Google beats Amazon to be ranked as best cloud service by an independent organisation: Report

It’s no surprise that Amazon’s cloud business is a force to reckon with, well on its way to becoming a $10 billion business this year. CEO Jeff Bezos recently wrote in a letter to shareholders that Amazon Web Services (AWS), after 10 years of operation is bigger and growing faster than Amazon.com was at that stage. The unit added 722 new features in 2015 which amounted to a 40 percent increase over the prior year. Now, it has emerged from a study carried out by French IT business news site JDN that Google offers the best cloud in the market, in terms of value for money. JDN collaborated with companies that test cloud performance and looked at a comparison between Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, IBM SoftLayer, Microsoft Azure and Rackspace. They were tested on the metrics of performance, prices, level of service and network performance. The study says Google won the overall ranking category, scoring 85 out of a possible 100. Amazon chalked in second with 75, followed by IBM at 72. In a ranking by price too, Google scored top spot, folowed by AWS and IBM. On a performance level, Rackspace emerged victorious, followed by IBM and Google to take second and third spot respectively. The service level ranking, however, saw AWS on top. The ranking criteria included things like datacenters at different regions and certifications that say how secure the cloud is. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has made his cloud domination dreams very clear. Late last year, Google hired VMware co-founder and industry veteran Diane Greene to run its cloud business. Emerging markets like India and a vibrant startup ecosystem across cities like Tel Aviv in Israel, coupled with higher demand from countries like the US and the UK, are also driving adoption of Google’s cloud services globally. “UK, Europe, especially in the UK, these have been big for us. Japan as a leading economy, we are seeing a lot of growth. Places like Tel Aviv have a vibrant startup economy and we are seeing demand there. Emerging markets, individual developers (are adopting Google’s cloud),” Google Director – Product Management, Greg DeMichillie had told the press recently. There are reports stating that Apple, a rival in the mobile operating system market, has started using Google’s cloud for its iCloud. DeMichillie declined to comment on the reports.