While Microsoft continues to chase after the much larger fish in the cloud pond that is Amazon, it may want to keep a periodic eye on seemingly smaller rivals such as Google Cloud Platform.
Of the big three, Google’s Cloud Platform trails behind that of Amazon and Microsoft by a not so insignificant margin, which makes today’s finding all the more interesting to report.
According to CNBC, there is an Apple filing that shows the smartphone giant moved from Microsoft’s Azure cloud services in favor of third place Google Cloud Platform. The move from Azure to GCP had been tentatively reported on back in 2016 as Microsoft also lost access to iPhone user search data through its Bing-powered Siri partnership.
The iOS Security Guide is the document that gives insight into the switch with a published PDF that comes out periodically throughout the year. With the latest update to the document, references to Microsoft’s Azure cloud have been removed and replaced with mention of GCP, which may indicate a migration conclusion for the three parties.
While Apple has yet to publically address the switch from Azure to GCP, today’s report codifies the continued co-dependant relationship between Google and Apple as Siri is now powered by Google Search and now Apple is relying on GCP for its iCloud services.
Despite a preachy stance on data privacy, it seems interesting that Apple would choose to store its iCloud user data with the third best cloud service provider company that’s been pock-marked with privacy concerns as of late.
