Google Cloud Platform Ramps Up Competition with AWS and Microsoft Azure with New Partner Program

Proving that it is serious about taking on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, Google is getting set to roll out a tiered partner program for the Google Cloud Platform.

The company’s plans were announced this week at a Red Hat Conference by Chris Rimer, head of Google Cloud partners. Google had previously unveiled a channel program in 2012, but that was limited to its technology partners and systems integrators, while the new program would be open to cloud solution providers as well.

Google has been ramping up its cloud efforts over the last couple of months, announcing 10 percent price cuts on most cloud services in the beginning of December, as well as 60 percent off on high-end data storage. The discounts went along with general availability of the Google Compute Engine (GCE), the company’s IaaS offering.

The company also announced a key partnership with Dell a few weeks ago, in which the Google Cloud Platform will be offered to Dell partners through its Dell Cloud Partner Program. That move is significant, as it will open the platform to cloud developers for architecting applications for managed and unmanaged services running on Google infrastructure.

It appears that the new Google partner program will open the company’s platform for even further development, although no formal announcement has yet been made. AWS launched a partner program in 2012, while Windows Azure partners are part of Microsoft’s giant partner network.

For its part, Microsoft has been steadily adding features to Azure in a bid to take on AWS. In November, the company announced VM enhancements to the platform as well as a business intelligence tool designed to compete with the AWS Elastic Map Reduce and Google BigQuery. Microsoft is also a Dell Cloud partner, although the former PC giant has yet to partner with AWS. In a December Wall Street Journal article, Nnamdi Orakwue, vice president of Dell software strategy, said, “We’re working on it… stay tuned,” with regard to a possible AWS partnership.