Archivo de la categoría: Google

Broadband, Google, News & Analysis, wireless

Google Fiber adds Miami and Boston to roster

GoogleGoogle has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Webpass to boost its Google Fiber business unit and add to its wireless broadband ambitions, reports Telecoms.com.

The acquisition builds on an area of innovation which the Google Fiber team have been investigating. Webpass has paired its fiber network with wireless technology, an idea which the Google team have been testing in Kansas City earlier this year. Back in April, Google was given approval to test its 3.5 GHz wireless broadband capabilities using antennas on light poles and various other structures, in and around the Kansas City area. The FCC commented the innovation could create a new flavour of wifi or even an LTE Unlicensed band.

Webpass was founded in 2003, and claims to have customers in the “tens of thousands”, though these are primarily apartment blocks and business users, two demographics which are likely to be of interest to Google. Webpass has focused its sights on business users in recent months, providing services in the range of 100 megabits per second to one gigabit per second, and also operates in two markets Google Fiber which has no exposure; Miami and Boston.

“Google Fiber’s resources will enable Webpass to grow faster and reach many more customers than we could as a standalone company,” said Charles Barr, President at Webpass. “I’m very much looking forward to this next chapter for Webpass, and let me take this opportunity to once again say thank you to all of our loyal customers. We are thrilled to be on this journey together.”

While the deal is still subject to the customary approval process from regulators, it is the first acquisition for the Google Fiber business, indicating the company’s intensions in the arena. The Google Fiber business has been growing at a healthy rate in the last 18 months, though the addition of Webpass will give the company traction in five significant markets in the US, including major cities such as San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Chicago, and Boston.

AWS, Google, Hotels.com, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Public Cloud

The rest of the world is catching up with AWS – Hotels.com CIO

Speaking at Cloud and DevOps World, Hotels.com CIO Theirry Bedos outlined some of the cloud industry’s growing trends, including the erosion of AWS’ dominant position, reports Telecoms.com.

The growth of the cloud industry has been well documented over recent months, as numerous studies and surveys dominate web searches claiming adoption rates are accelerating. While it is still debatable if cloud has penetrated the mainstream market, according to Bedos, what is clear is the industry is heading that direction; there’s no turning around now.

“The world is becoming fluffier and fluffier,” said Bedos. “There are countless studies and surveys on the internet which show the cloud is becoming more popular and widely used, which is only good for the industry. AWS is still the number one player in the market, but the rest are starting to catch up now. This is one of the most interesting trends which we are seeing.”

As with the acceptance and adoption of any new technology, there are bound to be a number of underlying trends. For Bedos, one of the more interesting of those trends is the acceptance there is another way aside from AWS.

While AWS is still considered the leader in the industry, controlling notably more market share than other cloud providers, the lead is slimming. Microsoft and Google have both been prominent over the course of the last 18 months in bolstering their cloud capabilities, and this has not gone unnoticed by the industry. Although cloud adoption rates are increasing, AWS is getting a smaller and smaller slice of the pie as customers are taking alternatives into consideration.

This should not be considered a major surprise, as this is a trend which has been witnessed with the growth of other technology sub-sectors. Back in the early 2000s, Netscape’s web browser was once dominant in terms of usage share, but lost most of that share to Internet Explorer during the so-called first ‘Browser War’. Bedos highlighted Netscape was first to market, and enjoyed that position for some time until the proposition became normalized and competition grew. This is the same trend AWS is undertaking currently.

“I’m not saying AWS will disappear in the same way Netscape did, but we’re going to see other players chip away at their market share,” said Bedos. That said, the increased competition and drive to acquire new customers could see the balance of power shift towards the consumer.

On top of the increased competition, Bedos also commented on the USPs of the individual cloud providers themselves. Buyers generally buy for a specific reason and these USPs in the cloud provider’s offerings is starting to fund the trend of multi-cloud environments in the enterprise business. Why choose when you can have the best of multiple cloud worlds? For Bedos, this is driving the trend of interoperability. Before too long moving workloads and data sets between different cloud environments will be a simple task, as vendors appreciate a lock-in situation will negatively impact their own business. Co-operation could potentially be the new battle ground.

AWS will continue; they are continuing to innovate and have the backing of one of the worlds’ most recognizable brands. However, increased competition, as well as the tendency of buyers to prefer a multi-cloud proposition, will see a more even playing field, and the bargaining power of these deals potentially leaning towards the consumer.

AI, Artificial intelligence, Google, Machine learning, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Twitter

Machine learning front and centre of R&D for Microsoft and Google

Dear Future Im Ready, message on paper, smart phone and coffee on tableMicrosoft and Google have announced plans to expand their machine learning capabilities, through acquisition and new research offices respectively, reports Telecoms.com.

Building on the ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ proposition put forward by CEO Satya Nadella at Build 2016, the Microsoft team has announced plans to acquire Wand Labs. The purchase will add weight to the ‘Conversation-as-a-Platform’ strategy, as well as supporting innovation ambitions for Bing intelligence.

“Wand Labs’ technology and talent will strengthen our position in the emerging era of conversational intelligence, where we bring together the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence,” said David Ku, Corporate Vice President of the Information Platform Group on the company’s official blog. “It builds on and extends the power of the Bing, Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

More specifically, Wand Labs adds expertise in semantic ontologies, services mapping, third-party developer integration and conversational interfaces, to the Microsoft engineering team. The ambition of the overarching project is to make the customers experience more seamless by harnessing human language in an artificial environment.

Microsoft’s move into the world of artificial intelligence and machine learning has not been a smooth ride to date, though this has not seemed to hinder investment. Back in March, the company’s AI inspired Twitter account Tay went into melt-down mode, though the team pushed forward, updating its Cortana Intelligence Suite and releasing its Skype Bot Platform. Nadella has repeatedly highlighted artificial intelligence and machine learning is the future for the company, stating at Build 2016:

“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence. At Microsoft, we call this Conversation-as-a-Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

Google’s efforts in the machine learning world have also been pushed forward this week, as the team announced dedicated machine learning research based in the Zurich offices, on its blog. The team will focus on three areas specifically, machine intelligence, natural language processing & understanding, as well as machine perception.

Like Microsoft, Google has prioritized artificial intelligence and machine learning, though both companies will be playing catch-up with the likes of IBM and AWS, whose AI propositions have been in the market for some time. Back in April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company’s earnings call “overall, I do think in the long run, I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile first to an AI first world,” outlining the ambitions of the team.

Google itself already has a number of machine learning capabilities incorporated in its product portfolio, those these could be considered as relatively rudimentary. Translate, Photo Search and SmartReply for Inbox already contains aspects of machine learning, though the team are targeting more complex and accurate competencies.

Elsewhere, Twitter has announced on their blog advertisers will now be able to utilize emoji keyword targeting for Twitter Ads. This new feature uses emoji activity as a signal of a person’s mood or mind set, allowing advertisers to more effectively communicate marketing messages minimizing the potential for backlash of disgruntled twitter users. Although the blog does not state the use of machine learning competencies, it does leave the opportunity for future innovation in the area.

AWS, Google, hybrid cloud, IBM, Microsoft, News & Analysis

AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM pull away from pack in race for cloud market share

racing horses starting a raceNew findings from Synergy Research highlight the cloud market is still dominated by AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM, as the pack is seemingly struggling to gain ground in the race for market share.

AWS still leads the way in the segment, accounting for roughly 31% of the global market share, with IBM, Google and IBM collectively accounting for the next 22%. The next 20 players in the market, companies such as HPE, VMWare and Alibaba for example, account for a collective 27%. AWS year-on-year growth was estimated at 57% while Google and Microsoft both demonstrated more than 100% growth over the same period.

“This is a market that is so big and is growing so rapidly that companies can be growing by 10-30% per year and might feel good about themselves and yet they’d still be losing market share,” said John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group. “The big question for them is whether or not they are building a sustainable and profitable business. This can be done by focusing on specific regions or specific services, but the bulk of the market demands huge scale, a broad footprint, very deep pockets and a long-term corporate focus.”

Worryingly for the rest of the pack outside of the top four, the gap would appear to be growing as AWS, Google, Microsoft and IBM are pulling further ahead. The 20 companies outside the top four averaged year-on-year growth of approximately 41%, though Synergy claim the cloud segment grew more than 50% over the course of Q1.

The team estimate the quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues, which include IaaS, PaaS and private & hybrid cloud, has now surpassed the $7 billion milestone, with the US accounting for roughly 50% of the worldwide market share.

 

Growth

AWS, containers, Enterprise IT, Google, Microsoft, News & Analysis

What did BCN readers say last week?

What do you think written on whiteboardOver the past week, we took the opportunity to gauge the opinion of the BCN readership on industry trends and issues, through a number of polls. Here’s what we found out:

Microsoft is unlikely to be successful? 58% say no

For the most part, Microsoft’s lawsuit has been keep out of the headlines. This is unlikely to indicate the whole episode is unimportant to the industry, but maybe more due to the fact the story has been overshadowed by the ongoing saga between Apple and the FBI.

In any case, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against the US government, citing the first and fourth amendment with regard to government agencies using secrecy orders to access its customer’s emails or records. From Microsoft’s perspective, the company should have the right to tell customers the government is accessing their data, aside from in exceptional circumstances. The government disagrees.

While the tech giant has taken it upon itself to fight the good fight alone, BCN readers are a bit more sceptical on the success of the venture. Only 42% believe Microsoft’s lawsuit will be successful, though this is a question which is unlikely to be answered for a substantial period of time. Any decision will be appealed by the despondent party, dragging out any decisions or changes in government practise.

When will containers hit mainstream? 21% say right now

Containers are one of the hottest trends in 2016. We recently ran a buzzword-buster article not only discussing what containers actually are, but more importantly what the value to enterprise actually is. Since then there have been numerous announcement focused around the technology, from Microsoft to Red Hat to Juniper, indicating containers are starting to get some traction.

But how much of the press is a smoke-screen and how much is reality? In short, it’s looking quite positive.

Cloud took a healthy amount of time to be trusted and understood by the mainstream market, and maybe it is this longer adoption time which has accelerated containers as a technology. 21% of BCN readers highlighted that they are currently using the technology in a meaningful way in their business currently, 50% believe it will be in the next 1-2 years, and only 29% said longer than three years.

Who is the best innovator in the cloud industry? 75% still say AWS

Last week AWS launched a host of new features at the AWS Chicago Summit, ranging from new security features, tools which simplify the movement of data around an organizations cloud, platforms for automatically deploying and running apps on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, testing features, as well as authentication services.

Although this is the first major update from AWS in some time, Google and Microsoft have been feverishly bolstering their offerings over the last six months ranging from new hires, to new features and new acquisitions. Industry insiders have even told us at BCN that AWS could be seen to be sitting back to much, offering Google and Microsoft the opportunity to improve their own standing, and make up ground on the number one player in the cloud space.

BCN readers do not agree however. 75% believe AWS is still by far and away the industry leader, 10% believe AWS, Google and Microsoft are all on par, while 15% believe innovation has faltered at AWS, and the rest of the industry is catching up fast.

Is DevOps mainstream? 48% say no

DevOps is another of the buzzwords which has floated over from 2015 into 2016. However, as buzzwords go, few have captured the attention of the industry in the same manner. Such is the prominence of DevOps, it seems although every company is now a DevOps specialist, DevOps expert or DevOps orientated organization.

In fact, this isn’t only vendors who have adopted DevOps, but pretty much every enterprise decision maker has DevOps on the lips also. The main concern here is the definition of DevOps can be seen as lost on certain organizations. Yes, there are practitioners of the methodology, though there are also a host of people who have taken the phrase without fully understanding the implications and the means to implement such an idea.

And it would appear BCN readers also agree with that assumption. Despite DevOps being one of the most used words in the cloud industry, only 52% of our readers believe DevOps has hit the mainstream market.

AI, Google, News & Analysis

Google backs AI over VR

Googlers having funGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai has backed growth of artificial intelligence over virtual reality as the next era of computing.

Speaking on the company’s earnings call, where Google reported year-on-year revenue growth of 23% to $20.3 billion for Q1, Pichai highlighted investments in machine learning projects and artificial intelligence will continue, though the team is not discounting virtual reality completely.

“And overall, I do think in the long run, I think we will evolve in computing from a mobile first to an AI first world,” said Pichai. “And I do think we are at the forefront of development. So we don’t view it as adapting to it as much as pushing hard and getting there. And so that’s the core of what we do, and we’ll continue to do that.”

While the company has been making progress in the world of AI in recent months, Google launched its Cloud Machine Learning product last month, it has seemingly been playing catch up with the likes of Watson and AWS whose offerings have been in the public eye for a substantially longer period of time. Although it could be seen to be playing catch-up, Pichai believes increased investments and prioritization of AI could be the market differentiator for Google.

“We do think we are competent across a range of work flows,” said Pichai. “And areas where we view we will be uniquely capable over time is, because of our machine learning capabilities, helping enterprises really understand their data, understand how best they can do what their core competency is and really revolutionize around that. It’s early days and it’s a long-term investment. But bringing our machine learning APIs over time through cloud to our enterprise customers is going be a huge source of differentiation for us.”

The company has in recent months been aggressively building its position in the public cloud market, and from what Pichai has said on the earnings call, it would appear this charge will continue. Pichai claims Google has been doing cloud, internally at least, since its inception, though the company has now matured its processes to ensure it is able to serve customers in an effective manner. Pichai also believes the acceptance of AI in enterprise, and the introduction of Diane Greene, positions Google in a bold stance to improve its share of the cloud computing segment.

“Last December, we have unified our cloud businesses under one leader (Diane Greene), so we can innovate faster and better serve our customers,” said Pichai. “This decision is already paying off. Enterprises are starting to see the power of combining Google Cloud Platform with our suite of business applications, all of which are infused with our machine learning services.”

Google, News & Analysis, Outage, Public Cloud

Google cloud team launches damage control mission

Close up of an astronaut in outer space, planet Mars in the background. Elements of the image are furnished by NASAGoogle will offer all customers who were affected by the Google Compute Engine outage with service credits, in what would appear to be a damage control exercise as the company looks to gain ground on AWS and Microsoft Azure in the public cloud market segment.

On Monday, 11 April, Google Compute Engine instances in all regions lost external connectivity for a total of 18 minutes. The outage has been blamed on two separate bugs, which separately would not have caused any major problems, though the combined result was a service outage. Although the outage has seemingly caused embarrassment for the company, it did not impact other more visible, consumer services such as Google Maps or Gmail.

“We recognize the severity of this outage, and we apologize to all of our customers for allowing it to occur,” said Benjamin Treynor Sloss, VP of Engineering at Google, in a statement on the company’s blog. “As of this writing, the root cause of the outage is fully understood and GCE is not at risk of a recurrence. Additionally, our engineering teams will be working over the next several weeks on a broad array of prevention, detection and mitigation systems intended to add additional defence in depth to our existing production safeguards.

“We take all outages seriously, but we are particularly concerned with outages which affect multiple zones simultaneously because it is difficult for our customers to mitigate the effect of such outages. It is our hope that, by being transparent and providing considerable detail, we both help you to build more reliable services and we demonstrate our ongoing commitment to offering you a reliable Google Cloud platform.”

While the outage would not appear to have caused any major damage for the company, competitors in the space may secretly be pleased with the level of publicity the incident has received. Google has been ramping up efforts in recent months to bolster its cloud computing capabilities to tackle the public cloud market segment with hires of industry hard-hitters, for instance Diane Greene, rumoured acquisitions, as well as announcing plans to open 12 new data centres by the end of 2017.

The company currently sits in third place in the public cloud market segment, behind AWS and Microsoft Azure, though has been demonstrating healthy growth in recent months prior to the outage.

Google, Machine learning, News & Analysis

Google plays catch-up with Cloud Machine Learning

AI-Artificial-Intelligence-Machine-Learning-Cognitive-ComputingGoogle has entered into the machine learning market with the alpha release of Cloud Machine Learning.

Built on top of the company’s open source machine learning system TensorFlow, the offering will allow customers to build custom algorithms the make predictions for their business, aiding decision making.

“At Google, researchers collaborate closely with product teams, applying the latest advances in machine learning to existing products and services – such as speech recognition in the Google app, search in Google Photos and the Smart Reply feature in Inbox by Gmail,” said Slaven Bilac, Software Engineer at Google Research. “At GCP NEXT 2016, we announced the alpha release of Cloud Machine Learning, a framework for building and training custom models to be used in intelligent applications.”

The system is already used in a number of Google’s current offerings, though it is later to market than its competitors. AWS launched its machine learning in April last year, while IBM’s Watson has been making noise in the industry for years.

Although later to market, Google has highlighted that it will allow customers to export their TensorFlow models to use in other settings, including their own on premise data centres. Other offerings operate in vendor lock-in situation, meaning their customers have to operate the machine-learning models they’ve built in the cloud through an API. Industry insiders have told BCN that avoiding vendor lock-in situations would be seen as a priority within their organization, which could provide Google with an edge in the machine-learning market segment.

Cloud Machine Learning’s launch builds on the growing trend towards advanced data analytics and the use of data to refine automated decision making capabilities. A recent survey from Cloud World Forum showed that 85% of respondents believe data analytics is the biggest game changer for marketing campaigns in the last five years, while 82% said that data would define the way in which they interact with customers.

The company is still behind Microsoft and AWS in the public cloud space, though recent moves are showing Google’s intent to close the gap. At GCP NEXT 2016, Google’s cloud chief Diane Greene told the audience that machine learning and security will form the back bone of her new sales strategy. “If your customer is embracing machine learning, it’d be prudent for you to embrace it too,” said Greene.

data centre, Datacentre, Google, News & Analysis, Public Cloud

Googles continues public cloud charge with 12 new data centres

GoogleGoogle has continued its expansion plans in the public cloud sector after announcing it will open 12 new data centres by the end of 2017.

In recent weeks, Google has been expanding its footprint in the cloud space with rumoured acquisitions, hires of industry big-hitters and blue-chip client wins, however its new announcement adds weight to the moves. With two new data centres to open in Oregon and Tokyo by the end of 2016, and a further ten by the end of 2017, Google is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft and AWS for market share in the public cloud segment.

“We’re opening these new regions to help Cloud Platform customers deploy services and applications nearer to their own customers, for lower latency and greater responsiveness,” said Varun Sakalkar, Product Manager at Google. “With these new regions, even more applications become candidates to run on Cloud Platform, and get the benefits of Google-level scale and industry leading price/performance.”

Google currently operates in four cloud regions and the new data centres will give the company a presence in 15. AWS and Microsoft have built a market-share lead over Google thanks in part to the fact that they operate in 12 and 22 regions respectively, with Microsoft planning to open a further five.

Recent findings from Synergy Research Group show AWS is still the clear leader in the cloud space at market share of 31%, with Microsoft accounting for 9% and Google controlling 4%. Owing to its private and hybrid cloud offerings, IBM accounts for 7% of the global market according to Synergy.

Growth at AWS was measured at 63%, whereas Microsoft and Google report 124% and 108% respectively. Industry insiders have told BCN that Microsoft and Google have been making moves to improve their offering, with talent and company acquisitions. Greater proactivity in the market from the two challengers could explain the difference in growth figures over the last quarter.

Alongside the new data centres, Google’s cloud business leader Diane Greene has announced a change to the way the company operates its sales and marketing divisions. According to Bloomberg Business, Greene told employees that Google will be going on a substantial recruitment drive, while also changing the way it sells its services, focusing more on customer interaction and feedback. This practice would not be seen as unusual for its competitors, however Google’s model has been so far built on the idea of customer self-service. The cloud sales team on the west coast has already doubled in size to fifty, with the team planning on widening this recruitment drive.

While Google’s intentions have been made clear over recent months, there are still some who remain unconvinced. 451 Group Lead Analyst Carl Brooks believes the company is still not at the same level as its competitors, needing to add more enterprise compatibility, compliance, and security features. “They are probably the most advanced cloud operation on the planet. It also doesn’t matter,” he said.

Google, News & Analysis, Public Cloud, SME

Google said to be on cloud shopping spree

Googlers having funGoogle is rumoured to be planning the acquisition of a number of businesses to bolster its cloud computing platform and suite of workplace applications.

According to Re/code, the tech giant has amassed a short-list of various start-ups and niche service providers including automated app services start-up Metavine, e-commerce public company Shopify, and payroll and health benefits services business Namely. Re/code sources have stressed that the approaches are preliminary, and none of the companies involved have commented on the rumours.

The moves seem to address two challenges currently facing the Google team. Firstly, there is a notable gap of ‘middle range’ customers for Google Apps. The company traditionally does well with small and large companies, but has struggled with the lucrative market in between. Last year, Google attempted to lure the middle market onto Google Apps for Work by offering the service for free while seeing out their current enterprise agreement, and then $25 per user after that point.

Secondly, the acquisitions would enable Google to move its internal systems to its cloud platform, potentially creating a more solid offering to challenge AWS and Microsoft Azure.

The reports back-up recent moves in the market which indicated Google’s intentions of increasing its stake in the cloud market. While AWS and Microsoft have been firmly planted as the number one and number two players in the public and private cloud space, Google is closing the gap, making a number of company and talent acquisitions to improve its proposition.

Aside from the recent hire of VMware founder Diane Greene to lead its cloud business, last year SVP of Technical Infrastructure Urs Hölzle highlighted that Google cloud platform revenues could surpass Google’s advertising revenue within five years.

“The goal is for us to talk about Google as a cloud company by 2020,” said Hölzle in October. “Our cloud growth rate is probably industry-leading…and we have lots of enterprise customers, happy enterprise customers.”

The rumours shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Hölzle also said that there would be a number of announcements which would “remove any doubt” from Google’s future plans.

While the approaches are rumours, GCP Next 2016, the company’s cloud developer user conference taking place this week, may provide some clarity to Google’s aspirations.