The lockdown has indeed increased the demand for trustworthy and reliable online services, and the companies which offer those were found boasting even under the new pandemic circumstances. Some of them grew by over 50% back in 2019, but there were not many of those. But in the Cloud department, these kinds of numbers are not anything odd, as Google could already have gotten used to the booms for their products.
Google (which is now owned by Alphabet) has IPO’d on the Nasdaq in 2004 and a single share was then worth $85. Fast forward almost two decades, and the same share is now worth more than $2000. Of course, the Covid-19 crisis-affected Googles, as it did to everything else in the world, plunging the share price down to $1000, but it did not take the tech giants long to bounce back. As we can see, the share prices are now reaching a new high and do not seem to be stopping.
Structural changes in Google
This rise can’t be put down to Cloud’s Thomas Kurian entirely, but nobody can deny his valuable work for the company. Kurian joined Google Cloud in 2018 and took the role of Cloud Platform CEO. His actions and even the fact of recruiting him, are showing us the direction in which Google wants to be developed.
For those, who don’t know Kurian – before joining Alphabet, he was working for Oracle for over 20 years. There, he was responsible for refocusing Oracle’s Cloud to working closer with affiliates and developing better solutions for the whole enterprise.
Just a few months after he joined Google, we could witness a big rebranding, as Google Cloud Services Platform was replaced by Google Cloud Anthos. When 2020 came, the company started recording major consumer wins. Those successes include PayPal, HSBC, or Lloyds. But it’s not everything. Other banks are using Google services on a daily basis (Big Query or Apigee for example), and among them, we can find some really big fish: Monzo, Revolut, ABN Amro, Nationwide, Starling Bank, Unicredit, and Bank of Canada.
In his Disruption Banking piece, Andy Samu quotes Dan Torunian, the Vice President, Employee Technology & Experiences and Data Centers at PayPal. Torunian claims Google Cloud products to be of the highest quality in terms of velocity and security on the market. Google has successfully overtaken the competition and right now is a number one choice among big customers. Torunian also highlights Anthos’ compatibility with other tools, which is superior to the products other providers offer.
The strengths of Google Anthos Cloud
In the past couple of years, Google has proven itself as a leader in areas like AI and Machine Learning. The key to achieving that was the use of the TensorFlow platform and the constant development of services. In the past, Google’s products would be used by the banks as an addition, but this has changed drastically.
But the positive things that are being said about Google recently are not just opinions. JPMorgan’s CIO report has clearly stated that Microsoft is the biggest Cloud platform on the market, and the revenues seem to be confirming that. The company will most likely be still gaining a lot of the international marketplace.
What is the next step?
Some say that the giants of the tech field (like Google or Apple) may someday want to start offering the services currently offered by banks. According to some theories that Andy Samu mentions, one way of doing that may be purchasing some big Data Aggregators (following the example of VISA and Mastercard).
But Google, rather than invest in already established companies, recently tends to be trying to use their employees’ talents to produce some solutions themselves. The recent change of the mindset in the recruitment process could be of great use here.
Google Cloud has been valued by Deutsche Bank at $225 billion in October 2019 which could suggest, that Kurian’s actions have been revitalizing for his department. But there are some complications for Google which could well disturb its quick rise to glory.
The whole company has been put under the radar of the American officials, who are trying to resolve the issue of the technological monopoly of the biggest corporations. This means, that Sundar Pichai will have to work closely with Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg, and the authorities to work on the topic.
Andy Samu’s piece published on the Disruption Banking website focuses more on the topic, and we advise you to read the said article. Samu dwells deep into the possible scenarios and the future of the tech market, so it’s definitely worth checking out. To read it, simply enter the following link: https://disruptionbanking.com/2020/07/14/googles-anthos-continues-to-grow-market-share-why-are-banks-choosing-them/
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