Google has announced today that their cloud platform, Google Compute Engine, is getting new features today and it comes in the form of supporting more Microsoft products. The products, Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition, SQL Server, SharePoint and Exchange Server are all available, starting today.
These features were requested by Google"s customers and are part of the reason that the company is making the products available. Another reason, while not specifically stated, likely has to do with the competitive nature of cloud vendors. Microsoft and Amazon are pursing this market aggressively and if Google wants to compete as well, it will need to keep up with these services.
Google also said that a version of the Chrome RDP app from their Fusion Labs optimized for Google Cloud Platform is available to our customers for use with Windows in Google Compute Engine for free.
While we don"t expect to see customers flock from other cloud vendors to Google"s because of these additions, it is a win for Microsoft as its software (which requires licenses) can be used in more places which increase the likelihood of a sale. If you want to read more about these new features, you can hit the source link below to read Google"s blog post about the release.
Source: Google