Google cut prices on some Internet-based services for businesses by 30 percent or more, stepping up a challenge to Amazon.com and Microsoft Corp. in cloud computing.
Google Cloud to cut its cloud computing service prices. Cloud wars have begun.
The services let customers use computer power or storage space on machines in Google’s own data centers. The company is reducing the price of its key computing-capacity product by 32 percent, Senior Vice President Urs Holzle said at an event in San Francisco. Google also is lowering the price of storage by about 68 percent for most users, and by 85 percent for its BigQuery data-analysis service.
Google built its first corporate-owned data center in The Dalles, and is currently in the process of expanding it. Amazon has data centers in Morrow County, and Microsoft operates server farms in Quincy, Washington.
The biggest Web-search company is aiming to woo customers by simplifying the process for buying cloud services, which are attracting startups and established companies looking to cut hardware costs and increase remote or mobile access for workers on the go. Google is competing with Amazon, Microsoft and Rackspace Hosting, along with newer providers, in a market that Gartner projected would reach $131 billion last year.
“We have made this all more affordable than it’s ever been before,” Holzle said. “The price of virtualized hardware should follow the same trends as real hardware.”
The Mountain View, California-based company also announced a slew of other cloud features to help boost productivity for technology professionals, including new support for Microsoft’s Windows Server software and for some additional Linux-based operating systems.
Beyond Pricing
The support for Windows Server 2008 R2 may help Google close the gap with rival services, James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in a blog post. The company will need more than pricing to help it improve its position in the market, he said.
“Google isn’t a leader in the cloud platform space,” Staten wrote. “You can’t blame Google for using price and claims of performance to lure you in. But both price and performance are fleeting differentiators in the cloud platform market.”
Other big technology companies are also spotlighting their Internet-based tools and investments. Cisco Systems said it plans to spend $1 billion in the next two years on a system for renting computing services over the Internet. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, convenes a summit for its Amazon Web Services business tomorrow in San Francisco, according to its website.
Microsoft is holding an event in San Francisco, described as “focused on the intersection of cloud and mobile computing.” The Redmond, Washington-based software maker will introduce Office software for Apple’s iPad tablet with limited capabilities that can be upgraded to premium versions requiring a subscription to the Office 365 Internet-based software, people with knowledge of the announcement said last week.
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