Google Cloud’s annual Subsequent occasion is going on in San Francisco subsequent week (and we’ll be on the bottom to cowl all the bulletins), however forward of the occasion, Google Cloud right this moment put a highlight on its accomplice ecosystem. It’s no secret that in its early days, Google’s cloud efforts had been considerably hindered by its inexperience in working with massive enterprises and the consultancies, skilled service corporations and companions they depend on. However when Thomas Kurian took on the CEO position in 2019, he set Google Cloud on a path to construct out that experience and an open accomplice ecosystem, which is now beginning to repay.
In a weblog put up right this moment, Google places its give attention to its AI and information companies companions like Confluent, DataRobot, MongoDB, Redis, Datastax, Elastic and Neo4j. Given the present hype round generative AI, that’s maybe no shock, however that is additionally the story of Google Cloud studying promote to enterprises and embracing extra conventional methods of promoting to them.
“We’ve got assist from the highest all the way in which to the underside — top-down from Thomas [Kurian] — on us creating probably the most open ecosystem we are able to,” Stephen Orban, the VP for Migrations, Unbiased Software program Distributors (ISVs), and Market at Google Cloud, advised me. “We construct our services on open requirements and embrace that from a product growth perspective, however we’re additionally ensuring we’ve probably the most open ecosystem […] the place we’ve ISVs and companions who each complement and lengthen our platform that we lean into fairly closely — and we view it as a strategic lever for our development.” When the ISVs develop, Google Cloud grows, in any case.
One muscle Google Cloud needed to construct over time is co-selling with its companions. In its early days, Google hoped that its expertise would basically promote itself, however today, the Google Cloud market is stocked with options from a whole lot of distributors, lots of which have shut relationships with Google (and the opposite hyperclouds) to market and promote their merchandise collectively.
Alan Chhabra, MongoDB’s government VP for worldwide companions and worldwide gross sales, famous that he thinks this modification is partially as a consequence of Kurian’s expertise at Oracle. “I used to be very excited as a result of I knew of Thomas’s historical past and expertise and accomplishments at Oracle. He was an engineering-first CEO however actually understood go-to-market. I take into account him similar to MongoDB CEO Dev Ittycheria. They know cross engineering with gross sales higher than most CEOs on the earth and I felt like Google wanted that on the time — as a result of it’s a stability.”
He defined that MongoDB rapidly established an in depth enterprise and engineering partnership with Google after Kurian took over. “We had a cellphone name and in that decision, Thomas defined that he wished to be the cloud that embraced open supply,” Chhabra mentioned.
It’s value noting that on the time, many open-source companies, together with MongoDB, had been wrestling with react to the likes of AWS releasing their very own companies primarily based on present open supply initiatives. It was at Kurian’s first Cloud Subsequent in 2019 that the corporate introduced that it might deeply combine merchandise from open-source firms like Confluent, DataStax, Elastic, InfluxData, MongoDB, Neo4j and Redis Labs — an inventory that appears fairly just like the companions the corporate is highlighting right this moment. Whereas Google didn’t spell it out on the time, that announcement was very a lot meant to attract a line between how Google Cloud and AWS had been going to work with open-source firms.
That strategy is now paying off for Google and its companions. “I keep in mind that second as a result of they had been there for the open-source neighborhood,” Chhabra mentioned. “They had been there for database and information firms like MongoDB and we keep in mind that and loyalty is vital to us. Since then, we’ve had phenomenal development between the 2 firms, particularly in verticals like retail. And we’ve received a dedication with Google and so they’ve dedicated objects to us.”
Knowledge is clearly the lifeblood of AI and regardless that Microsoft, thanks in massive components to its OpenAI partnership, is commonly seen as a frontrunner, many enterprises particularly use Google Cloud due to its AI companies like Vertex AI.
DataRobot CEO Debanjan Saha, who beforehand labored at AWS and Google, echoed what I heard from different companions as nicely: “if you happen to take a look at Google, for a very long time, they had been a client firm. The cloud might be the primary enterprise enterprise for them. And there’s somewhat little bit of studying that Google goes by way of. I believe they made an enormous quantity of progress within the final three or 4 years, particularly after Thomas Kurian took cost of the cloud enterprise. However nonetheless, comparatively talking, Microsoft, for instance, has been doing that longer than Google has, however I believe Google is studying very quick and the hole is closing.”
He famous areas the place Google may nonetheless enhance, together with the processes for co-marketing, co-selling, and market execution. “I do know that they’re working actually arduous on these,” Saha added.
Google’s Orban famous that the corporate usually appears to be like for companions who complement its companies. “That’s all about recruiting the ISV, ensuring they’re well-architected on Google Cloud with their resolution. Most ISVs, I’d say, lean in the direction of the SaaS mannequin now. They’re constructing their SaaS in such a method that it’s optimized for going to market with us. It’s about constructing the joint go-to-market collectively.”
As of late, these discussions additionally usually develop into about generative AI and the way Google will help enterprises leverage it. “GenAI has in a single day develop into a CEO- and boardroom-level dialog, the place cloud migrations generally are historically a CIO-level agenda,” Orban mentioned. “So in a single day, we’ve seen the demand from clients from very excessive up within the group. And we’re in a really lucky place the place lots of clients have come to belief and acknowledge Google as a model for synthetic intelligence.”
He famous that whereas Google has its personal foundational fashions, it nonetheless companions with the likes of Anthropic and Cohere. “Our technique is sort of specific: to construct probably the most open and progressive AI ecosystem on Earth,” he mentioned. “If our clients need to work with a selected accomplice, we need to be there to assist them and make it possible for they’ve a fantastic expertise on Google Cloud.”
