Google’s Cloud Team Is Sending Chromebooks To Microsoft Partners

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The next great enterprise battleground is the cloud. Microsoft has its Azure platform, Amazon has AWS, Google is entering the arena with Google Cloud and each company is throwing serious money to grab a slice of this market as it continues to expand.

This shouldn’t come as a major surprise but Google’s cloud team is trying to woo over vendors of Microsoft’s Azure. The company has been sending out packages to select companies and is also offering to ship them a Chromebook to play with to tempt them to explore what Google has to offer.

For a few weeks, I have been hearing about how Google is ramping up their marketing efforts to attract new customers to their cloud services. Everything from targeting high-end Azure resellers to large enterprises are in the crosshairs of Google’s Cloud marketing tactics.

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A recipient of one of these care packages was kind enough to share with me what’s inside to show you how the company is trying to grow its cloud services. There is nothing too crazy here but seeing as Google is an underdog in this segment, I find it interesting in the tactics that they are using to sway vendors who sell Azure and AWS to potentially offer Google Cloud too.

The pitch is completed by Google sending the recipient a Chromebook to conduct a call (over Hangouts) about how the company can use its suite of technologies to improve their operations or expand their potential re-selling services. This is not a cheap way to market your services but in the cloud segment where contracts are worth millions or more means spending big to attract new customers is warranted.

This is a small look at how Google is reaching out to potential customers who are either thinking of moving to the cloud or are currently working with Microsoft or Amazon to re-sell their cloud services. Google is moving aggressively into this segment and this tactic is likely proving to be effective based on the number of people I have had tell me about the packages they have received from the company.