Google playing catch-up with Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing

New York

WHEN it comes to cloud computing, Google is in a very unfamiliar position: seriously behind.

Google is chasing Amazon and Microsoft for control of the next generation of business technology, in enormous cloud-computing data centres. Cloud systems are cheap and flexible, and companies are quickly shifting their technologies for that environment. According to analysts at Gartner, the global cloud-computing business will be worth US$67 billion by 2020, compared with US$23 billion at the end of this year.