Google takes to the cloud to woo Indian firms

In the face of rising competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, global tech giant Google is betting big on its cloud services to woo 44 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs), more than 20,000 start-ups and hundreds of major companies.

Google’s cloud customers in India include Ashok Leyland, goibibo.com, Hero Moto Corp, Policybazaar.com, Quikr, Yaatra, SBI Cards, Hike Messenger, Vistara and Share Chat.

The company, which currently has three data centres in Mumbai, is on an expansion spree. Knowing that the demand is set to increase from the fintech sector in over the next couple of months as banks and nonbanking financial institutions hurry to meet Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directive to bring financial data back to India, the company is hoping for a rise in demand.

The tech giant is pitching its artificial intelligence and machine learning laden cloud service as an easy to use and secure option, which it claims is better than competition. The company has conducted several roadshows across the country in the past few weeks to woo current as well as prospective customers.

The company on Thursday said security was the “bedrock” of its cloud services for enterprises, which saw significant adoption in India over the last few months. Google’s cloud region in India went live in November last year and offers services, including Big Data, storage and networking. Google competes with the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in this space.

“In India, the bedrock of what we are offering is around security,” Google Cloud Asia-Pacific Managing Director Rick Harshman said.

The company was witnessing strong growth in demand from across customer segments, from startups and small and medium businesses, to large enterprises in India, he added.