Google Cloud taps former Oracle exec to replace Greene as CEO

Thomas Kurian will join the company next week and transition into the top role in January

Google Cloud has snagged ex Oracle man Thomas Kurian to take over from current CEO Diane Greene.

Kurian will join the cloud provider on 26 November and will replace Greene in the top role in early 2019, after a transitionary period.

Greene, who founded and ran VMware, was appointed to the chief exec role in 2015 to build Google Cloud's business.

She revealed the news in a blog post, adding that she would remain on the board of directors of Alphabet, Google's parent company.

"The Google Cloud team has accomplished amazing things over the last three years, and I'm proud to have been a part of this transformative work," she said.

"We have moved Google Cloud from having only two significant customers and a collection of startups to having major Fortune 1000 enterprises betting their future on Google Cloud, something we should accept as a great compliment as well as a huge responsibility.

"The cloud space is early and there is an enormous opportunity ahead. I have loved working with everyone. I am especially grateful to all of our customers, partners, and employees for an amazing three years of getting to work with you."

Greene stated that she will be turning her attentions to mentoring female founder CEOs and educational philanthropy.

Kurian was president of product development at Oracle, and told employees that he was taking extended leave from the company in early September, before handing in his resignation a few weeks later.

According to analyst firm Synergy Research, Google trailed Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and IBM in public cloud market share in Q3.

In its recent Q3 results, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was coy on the performance of Google Cloud, which is bundled into the company's "other revenues" stream.

Pichai suggested that the cloud platform was still developing, telling investors that "it's very clear to us that we are laying the foundation and we are getting the strong early momentum".