Google Cloud sees BigQuery, analytics boost, aims to add sales scale
Google Cloud Platform is seeing strong demand for its analytics tools and BigQuery as it ramps up its sales team under CEO Thomas Kurian.
While Alphabet, parent of Google, delivered mixed third quarter earnings, the company's "other" revenue performed well. Other revenue was $6.43 billion in the third quarter, up from $4.64 billion a year ago. Other revenue includes Google Cloud Platform, Play and hardware. Of that trio, Google Cloud has the biggest portion.
Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet, said:
Other revenues for Google were $6.4 billion, up 39% year-over-year, once again fueled by Cloud followed by a strong performance from Play. Within Cloud, growth in GCP was once again the primary driver of performance with strong customer demand for our compute and data analytics products complemented by ongoing growth in G Suite, reflecting both new pricing and seat growth.
Porat added that Google Cloud was seeing more demand as customers implement BigQuery. "Cloud continued to see significant growth in each region globally," she said.
Meanwhile, Google Cloud is hiring people for sales, engineering and product managers to make sure the multicloud game isn't just about Amazon Web Services vs. Microsoft Azure.
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"In terms of product areas, the most sizable head count increases were again in Cloud for both technical and sales roles," said Porat.
When you combine Google's comments about its cloud business with what Amazon and Microsoft said you arrive at one simple conclusion: It's a great time to be a cloud salesperson.
The bakeoff:
- Microsoft Azure: Everything you need to know about Redmond's cloud service
- Amazon AWS: Complete business guide to the world's largest provider of cloud services
- What makes Google Cloud Platform unique compared to Azure and Amazon
- What Google Cloud Platform is and why you'd use it
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said the plan is to continue to invest and bet that analytics will be the differentiator.
Obviously, ever since Thomas has come in, he has continued to invest across the board. He definitely focused a lot on scaling of our sales partner and operational teams, and it's playing out well in this business. It's important for you to been asked many data situations as possible and get those wins which accrues over time. And so we are definitely seeing the momentum. Analytics is a huge area of strength for us, and it's an area which Thomas has a lot of expertise in as well.
And BigQuery is such a strong product, so it's a natural area we are seeing strength.