Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at why two of the fastest-growing Cloud Wars companies are joining forces around data, AI, and industry solutions.

Highlights

00:03 — When heavy weather rolls in, it's good to have friends around. It's good to have partnerships, and I don't think the AI Revolution is so much heavy weather, but that depends on how well prepared businesses are to take advantage of it, how aggressively, how thoughtfully they're moving into this AI Revolution.

00:41 — It's interesting, Google Cloud and Palantir, on the Cloud Wars Top 10, these are the two fastest-growing companies. Google Cloud grew 63%; Palantir grew 70%. Palantir's commercial business grew 133% in the first quarter, so they've got enormous momentum.

01:30 — The Palantir Foundry platform for enterprise data management is now available on Google Cloud infrastructure and on the Google Cloud Marketplace. Google Cloud and Palantir have built connectors between Foundry and Google Cloud's BigQuery, allowing data from those platforms and others to be pulled together for businesses to analyze.

02:09 — Not just the technical integrations, which have to happen, but also this desire for these two companies to say, "We're going to jointly develop industry-specific solutions around data and AI for vertical markets." The first two they picked are retail and financial services.

03:15 — This is a dream partnership, I think. And it's also probably an example of how, with the enormity of the prospects of what can happen here in the AI Revolution, we're going to see more of the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies form these sorts of wide-ranging partnerships.

04:19 — There's a big emphasis from both of these companies on keeping things open and fully accessible for whichever specific routes customers want to take. We're seeing these inextricably bound connections here through this partnership of data, which is the fuel for AI, helping companies transform into AI-powered enterprises.

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Highlights

00:27 — It's not just business as usual for these companies, their customers, and others who are tied into these extraordinary enterprises. We're also seeing booms in innovation, not just in technology but in go-to-market models, business models, and more.

01:32 — The big part of this is that it's not just big numbers, but big numbers driving widespread, deep, and profound innovation. Here's how the $2.1 trillion breaks out across the four hyperscalers:



Backlog
RPO Total Backlog
RPO Growth Rate




Oracle
$638 Billion
363%


Microsoft
$627 Billion
99%


Google Cloud
$462 Billion
93%


AWS
$364 Billion
49%


Total
$2.091 Trillion
 



02:32 — With this high level of innovation, we're seeing a convergence of industries including technology, energy, and construction. Because of extreme demands, the tech industry has to start getting into the energy business. Construction is entering the picture as well, as these facilities are some of the largest built in such a short period of time, meeting demanding specifications and aligning with supply and demand.

03:25 — This convergence is leading to the hyperscalers developing new business models. These companies are coming up with unique models to solve this unprecedented demand and business challenge. Customers are coming up with different models based on what's happening, too.

04:15 — I have been a huge fan of the potential of fusion energy to meet this need. The convergence of tech and energy is only going to accelerate what's happening to break even with fusion energy.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I examine why the Google Cloud-EQT deal signals a major shift in how AI is being distributed at scale.

Highlights

00:03 — The rapid pace at which deals are being struck and portfolios are expanding among the leaders in the race for AI dominance isn't new. Significant partnerships are being forged, and contracts are being signed all the time. However, every so often, a deal comes along that stands out not only for its scope, but also for what it indicates about the direction of travel for the industry as a whole.

00:33 — One such deal recently announced is between Google Cloud and the Swedish private equity firm EQT. Ultimately, this partnership sees EQT commit to accelerating AI adoption through Google Cloud for over 300 companies within its portfolio, and this is, of course, a big win for Google Cloud, as it gains access to hundreds of potential enterprise AI customers.

01:04 — Beyond this, those companies will not only benefit from Google Cloud's wide-ranging AI offerings, including the Gemini Enterprise agent platform, as well as its cybersecurity portfolio, but also from its vast partner network, which includes over 330,000 consultants from major firms like Deloitte and KPMG.

01:27 — For me, the biggest takeaways here are that, firstly, agentic AI is clearly going mainstream, with equity firms eager to roll it out among their entire portfolios. We're obviously well past the experimentation phase now.

01:42 — Secondly, this really presents a major opportunity for AI infrastructure companies to leverage this growing acceptance to enhance AI distribution at the portfolio level. This shift could result in AI adoption accelerating much faster than when companies go down the traditional enterprise sales route.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how OpenAI is transforming from an AI innovator into a full-scale enterprise powerhouse.

Highlights

00:02 — Well, a couple weeks ago, we talked about some moves made by OpenAI to capitalize on its booming business in the enterprise. One of the things, just to offer some context here, is OpenAI said about a month ago that 40% of its revenue now comes from the enterprise, but by the end of the year, it expects that to be 50% enterprise business.

00:56 — It's added a million business customers in the last 12 months. They want to rapidly get to the right business outcome. OpenAI has launched a couple of go-to-market initiatives here, focused around deployment, and it's doing this in two separate, closely coordinated, ways.

02:06 — It's going to be with them deeply to help guide these AI transformations. OpenAI has set up a $150 million fund in this OpenAI Partner Network to support the initiatives of these partners as they go through, to help them move quickly, get the resources they need, and establish the right sort of capabilities to work with customers to get these high-level outcomes.

02:32 — Also, the OpenAI Partner Network says that it wants to certify 300,000 consultants by the end of the year on OpenAI's technology for businesses. We're about halfway through the year, so roughly that's close to 50,000 certified consultants per month starting July 1 through the end of the year. That's a very ambitious pace.

03:21 — Now, the second part of this two-part deployment effort is the OpenAI Deployment Company, launched about a month ago. This is one where OpenAI is the majority owner, but they've also taken lots of outside investments from other companies, including investment firms, consultancies, and systems integrators.

03:28 — Currently, the forward deployed engineers have come from OpenAI's acquisition of Tomorrow. That is an AI engineering and deployment company that currently has 154 deployed engineers, and OpenAI says they want to crank that up to 250 very rapidly.

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In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I break down how DynaTech Systems enabled Solmax to turn operational complexity into global efficiency with D365, Power BI, and Microsoft Fabric.

Highlights

00:03 — Today I want to take a bit of a dive into a specific case study: the story about the impact of digital transformation enabled by one company on the business outcomes of another. I love having the opportunity to explore stories like this because, as important as it is to discuss the technology itself, how it's implemented and what that implementation can lead to is just as critical.

00:41 — Solmax is a leading geosynthetics manufacturer focused on civil and environmental infrastructure, operating across four continents through 32 legal entities. This broad reach, although great from a growth perspective, was creating challenges such as data silos, inconsistent processes, and a lack of standardized reporting, which affected financial and operational insights.

01:08 — Beyond this, manual processes led to inefficiencies. Complex sales price calculations hindered productivity, and reliance on outdated Microsoft systems resulted in slower Power BI report refresh times. To address these challenges, Solmax had a core goal: the One Organization, One Data, One Reporting initiative.

01:52 — DynaTech has a number of solutions it will tailor to suit the outcomes of an individual client. In the case of Solmax, the company opted for its finance optimization solution. After process consulting, DynaTech enabled a greenfield implementation of D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management with unified processes across 32 entities.

03:17 — Beyond this, unified real-time dashboards enhanced global reporting, supported faster decision-making, and improved the company's audit readiness. Solmax was able to reduce freight costs, accelerate delivery cycles, improve truck utilization, minimize penalties, and shorten accounts payable and receivable processing times. Less manual intervention meant fewer errors.

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