Google to buy data migration firm Alooma to rival Amazon, Microsoft cloud services

Alphabet Inc’s Google said on 19 February it will buy data migration company Alooma, as part of efforts to catch up with bigger cloud service rivals Amazon and Microsoft . Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in the fast-growing business of helping companies move to the cloud, with Google Cloud holding 8.5 percent of worldwide cloud market share at the end of 2018, according to Canalys. Amazon Web Services had a 31.7 percent share and Microsoft Azure 16.8 percent during the same period, the market research firm said. [caption id=“attachment_6028511” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Representational image.[/caption] Google in November hired former Oracle Corp product head Thomas Kurian as the chief executive officer of the cloud division. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Alooma helps enterprise companies streamline database migration in the cloud with a tool that enables moving data from multiple sources to a single data warehouse. The company has raised about $15 million from investors including leading venture funds such as Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed, according to Crunchbase. Google did not disclose terms of the deal.