• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
TechPointCloud

Here’s What Google Should Say At Its Big Cloud Event

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 6, 2017, 2:27 PM ET
Fortune Brainstorm TECH 2016
Fortune Brainstorm TECH 2016 MONDAY JULY 11TH, 2016: ASPEN, CO 2:30 PM TILTING THE SCALE ON CLOUD COMPUTING Diane Greene, Senior Vice President, Google Interviewer: Andrew Nusca, Senior Editor and Co-chair, Brainstorm TECH, Fortune PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN MOLONEY/Fortune Brainstorm TECHPhotograph by Kevin Moloney — Fortune Brainstorm TECH

At the Google Cloud Next conference this week in San Francisco, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, and other executives will tout Google Cloud Platform (GCP) as ideal for running big business applications.

These computing, storage, and networking services run in Google data centers can be used by corporate customers as an alternative or supplement to their own data centers. And in this race, Google (GOOG). must challenge Amazon (AMZN) Web Services and Microsoft Azure which are generally seen as the two largest public cloud providers.

Here’s some of what people in the tech industry want to hear from Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, senior vice president Diane Greene and vice president Brian Stevens at the event, which kicks off Wednesday.

Big, old-fashioned Fortune 500 customers

Google often touts younger Internet companies like Snapchat and Evernote as cloud customers. But it also claims more traditional, older customers like Coca-Cola (KO), Home Depot (HD), Whirlpool, and Disney.

But the Internet search and advertising giant needs more of these established customers on board to show that GCP is a safe choice for manufacturing, banking, and insurance companies. These more venerable businesses, after some hesitation, are now willing to shift to public cloud-based services like Google, but are still anxious about it.

In this race, Google has to catch up with Amazon Web Services, which started blazing the trail in 2006 and wooing big customers soon thereafter and Microsoft Azure. AWS and Azure are generally seen as the largest and second largest public clouds. AWS has first mover advantage and Microsoft (MSFT) has tons of corporate relationships already in place since nearly every company of any size already uses Windows and Office. That makes it easier for customers to add Azure to their existing contracts.

More (and easier) database options

A managed version of PostgreSQL, a popular open-source database is atop many most-wanted lists among the Google cloud faithful. Google (GOOGL) already offers a managed version of MySQL, another open-source database that it calls Google Cloud SQL. But PostgreSQL has definitely become the “go-to” database for many business customers.

To be clear, companies can run PostgreSQL on Google Cloud now, but a managed service would automate software updates, patches, and other time-consuming tasks. In theory, it frees up database administrators to do other work.

If Google adds a managed version of PostgreSQL, it would follow in the footsteps of AWS which long supported both MySQL and PostgreSQL but then added fully managed versions of both databases over time.

A Google spokeswoman would not comment for this story other than to say that supporting open standards is important to Google’s cloud effort. “Developers should be able to work with any standard that they choose, so they are able to focus on application development, rather than infrastructure management or operations,” she noted via email.

Easier ways to manage lots and lots of cloud services

Google must make it a lot easier for customers to run, track, and manage many cloud services. For example, companies like music streaming service Spotify, which announced plans to move to Google Cloud in February, often run hundreds of cloud services at once. The sheer size of the undertaking can be a pain for any cloud user to manage and any tools that can help in that regard would be welcomed.

For more on Google’s cloud push, watch:

Also needed: better and easier to understand billing that lets customers pull out useful reports about what cloud services they’re using and how much they are paying for them instead of having to dissect raw usage data.

To prove the need for such tools,a slew of smaller companies like Cloudability, CloudCheckr and Cloudyn have sprung up to help customers track and manage their cloud spending.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

Business web conferencing

News about Google Meet, a new, business-focused version of the existing Google Hangouts video conferencing service, leaked last week. This service reportedly will allow up to 30 users to share a high-def video conference room. The current Hangouts is limited to 10 simultaneous users, according to technology news site TechCrunch, which first spotted the new app in the Google App Store. (The app has since been removed.)

The leak came a few weeks after AWS announced Amazon Chime, its own video and web conferencing service that challenges Microsoft Skype for Business and Cisco (CSCO) WebEx and Spark, and Google Hangouts.

Reliability, reliability, dependability, oh and reliability

Timing of last week’s big AWS outage, is tricky not just for Amazon but for Google and other cloud providers as well. That snafu took down popular web sites including Trello, Quora, Github, Chef, and Slack for several hours. Even AWS’s own status page—which displays how well its cloud services are working (or not working)—was affected. The issue was apparently triggered by human error (some called it the typo that took down the Internet), but expect Google to talk about things like its own live migration capabilities that it says minimizes downtime during software upgrades and other maintenance.

And, perhaps a fail-safe way to prevent killer typos.

 

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Anu Madgavkar, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute
AIWorkplace Innovation Summit
McKinsey partner says up to 50% of work hours could be transformed within the next 5 years
By Emma BurleighMay 21, 2026
9 minutes ago
allbirds
AILayoffs
Allbirds’ 600% stock surge says a lot about how ‘AI washing’ became the new ‘greenwashing’
By Suvrat Dhanorkar and The ConversationMay 21, 2026
3 hours ago
musk
InvestingIPOs
‘We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs’: SpaceX IPO reads like Hollywood fantasy version of the future
By Bernard Condon and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
3 hours ago
murdoch
Big TechMedia
James Murdoch vows ‘ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations’ as he takes over New York, Vox brands
By Jocelyn Noveck and The Associated PressMay 21, 2026
3 hours ago
Traders work after a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.
InvestingMarkets
Wall Street thinks there’s a chance the S&P 500 could push 20% higher by 2027
By Eleanor PringleMay 21, 2026
5 hours ago
Elon Musk sits with his fists together, looking up.
NewslettersTerm Sheet
SpaceX’s IPO filing is full of surprises
By Allie GarfinkleMay 21, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
Success
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
1 day ago
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
Future of Work
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
By Mike Householder and The Associated PressMay 17, 2026
4 days ago
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
Workplace Culture
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
Workplace Culture
Pay transparency is exposing a bigger problem: Most companies can't explain why they pay what they pay
By Sydney LakeMay 20, 2026
20 hours ago
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 20, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.