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Report: Apple building its own cloud infrastructure under ‘Project McQueen’ codename

iCloud Photo Library Photos Mac 16-9

It was reported yesterday that Apple was looking to move much of its iCloud business from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud Platform, but now it looks like that might be just the beginning of Apple’s long-term cloud plans. According to a report from VentureBeat, Apple has been working on something internally referred to as “Project McQueen” that could be a start to the company building its own data network and infrastructure…

The report says that, in an effort to reduce reliance on companies like Amazon and Google, Apple is working to build out its own infrastructure for cloud services. Doing this should pay for itself for Apple in three years, the report claims. As Apple continues to grow and its cloud products continue to go down, the cost of using third-party infrastructures, like Microsoft’s Azure, which powers iTunes and AWS, increases at a dramatic rate. Essentially, Apple would be removing the middle-man that is Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and building data infrastructure tailored perfectly to its own needs.

The report says that Apple’s motivation to build out its own infrastructure came after a conversation with Microsoft. Microsoft won’t be able to handle Apple’s continued growth in the cloud, meaning that Apple would have to aid Microsoft in growing Azure. So in the long run, it makes much more sense for Apple to work on building out its own networks rather than supporting Microsoft’s.

Furthermore, the report notes that Apple is not entirely happy with the services provided by its current providers, namely Amazon. Apple is reportedly frustrated that Amazon Web Services is not able to quickly load up images and videos to user devices.

Apple has also been buying up land in China and Hong Kong to build out data centers, according to the report, although specific details are unclear.

It’s an interesting idea for Apple to reduce its reliance on companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. It’s similar to the approach the company has taken with many of its software initiatives such as Maps, as well as hardware. For instance, Apple is reportedly working on developing thinner and brighter screens in a secret lab in Taiwan, looking to reduce reliance on LG, Samsung, and Sharp.

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Comments

  1. Love this idea, if Apple owns the infrastructure, that would most likely result in better upload/download speeds, and maybe more free/paid storage, not to mention better reliability.

  2. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    Further backs up rumors from last year of Apple dropping AWS in the next 2 years.

  3. Norton Chia (@nchia) - 8 years ago

    As in… “Steve”, and “The Great Escape”?

  4. PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

    What, if anything, are their current datacenters being used for?

    • rnc - 8 years ago

      They are being used, but they are not enough, and outside the US, they are still not turned on!

      • PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

        Well then, that’s a big turn-off!

      • Matisyahu Gardiner - 8 years ago

        I wouldn’t be surprised if the new datacenters are being used as a test bed for the in house built technology then once mature – there was a rumour a while back that they were working on the Mesos project ( http://mesos.apache.org ) which will form the basis and on top of that Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Elastic Search and I would’t be surprised that at around the time Mesos hits 1.0 that we’ll see Apple move over completely to their own custom setup.

  5. Timur Kashaev - 8 years ago

    Well, bad news for us then. Amazon and Microsoft have been in cloud business for years now. Apple own cloud service won’t be able to compete in terms of speed and reliability.

    • PhilBoogie - 8 years ago

      They won’t? Personally I’ve never seen the iTunes (Music) Store down. And I’ve been buying music there for 12 years now. YMMV

    • macnificentseven48 - 8 years ago

      You think just because some company has been in a business for years, no one can compete with them? Amazon came along and took on some pretty big names in the cloud business by introducing newer business models. That’s old-fashioned thinking that no established company can be beaten at their own game. I’m certain it happens all the time. You need to think positively if you expect to challenge competitors. The only thing Apple won’t be likely doing is trying to compete in terms of pricing alone. Apple never takes any shorts where profit margins are concerned. It’s been claimed Amazon built its own servers and maybe Apple will have to do the same. Using A10 processors as a start could be helpful. I don’t know much about servers but the cooler they run, the denser you can pack them.

  6. macnificentseven48 - 8 years ago

    Wall Street is going to say that it’s a bad idea for Apple to create its own services because it comes too late to the cloud party. It’s guaranteed Wall Street is going to claim nothing is going to hurt Amazon’s AWS even if it loses Apple’s revenue to Google or if Apple creates its own cloud services. Apple is the one company who can easily afford to create its own services but the haters out there are going to say Apple can’t do anything except sell iPhones. One would think if a company comes in later, they’ll be able to use the latest and fastest server hardware which I would think be to their advantage. What really puzzles me is how Apple supposedly has a lot of data centers and only uses them for its own personal use. Is Apple really that far behind in capacity to all the other companies who are able to lease out cloud services to others? Honestly, what was Apple thinking when the company is sitting on a mountain of cash to let all those other companies get a leg up on them in cloud capacity? It’s really sad for shareholders to think about how a company as wealthy as Apple lets a company like Amazon get such a huge jump in terms of server capacity. Meanwhile, Apple is spending (wasting?) billions of dollars on some circle-shaped company headquarters. It looks pretty but I sure hope it pays off in the long run. Apple absolutely needs to create its own cloud capacity and stop supporting other rival companies which Wall Street values far higher than Apple. It’s as though Apple is shooting itself in the foot by supporting their enemies.

  7. John Smith - 8 years ago

    If the service is going to be marketed as “iCloud” then yes, it does need to be run by Apple.

    One of the reasons I use Apple, not Android, is because I don’t want my personal data in the hands of Google. If Apple is going to place personal data they claimed is on iCloud actually on Google servers I’ll need to stop synching to iCloud/Google and move to other providers where cloud storage is needed. No way is all my contacts, calendar, and other personal data going to Google.

    The key thing to remember – amongst all the BS about the FBI wanting to snoop on my private information (they aren’t interested) – Google really does want to have my data.

    I think we need a clear – no weasel words – statement from Apple about the exact details of the privacy for our data on Google servers. Will it be encrypted? Can Google access it?

  8. Especially this time of year…I hear it’s beautiful. ;-)

  9. Scott (@ScooterComputer) - 8 years ago

    A computer engineering company engineering their own servers and server OS…sounds about right. And about time. But if Apple is not using OpenCompute, they’re foolish.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com