Thoroughly enjoying taking in the #GoogleCloudNext keynote at my own speed & time in its new, eye-watering, 9 WEEK digital format this year.

Personally, I prefer the measured delivery style from Kurian. Much better than the frenetic talk tracks of other virtual keynotes. Clear, succinct messages & easy to track. Global audiences I am sure will agree #GoogleCloudNext

Keynote opens with a big push on privacy & security incl moves in confidential computing & assured workloads. These are important steps in improving government & business trust in Google Cloud as anti-trust lawsuits against Its parent continue to rise globally #GoogleCloudNext

Next big area is #Anthos it’s #hybridmulticloud platform. A year ago, Anthos was mainly about doing Kubernetes development at scale across infrastructures, most notably on prem & AWS. But its been moving FAST incl among others, adding #Azure in preview & 5G edge #GoogleCloudNext

And now with Big Query Omni, you can query data in AWS & Azure using NLP without having to move data to Google Cloud. This is a big step for Anthos & in Google taking its data analytics, #AI & ML tools hybrid multicloud, a trend that will be big next year #GoogleCloudNext

A final noteworthy area that Kurian rounds up on is Google Cloud’s business solution & vertical portfolio. The clouds are going vertical in a big way now with retail, finance and healthcare being Google’s main targets. #GoogleCloudNext

Perhaps the prize vertical of them all is telco & Google’s recent win with Verizon is a prime example. Google’s Contact Centre AI is arguably one of its star performers during the pandemic as many firms were forced to transform & automate operations in this area #GoogleCloudNext

As a big AWS customer, VZ’s selection of Google’s Contact Centre AI ahead of AWS Connect will certainly cause a stir. It shows Google’s focus on telco & the transformation happening in the sector following the Anthos for Telecom release this year is paying off. #GoogleCloudNext