In July, Alphabet Inc.’s earning reports revealed interesting signs that Google Cloud’s business could be accelerating. Still, despite the company’s status as the top search engine in the world, its cloud division ranked third behind Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Could that be changing? That was the big question that theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, sought to answer while covering the Google Cloud Next event from August 29 to 31.

The event brought no shortage of big announcements from the company. The biggest takeaway was the company’s strategic bid to redefine the cloud landscape through the power of artificial intelligence integration, something that could move things into the next chapter, according to theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier (pictured, right).

“Their ecosystem is flourishing,” Furrier said. “This could be the next AWS. It feels a lot like the early AWS days in the sense of the excitement. It’s competition time.”

Insights during Google Cloud Next were provided by Furrier, along with fellow industry analysts and company executives. They unpacked what comes next for Google in the competitive cloud market and what the new announcements mean for Google’s competitors. (* Disclosure below.) 

Here are three key insights you may have missed: 

1. Google’s making a bid to shape the future of tech.

There was a striking difference between Google Cloud Next events of the past and this year’s iteration. In 2019, there was a lot of “cloud goodness,” but it wasn’t clear how it would all fit together, according to Furrier. In typical Google fashion, they were loud and proud about their technology — which is phenomenal and nothing to shake a stick at, Furrier noted. This year, however, while they had some of those features, it was more about the roadmap of the company.

“I think they’re really taking a grab at this cloud meets AI. And to me, they could go for this AI cloud positioning,” Furrier said. “I look at what Google’s doing here, it’s a very clear opportunity for them to change the game on who they are in the cloud business to the customer. [It can] potentially shake it with some growth to change their position from three to two, and maybe put a shot and punch up to AWS.”

Google could reshape industry dynamics by delivering an approach with a strong focus on fostering ecosystem growth, according to theCUBE industry analyst Rob Strechay. What became clear to the analysts was that Google was planning to take a unique position, diverging compared to the developer-focused approach from Amazon and targeting Microsoft’s enterprise solutions.

“I think it helps them with their story about how we’re being better with people’s data as well by, ‘Hey, you want to have your data on GK [Cloud Solutions], in somebody else’s cloud; we’re going to go and help you build that with GDC in Orange, or in KPN, or who knows, Singtel, or some of the others around the world where they can then get that foothold,” Strechay said.

On day 2 of Google Cloud Next, a keynote further laid out the company’s vision for the future of cloud computing, and specifically on how it might be possible to balance legacy systems needs with a newer and more innovative cloud ecosystem. The focus of the entire keynote was how to manage legacy environments, with a pivot to “build your legacy,” Furrier noted.

“I thought it was interesting that they were leaning into the ‘legacy is bad’ kind of thing,” Strechay added. “I don’t know how that’s going to play over with the people in the audience, but with the developers, it definitely plays well.”

In the end, the event provided an opportunity to get a sense of where the company was heading and how it might approach its position in the marketplace behind AWS and Microsoft. It unveiled the company’s transformative shifts and suggested that it could end up being the next AWS, according to Furrier.

“They have absolutely thrown down the gauntlet that they are cool and relevant. I think if you look at how they’re doing their show, it’s all about the future, not about the past,” Furrier said. “They have the ability to do that, because … they’re punching up to AWS and Microsoft. I think this is going to put pressure on the other clouds to answer, because not only did they just say it with conjecture and their marketing, they delivered great demos. Their ecosystem was buzzing.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete analyst insights segment, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Next event:

2. An open ecosystem is being seen as key.

During Google Cloud Next, Furrier coined the phrase “Google trifecta,” referencing Google’s focus on developers, solutions and ecosystems. Ecosystems are among the most important areas when it comes to the future of AI, according to Carrie Tharp, vice president of strategic industries for Google Cloud. 

“In traditional AI, it was a GSI, ISV kind of partner ecosystem. You aren’t going to build everything yourself. There’s complex stacks in all these industries,” she said.

That’s why this has been a big focus for the company — to ensure that it has open architecture while bringing in ecosystems. That’s because not everybody will build out a big data and analytics and prompt engineering team, according to Tharp.

“They need to be working with the ecosystem to be able to deliver business value,” she said. “This is the top conversation we’re heading at board levels.”

Meanwhile, as Google plotted out its future roadmap, it highlighted its own advancements within the field of AI. That included the latest when it came to Vertex AI, a collection of innovative tools intended to give developers more control and reshape interactions with machines, according to Lisa O’Malley, senior director of product management for AI industry solutions at Google.

“We want to be able to meet developers where they are. They can be machine learning experts, or they can be novices,” O’Malley said. “We have a suite of tools within Vertex that enables all of them … what they do is they bring the power of Google search and the ability to create chatbots and voice bots into the hands of developers.”

During Google Cloud Next, the company also detailed how it was approaching the evolution of cloud security, specifically using the security options of Google Cloud Platform. It also detailed Duet AI, part of the Google Workspace, which is a collaboration tool intended to free up users to do less mundane tasks, according to Kristina Behr, vice president of product for Google Workspace Collab at Google.

“The real magic and the power is if it understands you — it understands your email, it understands all the files and your drive corpus,” Behr said. “Some of the examples could be, ‘Hey, update me on Q3 performance,’ and it would understand all of your emails, all the files that you have been provisioned to and kind of create that summary.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Carrie Tharp:

3. Partnerships are seen as important for digital transformation.

This year at Google Cloud Next, the company cited its partnerships with 100,000 companies as key to its goal to help customers integrate generative AI into their businesses. Among those partnerships is one with Red Hat Inc., named Google’s “Partner of the Year for Infrastructure” during the 2023 Google Cloud Partner Summit.

Recently, the companies have been focused on deepening their collaboration on OpenShift, Ansible and Data Science solutions. Customer needs from hybrid cloud deployments to AI to machine learning are all targeted.

“One of the things which we appreciate about how Red Hat is moving, when you look at how they’re embracing generative AI — and if you look at Ansible and the adapters and plugins they’re putting in — at the end of the day, what really matters to developers is developer productivity … and the way you can integrate more and more of the technology and make the productivity better,” said Clive D’Souza, head of partner engineering at Google.

The two companies also highlighted Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL, during the event. RHEL provides an operating system backbone, streamlining operations from data center to cloud, and out to the edge.

“When customers come over, they want to make sure the experience that they’ve been getting on-premises is the same that they get on Google Cloud,” said Venkat Gattamneni, head of product management for Google Cloud.

Other partnerships were also on display at Google Cloud Next, including one that exists with Splunk Inc., which has a focus on unified security. The company built its platform around enterprise resilience, which provides it with a valuable perspective, according to Gretchen O’Hara, vice president for worldwide partners and alliances at Splunk.

“For the first time, I think we’re seeing the blend of these organizations coming together because we have to secure the entire enterprise,” she said.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with D’Souza and Blake Shiver, vice president for global cloud partners at Red Hat:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Next event, here’s our complete event video playlist:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Google Cloud Next event. Neither Google LLC, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE