Google's expansion plan branded 'shot across the bow' to AWS and Microsoft

Google plans to launch 10 new regions by the end of next year

Google plans to launch 10 new "regions" by the end of next year, in a move described as "a shot across the bow" to its rivals AWS and Microsoft Azure by Cloud Industry Forum and Eurocloud man Ian Moyse.

In a blog post last night, Google announced that two more cloud "regions" - datacentre hubs - are on the way in the US and Japan and will be operational by the end of 2016. Another eight are planned globally by the end of next year, it added.

"As always, each region has multiple availability zones, so that we can offer high-availability computing to our customers in each locale," Google's product manager Varun Sakalkar said on the Google blog.

"We are opening these new regions to help cloud platform customers deploy services and applications nearer to their own customers, for lower latency and greater responsiveness."

Google's news comes a few months after cloud rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft announced plans for UK regions, and amid ongoing legal changes to local data protection rules.

AWS turned 10 years old this month and at the end of January it announced that for the three months to 31 December, its sales grew 69 per cent annually to $2.4bn (£1.7bn).

Microsoft's Azure product has enjoyed similar success in recent times, with revenue soaring 140 per cent year on year in constant currency in Microsoft's Q2, which also closed at the end of December.

Cloud expert Ian Moyse, who sits on the board of the Cloud Industry Forum and Eurocloud, said that Google's announcement signals it is beginning to fight back.

"Public cloud is fundamentally a three-horse race: Azure, AWS and Google. This is Google punching back. They are still in the game and they're saying 'don't discount us, we are going to come back hard and fast'. Google has been underestimated. It has still been growing and investing in cloud and it has deep, deep pockets. You can't underestimate that.This is a shot across the bow across the whole market.

"Don't think they are out of the race because they're coming back hard and fast."

Brian Londsdale, managing director of Google partner Smarter Digital Marketing, told CRN that he believes Google's move demonstrates its plans to "dominate the marketplace".

"They want everybody on their servers and that is how they are going to have all the data, at the end of the day," he said. "I think Amazon are big competitors now and you see they're quite cost-effective as well. They are trying to eat up space as well. Google is the largest supplier, but Amazon are taking a percentage of the marketplace."

Cloud battle

According to IDC, the public cloud market will grow at a 19.4 per cent compound annual growth rate - six times that of the overall IT market - to $141bn by 2019.
Moyse said that although the cloud market today is mature, there is still a huge untapped market that Google can cash in on.

"We've not seen the biggest growth acceleration [in cloud] yet," he said. "The real battle is about to start. It is a more mature market; customers are more mature; you've got IOT driving cloud and we've got mobility absolutely becoming part of [everyday] life. All that, and we've got the perfect ramp for acceleration."

AWS partner Smart421's AWS practice lead Wayne Stallwood insisted his firm has bet on the right horse in the cloud market.

"We know more AWS regions are coming - more than just the UK region previously announced," he said. "We also know that the overall scale of AWS is 10 times the other 14 major players combined and that includes Google Cloud."

Moyse concurred, but added there is more to play for.

"AWS is ahead. But is the race over? No," he said. "It's all to fight for."