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Cloudy With a Chance of... Google?

BloombergQuint’s Aayush Ailawadi In Conversation With James Snow

Google’s James Snow (left) with BloombergQuint’s Aayush Ailawadi at Atmosphere 2016. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)
Google’s James Snow (left) with BloombergQuint’s Aayush Ailawadi at Atmosphere 2016. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)

What on Earth is Google Atmosphere?

Google’s global enterprise event is held each year in various tech-savvy cities around the world. This year, the event was held in Mumbai, for the first time. The tech giant showcased its state-of-the-art and secure digital technologies in the enterprise space, including Google Apps, application hosting, data analysis, and the infrastructure space with Cloud Platform, Chrome and Android hardware.

Rick Harshman, Managing Director, Google Cloud Platform (Asia Pacific & Japan) at Google Atmosphere India 2016 on August 4. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)
Rick Harshman, Managing Director, Google Cloud Platform (Asia Pacific & Japan) at Google Atmosphere India 2016 on August 4. (Photographer: Vishal Patel/BloombergQuint)

According to data from leading profiling website BuiltWith Trends, more than 70 percent of .in websites have been using Google’s enterprise technologies, making it a popular choice among India Inc. Flipkart and Ola Cabs have been using Google’s enterprise offerings since their inception. Air Asia, Jindal Steel, Hero MotoCorp, Jindal Steel and Go Air are also among its key customers.

The tech behemoth says that it’s increasing its investments in Google Cloud Platform – its cloud infrastructure offering – that’s up against the likes of Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon Web Services.

The Global Computing Race

When asked about how its cloud computing platform stacks up against its competitors, Google’s James Snow told BloombergQuint, “Amazon has been a leader in the ‘infrastructure as a service’ space. Now, Microsoft has Azure but we’ve also been launching a number of services, especially things like Compute Engine, BigQuery and when we think about what makes Google really different, it’s our ability to really handle data and security at scale.”

Snow is a Global Product Strategist, who focuses on Security, Privacy & Legal Compliance for Google for Work. Snow often engages with customers, regulators and partners on security and compliance related matters.

Cyber Criminals, Beware!

In an increasingly digital world, cyber security has become a key concern for businesses worldwide. In 2016 alone, the cost of cyber crimes stood at an estimated $2-3 trillion and that’s going to trigger more cyber security spending, according to a Cybersecurity Market Report by research and market intelligence firm CyberSecurity Ventures.

Over the last few years, Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, eBay, Target and Sony have all been victims of major hackings.

Outlining the lessons Google has learnt from previous cyber attacks, Snow said that the company has changed its platform, and begun manufacturing all its networking equipment and communications protocol.

When we talk about these kinds of cyber threats, this is an arms race and the question is, who is going to be best positioned to fight them.... Even if we were not number 1, but were number 2 or 3 in the cloud computing space, this is a substantial amount of revenue especially over the next 5-10 years. So, this (the enterprise cloud business) is going to be mission critical for Google. This is our priority.
James Snow, Security & Compliance Product Strategist, Google for Work

Apple vs Google: Where Is Your Data Safer?

Earlier this year, the FBI and Apple were embroiled in a legal tussle in the U.S. over accessing the locked iPhone belonging to the shooter involved in the San Bernadino attacks. Apple refused to provide the authorities any sort of backdoor access to the phone in question. Eventually, the U.S. Justice Department put an end to this case, by announcing that they had gained access to the phone through an unidentified third party. That might have wrapped up this particular case, but it certainly didn’t end the ‘privacy versus security’ debate.

Google came out in support of rival Apple in this case, Snow reiterated in the interview. On whether it would have been simpler for authorities to gain access to an Android phone because of the open source nature of the software, Snow said there is strong encryption in place to guard against any threat to data security.