Alphabet’s Earnings Miss Forecasts - The New York Times

Also see Microsoft’s Cloud Business Falls Short of Investors’ Hopes (NYT)

"A question hanging over Google is its ventures in cloud computing. This is the growth market where Amazon is far ahead of everyone. Amazon Web Services is more exciting to investors than the retailer’s core business. Microsoft, meanwhile, is mounting an aggressive challenge.

Google is far behind at No. 3, or perhaps even No. 4 after IBM, said John R. Rymer, an analyst at Forrester Research. Last fall, Google hired Diane Greene, an industry veteran, to run all of its cloud businesses.

“This is their third try to really become a cloud powerhouse,” Mr. Rymer said. “They certainly seem more serious this time, but we’ll have to see if they move beyond digital natives to airlines, utilities, trucking companies, governments — the enterprises where the real money is.”"

Alphabet’s Earnings Miss Forecasts - The New York Times