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Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by mybigsword on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @03:12PM (#11724856)
I cannot agree with that. Google Cloud services are way too small comparing to AWS or Azure and they don't make a lot of money with it. They can discontinue it easily.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by dandelany on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @04:26PM (#11725590)
GCS is relatively small today, but it's growing fast, and Google is investing a ton of money and resources into it right now. They've added a bunch of new systems and promised more coming soon. They also just signed a huge deal to host all of Spotify's data. Cloud Services aren't going anywhere, in fact my perception is that Google would like them to replace advertising as their #1 moneymaker.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by manigandham on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @04:26PM (#11725598)
Google Cloud is way more advanced than both AWS and Azure in many ways and just as big in capacity, if not customers yet. Cloud computing will likely be more profitable than ads in the future for them and they announced billions in new investment just a few months ago to build out the platform further.

It's not going anywhere.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by throwawaykf05 on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @05:26PM (#11726112)
Microsoft put billions into Windows Phone and many (including me) think it's superior to iOS and Android, but what's its market share now? What I mean is, even if it is technically better, will Google Cloud get customers? AWS has a huge head start with significant mindshare, and Microsoft has its pre-existing enterprise customers sewed up. With tech funding drying up, where will Google find its customers?
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by manigandham on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:30AM (#11728426)
You're vastly underestimating the computing market. Startups/tech funding are a microscopic part of the industry. There are millions of small businesses and thousands of major corporations that are slowly moving into the cloud which are all new customers for the taking.

AWS has a head start and a great product catalog, Azure has the windows/office/server ecosystem, but Google has been doing scaled computing for a very long time and has contributed to many of the innovations in the industry. Although they're newer with less features, what they do have is more advanced and the Google name carries a lot of weight and reputation.

Most corporations are still focused on just moving over to IaaS with compliance and security first and Google has done a great job building a solid foundation for this which should pay dividends in the future.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by throwawaykf05 on Friday May 20, 2016 @02:14AM (#11735835)
> Most corporations are still focused on just moving over to IaaS with compliance and security first

Yes but my point is AWS has more mindshare and MS has more leverageable pre-existing business inroads with a huge number of these corporations.

> and Google has done a great job building a solid foundation for this which should pay dividends in the future

That seems rational, but the countless examples of "worse is better" in life indicate that that outcome is far from guaranteed.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by unclebucknasty on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @11:15PM (#11727707)
Yeah, the challenge is that it seems to rely on Google services (not just libraries) at the app layer in a way that screams lock-in.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by unclebucknasty on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @11:28PM (#11727753)
Downvote? Is it not reliant on Google services?
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by ignoramous on Thursday May 19, 2016 @10:53PM (#11735298)
HN crowd is pro-Google, I feel. I get pounded with downvotes, the moment I speak against the darling of the Bay Area (?)
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by unclebucknasty on Thursday May 19, 2016 @11:07PM (#11735340)
That would definitely explain it.

Never liked the downvoting idea, but if it must be, then it would be nice if people were at least required to comment while downvoting and open themselves to downvotes for their whacked, baseless downvotes.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by ignoramous on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @04:44PM (#11725767)
> Google Cloud is way more advanced than both AWS and Azure in many ways

I see this being thrown around here a lot. Buying into Google's PR is what this is. If you've valid points apart from BigQuery vs RedShift, I'd request you to enumerate them for me.

I have personally interacted with Googlers who lament the fact that 'no one internally bothers using most of GCP' and hence not being able to 'iterate/innovate as fast as AWS' is a key disadvantage despite their 'superior offerings', whatever that means.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by manigandham on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @05:17PM (#11726049)
> Buying into Google's PR is what this is

Really? Have you actually used it or done any research?

1. Container Engine = built on kubernetes, faster and easier than the others

2. Compute Engine = VMs start faster, customizable rather than set sizes, live migration when the host has maintenance or starts to fail, NVME SSDs available with < 1ms latency

3. Networking = faster and more consistent performance, all the regions are connected which makes cross-regional/global deployments easier and more secure

4. Load balancing = actually routes the traffic automatically to the closest region and spills over based on capacity, not just DNS junk like the rest, no warmup or latency issues

5. CDN interconnects = cheaper bandwidth and lower latency using their partner CDN networks

6. Pub/Sub = great message system that doesnt need shards or anything to deal with for scaling, supports multiple subscribers and acks

7. gcloud = best shell access available to interact with pretty much everything, no keys or passwords to worry about

8. grpc APIs, fast storage/nearline, bigtable/datastore/cloud sql, Vision API, etc

Yes it's still new and there are a few frustrating issues, and AWS and Azure do have lots of products and their own special offerings, but the core Google platform is the amazing at running a bunch of servers/containers for a globally distributed app with high performance. We've tried them all and GCP has been the best so far.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by kuschku on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @05:47PM (#11726259)
And all of it nicely accessible to the US. What a great idea.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by CydeWeys on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @09:40PM (#11727344)
Amazon and Microsoft are both also US-based companies.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by kuschku on Thursday May 19, 2016 @01:29AM (#11728209)
And not any better – at least you don’t get vendor lock-in with them.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by manigandham on Thursday May 19, 2016 @02:04AM (#11728327)
What are you talking about? VMs are the same across any cloud if you just want IaaS.

They all have their own proprietary services which are valuable but it's completely your choice to use them.

Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by ddorian43 on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @05:34PM (#11726169)
But amazon doesn't use aws too, right ?
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by williamstein on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @03:18PM (#11724914)
+1 -- Sometimes Google does embrace open source in building services that I can trust longterm, e.g., Kubernetes. I wish Firebase (which I won't use) were being built and marketed in a similar way to Kubernetes (which I will use).
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by velohx on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @03:25PM (#11725000)
This is sarcasm, right? Here's some more equivalent sarcasm: Gmail and Google Search could discontinue easily.
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by toomuchtodo on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @03:40PM (#11725154)
Search, hardly. But Gmail? What happens when Google decides they're not monetizing Gmail sufficiently and force everyone to Inbox? What then!
Re:Firebase expands to become a unified app platform by unclebucknasty on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @11:26PM (#11727741)
You're comparing their mature businesses to their nascent cloud business. Their market share in the latter is still a fraction of the leaders'. It's very possible that Google may "lose the cloud".