“Google Cloud Bets $3.3 Billion More Against Its Rivals - Market Realist” plus 3 more

Google Cloud Bets $3.3 Billion More Against Its Rivals - Market Realist
Google’s VR180 Format Stalls After Camera Manufacturers Pull Back - Variety
Unity Technologies Announces Unity Simulation - A New Cloud Product to Train, Test, or Validate Products and Services at Scale - Yahoo Finance
AWS, Azure or Google: Do the differences between cloud providers really matter? - Cloud Tech

Google Cloud Bets $3.3 Billion More Against Its Rivals - Market Realist

Posted: 23 Sep 2019 11:04 AM PDT

Google Cloud plans to spend $3.3 billion more to expand its data center presence across Europe over the next two years. Google's (GOOGL) planned Europe data center investment includes $660 million that will go to expand its Hamina data center in Finland. That move will bring Google's investment in the Hamina data center to about $2.2 billion since 2009.

As data centers underpin cloud computing, cloud providers typically open more data centers or expand existing data centers to expand their cloud computing capacity. I think that's what Google's trying to achieve with its planned data center investments in Europe.

Europe is turning out to be a hot battleground for the top cloud computing companies. Europe's cloud market should expand 22% annually for the next three years. As we discussed earlier at Market Realist, Alibaba (BABA) has also been expanding its cloud capacity in Europe.

Meanwhile, Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) also operate data centers in Europe that support their cloud services. Microsoft, for instance, has detailed plans for more data centers in the region to boost its cloud capacity.

Huge revenue opportunity for Google's cloud business

Demand for cloud services remains strong globally. I think that strength is encouraging companies like Google to make huge investments and expand their cloud infrastructure. Global spending on cloud services is set to rise to over $214 billion in 2019 from $182.4 billion in 2018, Gartner estimates. By 2022, the global cloud market should surpass $330 billion.

Google's planned Europe data center investment follows the company setting its sights on attracting large cloud customers. As we discussed earlier, Google has hired former SAP SE (SAP) executives to help attract big cloud customers. Plus, Google's expanding its cloud sales team to generally help it grow its cloud market share.

Presently, Amazon and Microsoft rule the global cloud market with 33% and 16% market shares, respectively, according to Synergy Research. Google comes in third with 8.0% market share. However, as we saw here, Google aims to overtake Microsoft by 2024 and become the world's second-largest cloud company.

Diversifying revenue sources

I think Google needs a big break in the cloud market to reduce its overreliance on advertising dollars. Currently, advertising contributes the vast majority of Google's revenue. While Google remains the top digital advertising company, it's no longer a sure bet. Amazon and other competitors are gaining ground in the digital advertising market, threatening Google's base.

So Google is looking for new revenue sources outside advertising, and cloud computing is one of the company's target markets. Currently, Google's tiny share of the cloud market shows it has more growth potential than rivals Amazon and Microsoft.

Google’s VR180 Format Stalls After Camera Manufacturers Pull Back - Variety

Posted: 23 Sep 2019 12:15 PM PDT

Google's plan to establish a new immersive media format on YouTube and beyond has hit a roadblock: VR180, the stereoscopic video format that Google launched with big fanfare in 2017, has lost some of its key supporters, Variety has learned. Camera maker Yi has all but given up on launching its long-promised VR180 consumer camera, and Lenovo has stopped selling its Mirage Camera in the U.S.

A Google spokesperson told Variety that the company didn't have any updates on VR180 to share.

Both Lenovo and Yi prominently joined Google in 2017 when the web giant announced VR180 as a new, simpler format for immersive media. Named after the fact that compatible cameras can record a 180-degree field-of-view in 3D, VR180 was meant to bridge the gap between VR headsets and the web.

It promised creators an easy way to record video that would look great in a VR headset without the need for any stitching — the complicated process of merging video from multiple cameras into a complete picture that's common with most 360-degree VR capture systems. What's more, VR180 footage could easily be uploaded to YouTube, where web and mobile viewers could watch the clips without a VR headset.

Google's launch partner for VR180 was Lenovo, which at the same time also released a standalone VR headset running on Google's Daydream VR platform. The Mirage Camera was meant to offer a simple click-and-shoot experience, and work together with a dedicated VR180 app to offload footage to a mobile device.

However, two years later, the Mirage Camera is sold out on Lenovo's website and at a number of other retailers. A Lenovo spokesperson said that the company was still selling the device in select markets, but declined to comment further.

Fellow consumer electronics maker Yi was a bit more upfront when asked about the fate of its Yi Horizon VR180 camera. First shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show in January of 2018, the camera was supposed to go on sale later that year. However, 2018 came and went without the device reaching store shelves. This month, a Yi spokesperson told Variety that the company had no plans to launch it this year either. The company was instead focusing on home security and in-car cameras, the spokesperson added.

LG, which was also supposed to make a VR180 camera, never even got around to announcing a dedicated device for the format.

Without any consumer-grade VR180 cameras available in the market, Google seems to have put software support for the format on the back-burner as well. The VR180 mobile app was last updated in December of 2018, despite the fact that many reviewers complain about issues with offloading content. "VR180 appears abandoned by Google," one of those reviewers concluded.

That's not to say that VR180 is necessarily dead. Videos produced in the format are still being uploaded to YouTube every day, and there still seems to be interest among video professionals looking to produce immersive video in the format. Some of them are filming with high-end 180-degree cameras like the $3000 Z CAM K1 Pro, while many others use 360-degree cameras like the Insta360 Pro to export video in VR180.

There may even be a future when hardware companies once again embrace VR180 for consumer-grade cameras. To facilitate this, Google quietly open sourced the technology necessary to build VR180 cameras earlier this year.

VR180 is just the latest of Google's VR projects to stall. Earlier this year, the company shut down its Jump cloud-based stitching service for 360-degree video footage. A VR camera jointly developed by Google and Imax never saw the light of day, and while Google's Daydream VR platform is still up and running, it has been abandoned by multiple app publishers, including HBO and Hulu.

Popular on Variety

Unity Technologies Announces Unity Simulation - A New Cloud Product to Train, Test, or Validate Products and Services at Scale - Yahoo Finance

Posted: 23 Sep 2019 09:00 AM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Unity Simulation enables businesses to perform large-scale 3D simulations using Unity in the cloud, allowing for greater insights, risk-free experimentation, and faster validation of new ideas

Unity Technologies (https://unity.com/), creator of the world's leading real-time 3D development platform, today announced Unity Simulation, a cloud-based simulation product for running multiple instances of a Unity project at scale. Supported by Google Cloud's infrastructure, Unity Simulation lowers the barrier for anyone to train, test, or validate new products and services in a high-fidelity 3D environment, so creators can bring their ideas to the world faster. Initial use cases for Unity Simulation will focus on computer vision oriented applications for the automotive, gaming, and robotics industries, however, the product can be used for any project, prototype, or concept created in Unity. Unity Simulation is available in closed beta. To get started with the free beta program, sign up here.

"In a new era of data-driven artificial intelligence, simulation is the key to unlock the full potential of this game-changing technology," said Danny Lange, VP of AI and Machine Learning, Unity Technologies. "By combining Unity's real-time 3D development platform with the scale and flexibility of the cloud, Unity Simulation will help businesses accelerate the creation of better, safer, and more reliable products."

Unity is already used for a wide range of simulation tasks, allowing businesses to create virtual environments easily. Unity Simulation leverages the scalability of the cloud to run millions of simulations simultaneously, accelerating time to insight by testing multiple scenarios in parallel. This saves time, manages risk, and can show how products will perform prior to costly public launches.

Train AI in a Safe Virtual Environment

There are some situations where testing and training is mandatory to improve product quality and ensure the system operates safely. Training and validating an autonomous vehicle is one instance where using a virtual environment can dramatically reduce the risk for both the car and those around it, allowing businesses to stress-test systems before they are put on the road.

"By using some of the latest advancements in Unity, including parts of the Data-Oriented Tech Stack and the High-Definition Render Pipeline, our LGSVL Simulator is able to create digital twins of real-world environments with accurate sensor models to train autonomous vehicles across multiple scenarios," said Seonman Kim, Vice President of Engineering, Advanced Platform Lab of LG Electronics. "By running the LGSVL Simulator on Unity Simulation, autonomous vehicle developers will be able to dramatically accelerate the training of their systems by running multiple scenarios in parallel."

Test at Massive Scale

Game designers today are inundated with choices about their game, but it can be tedious to assess every option if they can only test one choice at a time. By using Unity Simulation to run cloud-based simulations of their game, developers have a powerful product that can save them time by testing multiple scenarios in parallel.

"By working with Unity to leverage Unity Simulation, our team was able to run different combinations of in-game scenarios to find imbalances early in the development process. We believe Unity Simulation will play a big part in improving player experience in the future as well as help shorten the time it takes to soft launch a new title successfully," said Régis Geoffrion, Studio Director at iLLOGIKA

Validate Before Going into Production

Unity Simulation allows businesses to validate a new product without a large upfront investment in hardware. In a field such as robotics, businesses can use Unity Simulation to train and validate how a new robot will perform before they build the physical product, allowing them to better plan and design a robot to fit their needs.

Unity Simulation is currently available in closed beta, with new users being approved gradually. To learn more about Unity Simulation and start the onboarding process, sign up here.

About Unity Technologies

Unity is the creator of the world's leading real-time 3D development platform, giving users the most powerful and accessible tools to create, operate, and monetize experiences for the real-time world. Unity empowers anyone, regardless of skill level and industry, to create 3D visual content using world-class technology, operate using resources that maximize ease-of-use, and monetize, so that they can find success with their creations. The company's 1,000 person development team keeps Unity at the forefront of development by working alongside partners such as Google, Facebook, Oculus, Autodesk, and Microsoft to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Made with Unity experiences reach nearly 3 billion devices worldwide and have been installed more than 29 billion times in the last 12 months. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190923005212/en/

AWS, Azure or Google: Do the differences between cloud providers really matter? - Cloud Tech

Posted: 23 Sep 2019 02:22 AM PDT

When evaluating public cloud providers, it is easy to get hung up on the differences. AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud each have their own terminology, pricing, service catalog, and purchasing variations. But do these differences ultimately matter?

Compute options

Though we are able to align comparable products across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, there are of course differences between these offerings. In fact, with the number of products and services available today (we've counted 176 from AWS alone), comparing each is beyond the scope of this article.

For our purposes, we can compare what is still the core product for cloud service providers: compute. Compute products make up about two thirds of most companies' cloud bills, so the similarities and differences here will account for the core of most users' cloud experiences.

Here's a brief comparison of the compute option features across cloud providers:

Of course, if you plan to make heavy use of a particular service, such as Function-as-a-Service/serverless, you'll want to do a detailed comparison of those offerings on their own.

Pricing

That covers functionality. How do the prices compare? One way to do this is by selecting a particular resource type, finding comparable versions across the cloud providers, and comparing prices. Here's an example of a few instances' costs as of this writing (all are Linux OS):

For more accurate results, pull up each cloud provider's price list. Of course, not all instance types will be as easy to compare across providers – especially once you get outside the core compute offerings into options that are more variable, more configurable, and perhaps even charged differently (in fact, AWS and Google actually charge per second).

Note that AWS and Azure list distinct prices for instance types with the Windows OS, while Google Cloud adds a per-core license charge, on top of the base instance cost.

The table above represents the default On Demand pricing options. However, each provider offers a variety of methods to reduce these base costs, which we'll look at in the Purchasing Options section.

Terminology

At first glance, it may seem like the cloud providers each have a unique spread of offerings. But many of these products and services are quite similar once you get the names aligned. Here are a few examples:

Obviously, this is not a sign of substantive differences in offerings – and just goes to show that the providers are often more similar than it might appear at first glance.

Purchasing options

Comparisons of the myriad purchasing options are worth several articles on their own, so I'll keep it high level here. These are the most commonly used – and discussed – options to lower costs from the listed On Demand prices for AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

Reservations

Each of the major cloud providers offers a way for customers to purchase compute capacity in advance in exchange for a discount: AWS Reserved Instances, Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances, and Google Committed Use discounts. There are a few interesting variations, for example, AWS offers an option to purchase "Convertible Reserved Instances", which allow reservations to be exchanged across families, operating systems, and instance sizes. On the other hand, Azure offers similar flexibility in their core Reserved VM option. Google Cloud's program is somewhat more flexible regarding resources, as customers must only select a number of vCPUs and memory, rather than a specific instance size and type.

What about if you change your mind? AWS users have the option to resell their reservations on a marketplace if they decide they're no longer needed, while Azure users will pay a penalty to cancel, and Google users cannot cancel.

Spot and preemptible instances

Another discounting mechanism is the idea of spot instances in AWS, low-priority VMs in Azure, and preemptible VMs, as they're called on Google. These options allow users to purchase unused capacity for a steep discount. The cost of this discount is that these instances can be interrupted (or perhaps Azure puts it best with their "evicted" term) in favor of higher priority demand – i.e. someone who paid more. For this reason, this pricing structure is best used for fault-tolerant applications and short-lived processes, such as financial modeling, rendering, and testing. While there are variations in the exact mechanisms for purchasing and using these instance types across clouds, they have similar discount amounts and use cases.

Sustained use discounts

Google Cloud Platform offers another cost-saving option that doesn't have a direct equivalent in AWS or Azure: Sustained Use Discounts. This is an automatic, built-in discount for compute capacity, giving you a larger percentage off the more you run the instance. Be aware that the GCP prices listed can be somewhat misleading, as a sustained use discount is already built in, assuming full-month usage – but it is nice to see the cloud provider looking after its customers and requiring no extra cost or work for this discount.

Contracts

A last sort of "purchasing option" is related to contract agreements. With all three major cloud providers, enterprise contracts are available. Typically, these are aimed at enterprise customers, and encourage large companies to commit to specific levels of usage and spend in exchange for an across-the-board discount – for example, AWS EDPs, Azure Enterprise Agreements. As these are not published options and will depend on the size of your infrastructure, your relationship with the cloud provider, etc., it's hard to say what impact this will have on your bill and how it will compare between clouds.

The 'it' factor

There's also just the pure perception of the differences between cloud providers.

For instance, some may perceive Azure as a bit stodgy, while Google Cloud seems slick but perhaps less performant than AWS. Some appreciate AWS and Azure's enterprise support more and find Google Cloud lacking here, but this is changing as Google onboards more large customers and focuses on enterprise compatibility.

There are also perceptions regarding ease of use, but actually, we find these to be most affected by the platform you're used to using. Ultimately, whatever you're most familiar with is going to be the easiest – and any can be learned.

Do the differences really matter?

On some of the factors we went through above, the cloud providers do have variations. But on many variables, the providers and their offerings are so similar as to be equivalent. If there's a particular area that's especially important to your business (such as serverless, or integration with Microsoft applications), you may find that it becomes the deciding factor.

The fact of the matter is, you're likely to be using multiple clouds soon, if you're not already – so you will have access to the advantages of each provider. Additionally, applications and data are now more portable than ever due to containers.

So, prepare yourself and your environment for a multi-cloud reality. Build your applications to avoid vendor lock-in. Use cloud-agnostic tools where possible to take advantage of the benefits of abstraction layers.

Even if you're only considering one cloud at the moment, these choices will benefit you in the long run. And remember: if your company is telling you to use a specific cloud provider, or an obscure requirement drives you to one in particular – don't worry. The differences don't matter that much.

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this and sharing their experiences and use-cases? Attend the Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London and Amsterdam to learn more.

Cloud artiicle 14

Monday, September 23, 2019