Google Cloud Eyes Major Expansion

With more than 1 billion end users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world

Technology major Google is looking for a major expansion in the region as it opens its first data centre in India next year, with plans to hire thrice the number of people, as well as reach out to start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Rick Harshman, managing director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Google Cloud, who is in India finalising details before the launch of the data centre, said they were hiring people for multiple roles, including technical and sales.

“We announced a few months ago that we were bringing the organisation under the Google Cloud umbrella. We are making substantial cloud infrastructure investments in India, which will be in Mumbai. It is one thing to provide cloud services and offer local infrastructure, what our customers are really seeking is a greater level of attention. The other thing we are invested in is hiring more people. We will hire an additional 1,000 people globally, including in India,” he said.

The internet search major is hoping to give competition to global players such as Microsoft and Amazon, which have a presence in the country and allow local customers to host their applications on the internet.

Google controls a majority market share in India in search, email and on smartphones through its Android operating system. It also has a significant presence in offering enterprise applications such as mail and other services but lags behind Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud business.

Amazon has three data centres, one each in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, with over 75,000 customers, including taxi-hailing app Ola, Tata Motors and television network NDTV, on its cloud. Last year, Microsoft set up three data centres in India offering its Azure cloud to local customers.

According to Gartner, the public cloud services market in India is projected to grow 30.4 per cent in 2016 to $1.26 billion. This advantage allows Indian enterprises to adopt cutting-edge technology with greater ease and serve as a model for digital transformation globally.

With more than 1 billion end users, Google Cloud has gained significant traction in India and across the world. Customers on the Google Cloud platform include Snap Inc (formerly SnapChat), Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go), Telus International and Evernote.

In India, too, the company has seen momentum with thousands of customers, Wipro, Ashok Leyland, Smartshift by Mahindra & Mahindra, Dainik Bhaskar Group and INshorts.com building on the Google Cloud platform. Some of the other major clients include Jindal Steel, Hero MotoCorp, Snapdeal and Flipkart.

In addition to its focus on Indian customers, Google is continuing to build its partner ecosystem to support the move to the cloud. The company is trying to expand more in smaller towns and is trying to bring in more SMEs into the fold.

Reference - http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/google-cloud-eyes-major-expansion-116121500065_1.html