swiping at Microsoft's Core Business (geekwire.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the fighting-back dept.
Google is going after a core part of Microsoft's cloud business, aiming to expand Google Cloud Platform's appeal to big companies that run the classic combination of Microsoft's Windows Server and SQL Server. From a report: Google Cloud Platform today announced pre-configured images for Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise and Windows Server Core on Google Compute Engine. The rollout includes support for high-availability, disaster-recovery and remote-management features used by big companies It's the latest move by Google Cloud Platform to catch up to Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. The search giant's cloud initiatives are led by Google senior vice president Diane Greene, co-founder and former CEO of VMware, who joined Google as an executive in late 2015 to bolster its efforts to win over big businesses. Greene is also a board member of Google's parent company Alphabet.
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Google Vows To Build Leading Cloud For Enterprise Windows, Swiping at Microsoft's Core Business More

Google Vows To Build Leading Cloud For Enterprise Windows, Swiping at Microsoft's Core Business

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  • cloud = bad (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why would anyone just hand that data over to state surveillance?

    • Better one state's surveillance, then badly self-administered servers where the data is available to every state's surveillance and any script-kiddies who come along.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Better one state's surveillance, then badly self-administered servers where the data is available to every state's surveillance and any script-kiddies who come along.

        There's a major difference in favor of the latter. People have to care about the data, have to reverse engineer the meta data, etc for non-cloud stuff. If it's in the cloud everything is standardized and easy to parse. If someone wants to destroy your company specifically with government backing because you did something illegal it will happen, but on the cloud you're also open to search just to see if there is something to charge you with.

    • Why would anyone just hand that data over to state surveillance?

      I have no idea, but the pennies on privacy, security and the exorbitant cost are going to drop heavily.

  • MS Could tweak their products for Azure (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Similar to how Amazon tweaks and close-sources MySQL on Aurora.

  • I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Thursday February 02, 2017 @10:49AM (#53787965)
    Isn't Azure basically an attempt to address the non-Windows hosted/cloud alternatives... how does Google buying Windows licenses pose a threat to Microsoft? Wouldn't it be a bigger threat/opportunity to assist companies move away from the Microsoft environment?

    It just reeks of "it ain't done till [google] don't run."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dave562 ( 969951 )

      Where did you get the impression that they are providing the licenses for free?

      The summary said that they have 'images' pre-configured for SQL Server and Windows. I read that as VMs that have been provisioned based on Microsoft Windows Server ISOs, or Windows Server + SQL. It does not say anything about licensing.

      From an Azure perspective, Microsoft lets EA customers double up on their licenses. You can use your internal license in Azure "for free" and just pay for compute.

      https://azure.microsoft.com/en. [microsoft.com]

    • > how does Google buying Windows licenses pose a threat to Microsoft?

      Windows licenses in bulk are what, about $10, once? Versus $2,400 / year for cloud hosting a medium sized instance.

      > Wouldn't it be a bigger threat/opportunity to assist companies move away from the Microsoft environment?

      It's much easier to sell Google database services, machine learning, DNS, and all the other non-Microsoft Google stuff to companies hosted in Google's cloud. To help companies transition away from Microsoft, Googl

    • The answer was basically in TFA:

      Microsoft gets to play both sides of the fence, because it also receives licensing fees for versions of Windows and SQL Server running in its rivals' clouds. But the Redmond company is increasingly relying on its own cloud revenue. Microsoft's commercial cloud run rate -- a projection of the annual revenue from products including Office 365 and Azure -- topped $14 billion in the company’s latest quarterly results, a new record.

      They're swiping at the cloud revenue, not the Windows/SQL product licensing revenue.

  • Swiping away by using their products? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, definitely need to get rid of a few editors.....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jaime2 ( 824950 )
      There is a subset of people that must run a Microsoft OS for whatever reason. These people need to run that OS on a computer. Today, many of them are paying Microsoft money (above the licensing fee) to run that OS on Azure. If they move to Google, Microsoft gets less revenue. That qualifies as "Google is going after a core part of Microsoft's cloud business".
  • Slowly and steadily we are moving away from the internet and into the Googlenet... Or so it feels anyway, and with each step a little bit of freedom seems to disappear as more and more tracking comes in.

  • One thing I don't know if Google could match is the legacy support. Microsoft wants everyone off on-premises Windows and onto Azure badly and is investing a lot of money to do it. I come from a very legacy industry with lots of ancient Windows software, and Microsoft's attitude has been "bring it in, refactor it and move it to cheaper PaaS stuff if/when you can." They're offering lots of help too -- as soon as they saw companies were OK with Office 365 permanent revenue lock-in, the strategy is now to get e

  • Google can compete with Microsoft in the Windows Enterprise space in one area - price. And even that will be difficult due to licensing costs. They will not be able to compete in capabilities or quality. Say what you want about Microsoft, they are pretty good technically when it comes to Windows. The most Google can do in this space is drive MS's prices down, but I hardly see how that's good for Google.

    Linux? Sure, I'd expect Google to eat Microsoft's lunch.

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