Google Cloud Q3 Growth Triggered by Compute, Data Analytics and G-Suite

Google Cloud racked up major Q3 wins in healthcare, financial services and retail as “strong customer demand” for compute, data analytics and G Suite generated “significant growth” across the globe for the #6 company on the Cloud Wars Top 10.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai cited “great momentum” for its fast-growing cloud business. He also said Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian “has continued to invest across the board.” Specifically, Kurian is building up the sales team, the partner ecosystem, and related operations.

“In this business, it’s important to be in as many deal situations as possible,” Pichai said. This reflects the company’s previously stated commitment to triple the size of its sales organization over the next couple of years.

Google did not offer any details or even vague allusions to revenue figures for Google Cloud. But Pichai was non-quantitatively effusive in talking about the cloud business.

• “Analytics is a huge area of strength for us.”
• “BigQuery is such a strong product.”
• “G Suite continues to be very differentiated. And we just announced a new leader,  Javier Soltero, coming in with lots of experience to turbocharge this area.” (Soltero joins from Microsoft, where he led the Cortana and Outlook product lines.)
• Synergy across IaaS and PaaS: “Many G Suite customers are now having GCP conversations and vice versa. So given that we now have a big go-to-market effort, the breadth allows us to have more conversations and engage through many different paths into the organization. It’s very synergistic.”
• CFO Ruth Porat cited “ongoing growth” for G Suite, driven by not only higher prices but also rising numbers of seats. 

And as Kurian and team continue to build out new solutions for Google Cloud, the growth will only expand, Pichai said. “If I look at the percentage of TAM for which we’re eligible and compare that to last year and to now, that number is shifting aggressively due to completing our product-feature set or completing some of the certifications we need.”

Partnerships Highlight Google Cloud’s Flexibility and Potential

On those vertical-industry wins for Google Cloud, Pichai cited the “landmark” partnership with Mayo Clinic. The collaboration centers on data storage and security to drive insights at scale. The two firms designed the ambitious project to “transform patient and clinician experiences, identify new methods of diagnosing diseases, conduct clinical research, and find new models for delivering patient care.”

In financial services, Pichai cited a multicloud deal with National Australia Bank to deliver better customer experiences. Plus, he touched on Google Cloud’s big project with Deutsche Borse Group to accelerate digital modernization while also meeting regulatory requirements.

In retail, Macy’s is using Google Cloud to optimize the shopping experience in a project ranging from centralized operations to the retail floor itself, Pichai said.

Disclosure: at the time of this writing, Google Cloud was a client of Evans Strategic Communications LLC and Cloud Wars Media LLC.