According to CRN and other sources, iCloud will soon be partially powered by the Google Cloud Platform by way of a deal that could also be used as leverage to cut its cloud costs with Amazon and Microsoft. Such a move is a big win for Google’s burgeoning cloud enterprise business.
Past reports claim that Apple’s iCloud is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Apple is reportedly paying Google between $400 million and $600 million for the deal. While Apple is not dropping Amazon entirely, they are presumably cutting back their dependence in order to save costs.
Google is third in the enterprise cloud business, but recently hired former VMWare co-founder Dianne Greene to lead and grow their cloud business. The company has big plans to make have their cloud business more profitable than their current ads business within five years.
Since her appointment, Greene has been “aggressively forming partnerships and swinging deals to bring in large enterprise customers,” the CRN report says. Google has at least one advantage compared to competitors due to its extensive fiber networks that connect their data centers and help lowers bandwidth costs. Just last month, Spotify also announced they will be using Google’s Cloud Platform to power their music backend.
According to Amir Efrati of The Information, it will take a year for iCloud to be fully running on the Google Cloud Platform and it is unlikely to be very profitable for Google, as it was not for Amazon. However, it is a symbolic victory that shows Google is making headway into the enterprise cloud business.
It’s true, @iCloud to be partially powered by @googlecloud. But will take a year & unlikely to be profitable. @awscloud lost $ from iCloud.
— Amir Efrati (@amir) March 16, 2016
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It was rumored just a few months ago Apple was building their own data networks to completely drop AWS in the next 2 years.
Link to rumor? I have not heard of this before, I know they were rumored to be building their own CDN, which is in use partially already around the world but that’s not the same as data centers. Apple doesn’t have the capacity that Google and Amazon already have, they’re far ahead of Apple by several years and they have better engineering skills at this than Apple does.
Apple will continue to rely on Azure, Google Drive, and AWS for many more years to come but they will start to use their own CDNs to caching content like iTunes, Apple Music, etc.
Here is a recent Forbes article http://fortune.com/2016/02/02/apple-data-center-move/ talking about their $3.9 Billion plan to build 3 new data centers so its not just for fun.
It makes me wonder a bit why I’m paying Apple for iCloud storage. I could just use Google Drive (which I do for a back-up anyway) and save myself the cost.
Yes, you could. If there’s no difference between G-Drive and iCloud for you, then don’t bother with iCloud at all.
People pay for the rest of iCloud services, not for storage. Google cannot backup my iOS devices automatically and effortless that iCloud can.
Add to that, Google Drive will not be private, and they will mine every single letter, number and picture you store in their Drive. I know some amateurs who use Android found that their photos are uploaded to their public G+ profile.
Do whatever you want.
Why should Apple not their own cloud services at this point and rely on others. . I dont get it?….
They’re complex and take time to set up to the capacity they need to be completely independent. It was much easier to rely on existing cloud services, at least until they’re able to set up their own. Dropbox used AWS, I believe, before they set up their own as well.
I’m sure Applre probably are working on going independent, but this would be to increase their leverage when negotiating costs in the meantime with Amazona and Microsoft.
Thanks
The sooner the better….if dropbox can have their own.. Apple should have had theirs years ago.
I think Silicon Valley summed this up pretty well. Building your own CDN network is like building/buying your own utility. You wouldn’t dig a well to get water unless you absolutely had to.
Thanks kush;).
if it mades sense for Microsoft, Amazon, and Drop box… Why wouldnt it make sense for Apple with such a huge eco system?
Update;
Seens apple is indeed in the process of building their own cloud infratructure …
Not sure about sources being correct about iCloud using Google Cloud Platform “soon,” I first noticed iCloud using Google Cloud Platform just after mid-February.
Little Snitch has been picking up connection attempts to *.google-apis.com from iCloud related processes like cloudd and iMessages since then. Before that, the only non-Apple domains they tried connecting with were amazonaws.com and windows.net.
The rumor is unfounded, even the source is skeptical of that.
Also, Apple has been building new data centers around the globe, so no.
Cloud services are a commodity and by design flexible to allow for transition between service providers. I assume it is a better business decision to contract for the service rather then own the infrastructure. I also highly suspect that the change has to do with Google vs. Amazon’s viewpoints regarding encryption and protection of client data and that it will likely be clearly defined in the contract for services.
I don’t get it – if you guys trust Apple in other areas of its business why would you not trust that Apple is making the right decision here, if the rumor is indeed true.
I think most of us trust Apple, but our minds can’t solve equations contains expressions like A+G.
Apple is already partially powered by Google’s Cloud Platform – otherwise Photos on OS X wouldn’t need to connect to content-storage-download.googleapis.com – see https://db.tt/uJ5l4WGV
There goes our privacy.