Was Google late to the party for once? According to Nasdaq, this may have been the case, for once at least, when it comes to cloud computing.
Google has dominated a number of online services. Their search engine is, many people would say, simply unparalleled — in a market where billions upon billions of searches are being conducted each year, Google has about 70% of the market on any given day. That?s an incredible audience and potential market. Google also boasts YouTube, Android, and Gmail. But one thing Google has been slow to get into is cloud communications.
Predictions for the Future
In November 2015, Google?s Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure, Urs Holzle, was quoting as saying, ?My goal is for us to talk about Google as a cloud company in 2020 because our revenue is bigger than the ads revenue and it?s a realistic possibility.?
Is it, though? Of course, there?s certainly a huge market for cloud services — this much is true. Cloud advertising, for example, is expected to be worth $90.3 billion by the end of 2016, and the cloud computing market (globally) as a whole is expected to be worth $270 billion by 2020 — that?s only four years away.
Cloud Consultants See the Uphill Battle
The problem here is that Google is essentially playing a game of catch up. They may have a ton of resources, but they?ve been out of the game while cloud brokerage services for other companies have spent the last few years not only entering the market, but perfecting what they have to offer. Google?s efforts at this point, to many who would potentially invest in their services, may feel like ?too little, too late.?
On the other hand, cloud consultants for Nasdaq point out something relevant: only a small fraction of the world?s data is currently stored in the cloud, with many applications and websites alike not yet caught up. This means that, with the right marketing, Google could potentially tap into a section of the market not yet reached as small and large companies alike continue to catch up to the technology other businesses have already invested in.
What do cloud consultants say about the future of Google?s cloud services, then? No one is 100% sure how things will turn on. Google may prove to be a competitor to today?s better known cloud services brokers. On the other hand, they may try to enter this market only to realize some things are better left to the experts. Google isn?t infallible, after all — just ask anyone who thought that Google Plus would eventually and inevitably replace Facebook for social media.
