Tag: Google Cloud

Rackspace helps BMG rock with Google cloud

Posted on January 18, 2024 by - News

BMG, the music giant behind stars like Kylie Minogue, Iron Maiden, and Dua Lipa, has partnered with Rackspace Technology to revolutionise the music industry with Google Cloud.

The world’s fourth-biggest music company has moved 95 per cent of its apps and services to Google Cloud, using  Rackspace Technology’s Elastic Engineering team.

This means BMG can pay its artists and songwriters ten times faster and track their music 50 per cent faster than before, using Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI and big data tools.

BMG has ditched its old distribution partners and struck direct deals with streaming giants like Spotify and Apple, giving its clients more control and access to their data.

Google Cloud wants new partners

Posted on October 13, 2023 by - News

Google Cloud wants new partners and is offering augmented incentives and resources for global partners to exploit the burgeoning opportunities in AI.

Its plans were revealed at this week’s Google Cloud Next ’23 summit in London.

Google’s cunning plan involves using tools such as Duet AI and Vertex AI in critical domains like data modernisation and cloud migrations, incorporating these tools into partner systems and processes and making a concerted global push through managed service providers (MSPs).

Google Cloud plans to significantly boost funding by up to tenfold for independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrator partners aiming to implement gen AI.

EPAM partners with Google Cloud on AI

Posted on June 16, 2023 by - News

EPAM Systems has announced a strategic, global partnership with Google Cloud to develop and deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Through this partnership EPAM will expand its global, cloud-native engineering and integration services and introduce targeted vertical solutions and managed services around Google Cloud AI solutions, including Vertex AI, Generative AI App Builder, Model Garden and more.

EPAM Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer Elaina Shekhter said: “We are excited to expand our partnership with Google Cloud to bring the power of AI to our clients. Today’s technology transformations are built on the foundation of digital and cloud-native developments, many of which we’ve been working with Google on since the mid-2000s.”

SAP and Google Cloud expand their cloud partnership

Posted on May 15, 2023 by - News

SAP and Google Cloud are expanding their cloudy partnership by introducing an open data offering.

They claim it will enable customers to build an end-to-end data cloud that brings data from across the enterprise landscape using the SAP Datasphere solution and Google’s data cloud.

This means that customer can view their data in real-time and maximise value from their Google Cloud and SAP software investments. SAP Datasphere mixes this data with data from across the enterprise.

The pair claim partners and customers can combine SAP software and non-SAP data on Google Cloud, from virtually any other data source.

SAP CEO Christian Klein said bringing together SAP systems and data with Google’s data cloud introduces entirely new opportunities for enterprises to derive more value from their full data footprints.

Google completes Mandiant acquisition

Posted on September 14, 2022 by - News

Google has completed its $5.4 billion acquisition of security outfit Mandiant.

The deal, announced in March, will see Mandiant retain its brand and join Google Cloud.

Together they will deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with “even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments”, a statement said.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said buying Mandiant will help organisations reinvent security to meet requirements.

“The completion of this acquisition will enable us to deliver a comprehensive and best-in-class cybersecurity solution”, he said.

“We believe this acquisition creates incredible value for our customers and the security industry at large. Together, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help reinvent how organizations protect themselves, as well as detect and respond to threats.”

It also means that Google Cloud gains threat intelligence and incident response services capabilities.

Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia said Google’s acquisition will create an “incredible opportunity”.

“Mandiant is driven by a mission to make every organisation secure from cyber threats and confident in their readiness”, he added.

“Combining our 18 years of threat intelligence and incident response experience with Google Cloud’s security expertise presents an incredible opportunity to deliver with the speed and scale that the security industry needs.”

Sustainability is not a real priority

Posted on April 14, 2022 by - News

Despite sustainability being hailed as a key area of business focus, most companies are just using the term as another layer of management-speak.

Research commissioned by Google Cloud, which featured responses from about 1,500 C-level executives from 16 countries across Europe, sustainability is being inserted into every press release and dull business meeting.

However, money to bring about sustainability goals is surprisingly lacking with cash being earmarked for more pressing projects.

The vast majority of respondents (90 percent) name-checked environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives as being a top organisational priority for their enterprises, with the UK participants in the poll giving themselves an above-average rating for their efforts.

But the research also revealed that businesses across EMEA are allocating only nine percent of their budget towards ESG initiatives, with this figure dropping to eight per cent for UK firms.

Blue Blue snaps up cloudy Neudesic

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue has acquired Microsoft Azure partner Neudesic to expand the tech vendor’s portfolio of hybrid multi-cloud and artificial intelligence services.

IBM said that Neudesic gives it more Azure cloud, data engineering and data analytics capabilities  The company has more than 1,500 cloud and data workers in the US and India.

IBM and Neudesic signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the statement.

Cloud giants should expect closer monitoring

Posted on January 11, 2022 by - News

Cloud giants AWS, Azure and Google Cloud should expect some closer monitoring from the Prudential Regulation Authority.

The Financial Times is reporting that the financial services regulator is looking for ways to access more data from Amazon, Google and Microsoft because of the impact that service outages and cyberattacks would have on British banks.

The watchdog wants more robust outages and disaster recovery tests given the increasing reliance UK banks have on a handful of cloud providers.

This could include the introduction of a “war game” which models AWS and Azure failing at the same time, executives said.

Google Cloud expands SAP alliance

Posted on July 30, 2021 by - News

Google Cloud and SAP have expanded their strategic partnership claiming it will help customers execute business transformations, migrate critical business systems to the cloud, and augment existing business systems with Google Cloud capabilities in AI and machine learning.

Under the new deal, Google Cloud will be a strategic cloud partner for the RISE with SAP offering. The two companies will partner to accelerate customers’ cloud migrations and business process migrations.

This means that clients get global availability of multiple SAP services and products on Google Cloud’s reliable, scalable cloud infrastructure and high-speed network, including the SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud solutions within SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP).

Fox-Martin is Google’s EMEA Cloud President.

Posted on July 5, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Google Cloud announced the appointment of Adaire Fox-Martin as EMEA Cloud President.

Based in Dublin, Fox-Martin will lead the Google Cloud Sales organisation for EMEA.

Bringing more than two decades of tech leadership to the role, Fox-Martin has built high performing teams across Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Most recently, Fox-Martin was Executive Board Member and President of Global Sales, Services, and Customer Engagement at SAP, where she successfully spearheaded and grew the company’s customer-focused teams. Prior to SAP, she held various leadership roles at Oracle.

Fox-Martin currently serves on the Board of Directors of Equinix, the world’s largest data centre and colocation provider. In 2020, she was named in Fortune Magazine’s Top 50 Most Powerful Women International List for the fourth time running.

Google Cloud has recently announced major partnerships in Europe with companies like Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, LVMH, Nokia, Orange, Renault and SEB to name a few. Alongside the EMEA sales leadership team, Adaire will accelerate Google Cloud’s “growth journey” across Europe.

Google Cloud hires Dropbox’s former global channel boss

Posted on May 25, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Dropbox’s former global head of channels has announced he has taken up a new role as Google Cloud’s UK & Ireland director of partners and channels.

Simon Aldous spent more than five years at Dropbox and told his Linkedin friends that he was “super excited” to be starting his next adventure and joining the Google Cloud team at Google.

“I look forward to working with the channel team, partners and our corporate sales team to best serve the needs of our customers and help drive evolution and transformation within their businesses.”

Google Cloud snaps up Dataform

Posted on December 11, 2020 by - News

Google Cloud has acquired a London-based startup called Dataform which builds tools to manage data flows for enterprise customers.

Dataform builds an “operating system” for data warehouses and some of its co-founders are ex-Google employees. Its platform aims to help data-rich businesses draw insights by mining data stored in warehouses.

Under the terms of the deal, Dataform will continue to operate under its management and focus on BigQuery. The Dataform Web will also be made free for all new users from now on with customers transitioned to the free plan immediately.

Google Cloud growing

Posted on April 11, 2019 by - News

Google Cloud appears to be growing fast and while AWS is still king, it is growing slower than the search engine outfit.

Beancounters at Canalys said that Google Cloud was the fastest growing cloud infrastructure provider in 2018, besting market leaders Amazon and Microsoft.

SHI cleans up in the UK

Posted on February 19, 2018 by - News

3436142cf514e59f3acf71e47579299aUS reseller SHI International has reported a 12 percent annual spike in revenues, and the UK was its star.

SHI’s revenue in 2017 topped $8.5 billion making it a record year for the firm. While its corporate and SMB division witnessed 21 percent year on year revenue growth, it was the UK which drove its international business with 28 percent growth.

SHI had 10 per cent year on year growth for its commercial and strategic enterprise division, while its public sector unit grew five percent.

CEO Thai Lee said that for the last 18 months, SHI made significant investments in onboarding additional resources and expertise in support of public and hybrid cloud solutions featuring technologies such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

“Through intense in-house training and aggressive talent acquisition, we’ve become a holistic resource for customers, capable of supporting both the technology and the business aspects needed to enable and support advanced IT solutions,” said Lee.

Microsoft remained SHI’s top partner in 2017, growing 15 percent over 2016, while Amazon Web Services was the fastest growing top-tier partner for the second year in a row, with a 62 percent leap in the past year.

Cisco saw the second-fastest growth of its top vendors, with revenue 33 percent higher than in 2016. Dell, HP Inc., VMware, Lenovo, Adobe, Apple, HP Enterprise, and Symantec rounded out the list of SHI’s top 11 partners.