Google Cloud Marketplace Reduces Its Fees, By a Lot

Google Cloud is cutting – significantly – the amount of money it keeps from its cloud marketplace listings. Partners will want to read on for more on that development.

After that, stick around for some new statistics about the U.S. cloud providers dominating in Europe. According to one research firm, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud have all but edged out the region’s local vendors — at least in the public cloud sector. Finally, Cloudera last week gave Channel Futures an update on its plans. Find out what the cloud data analytics company has in store for its partners.

Google Cloud Cuts Marketplace Take

Google Cloud will only take 3% on sales from its cloud marketplace, cutting its revenue share from 20%.

CNBC first reported the news on Sunday, and Google Cloud has verified it.

“We can confirm that a change to our Marketplace fee structure is in the works, and we’ll have more to share on this soon,” a spokesperson told CNBC by email.

The change means more money in the pockets of developers and other channel partners. Yet it comes as Big Tech has faced scrutiny for the amount of money it keeps, for both consumer and business products.

At the same time, Google Cloud continues to suss out ways to gain an edge against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The third-largest cloud provider evidently needed to make its cloud marketplace rates more equitable. UBS analysts estimate Amazon charges a 5% listing fee, while Microsoft in July cut its take from 20% to 3%. Google Cloud’s move to do the same is a little late, but partners should reap the benefits.

U.S. Big 3 Hoarding European Cloud Market Share

Even though European service providers continue to capture more market share overall, they’re still losing to the American incumbents — AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

The big three now account for 69% of the regional market, according to new data from Synergy Research Group.

Since early 2017, the cloud market in Europe has grown almost fourfold, reaching $8.8 billion in 2021’s second quarter, Synergy found. However, even though European providers such as Deutsche Telekom have more than doubled their cloud revenue, their market share has dropped. The decrease is significant: from 27% to less than 16%, analysts said.

In some ways, European cloud companies “could be quietly satisfied that they have more than doubled their revenues in a four-year period,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.

They also could take some solace in carving out sustainable positions for themselves as national champions or strong niche players, he said. Other than that, things probably won’t change much any time soon.

Synergy Research Group’s John Dinsdale

“It is almost impossible to imagine the current market dynamics changing much in the next five years,” Dinsdale said. “This is a game of scale and the big three U.S. cloud providers have plowed over EUR 14 billion into European capex in just the last four quarters, much of this spent on a continued drive to upgrade and expand their regional network of hyperscale data centers.”

Yet, even though “Amazon and Microsoft will not be losing any sleep worrying about their future prospects,” Europe’s homegrown cloud providers still can …

… fuel growth, Dinsdale said.

“The key for them is to stay focused on use cases that have stricter data sovereignty and privacy requirements and on customer segments that require a strong local support network,” he noted.

To that point, channel partners with particular capabilities in these areas would do well to team with those more specialized vendors.

According to Synergy Research Group, Deutsche Telekom leads the European cloud providers, claiming 2% market share. T-Mobile’s parent is followed by OVHcloud, SAP, Orange and a long list of national and regional players, Synergy Research Group said. Smaller U.S. and Asian cloud providers make up the balance of the European market; they are steadily losing ground, analysts said.

Cloudera Channel Chief Gives Partner Update

“Our road map is going to be accelerated.”

That’s the word from Gary Green, vice president of strategic partnerships at data analytics vendor Cloudera.

Cloudera’s Gary Green

Cloudera went private in June, a strategy that Green expects will propel the company’s channel efforts.

The deal should close by the end of this year. As a result, Cloudera VARs, system integrators and ISVs can look for more momentum from the company. Green told Channel Futures the vendor is investing in its global partner programs, bringing on new partners (especially those who can support SaaS deployments, thanks to Cloudera’s purchases of Datacoral and Cazena), helping partners get certified faster, and removing channel conflict between direct and channel sales teams.

That last point always matters to partners, and Green emphasized the change.

“The partner community is completely aligned alongside our direct sales organization … so they can cooperatively sell together in front of the customer,” Green said.

Meantime, Cloudera is preparing to launch the next version of its private cloud platform. That will come in the fourth quarter. Enhancements will involve data services, engineering, science, warehousing and flow, and will address some issues around storage, Green said.

Along the way, Cloudera is emphasizing its focus on hybrid cloud, rather than just public cloud. Customers in every vertical are telling Cloudera that they are keen on keeping their precious data analytics onsite. Yet they need some of the public cloud’s features, such as scalability, agility and flexibility. Cloudera is shifting to a hybrid cloud posture to accommodate those needs. The company supports AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, as well as China’s Alibaba Cloud.

“A data explosion is happening before us,” Green said.