Cisco and Google Find Mutual Interest in Cloud Computing - The New York Times

Also see Google and Cisco announce hybrid cloud partnership (TechCrunch)

"The Silicon Valley giants on Wednesday announced a collaboration to help companies manage software and technology services that may run in their own data centers or in facilities operated by external cloud services.

Google, the largest unit of its parent, Alphabet, hopes to benefit from Cisco’s close ties to corporate customers as the search engine giant tries to catch up to Amazon, the market leader in cloud services, and Microsoft.

Cisco could also use some help. The tech giant, which in 2000 briefly became the world’s most valuable publicly traded company when its computer networking equipment was used to build the internet, faces a serious threat from cloud services. Companies that once spent heavily on new hardware from Cisco and other suppliers increasingly rent cloud services instead, with companies like Amazon doing most of the heavy lifting in the background."

Cisco and Google Find Mutual Interest in Cloud Computing - The New York Times