Alphabet Unit Cuts Jobs at Cloud-Computing Business -- WSJ
February 15 2020 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Aaron Tilley and Robert McMillan
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (February 15, 2020).
Google said it is cutting jobs at its cloud-computing unit as
part of a reorganization aimed at improving operations at the
business that has become more central to parent Alphabet Inc.
Google on Friday said "a small number of employees" have been
notified their roles have been eliminated. Google didn't specify
how many roles are being cut and said it was working with affected
employees to find them new positions in the company.
The move comes as Google has been boosting its efforts in the
booming cloud-computing market to close the gap to market leaders
Amazon.com Inc. and No. 2 Microsoft Corp. The battle to dominate
the market to supply corporate customers with remote computing
power has become among the fiercest among tech giants.
Google has had a long history operating in the cloud. For years,
it rented some of its data-center capacity to other companies to
process and store information. It also offered services such as
email, documents and spreadsheets that store data in the cloud.
Google, in recent years, has sharpened its focus to sell such
services to big corporate customers where Amazon and particularly
Microsoft were securing lucrative deals. It hired Thomas Kurian, a
longtime veteran of enterprise software giant Oracle Corp., to run
Google Cloud.
After taking over about a year ago he set out to boost the sales
and support staff to better cater to corporate clients. He
bolstered management ranks by hiring executives with expertise in
selling to enterprise buyers, including recruiting as president of
cloud sales Robert Enslin from German software giant SAP SE and
naming former Microsoft executive John Jester to run customer
relations at Google Cloud.
Google this month reported fourth-quarter sales of $2.6 billion
for its cloud business, up 53% from the year prior. Google
generated $8.9 billion in cloud sales last year, up 52.7% from $5.8
billion in 2018 and $4.1 billion the year prior.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai in July said the company
was planning to triple the sales force in the next few years. The
cloud business was the area Google added the most staff during the
fourth quarter, Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told
analysts this month during an earnings call.
"Dealing with large enterprises is different than [small
businesses] and consumers," said Ray Wang, founder of the Silicon
Valley-based advisory firm Constellation Research Inc. The layoffs
are likely part of Google's shift toward focusing on large
enterprises, he said.
Write to Aaron Tilley at aaron.tilley@wsj.com and Robert
McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 15, 2020 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024