Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) is not letting any grass grow under its feet. The tech titan announced a new Cloud Platform for Startups on Friday, September 12th. The plan for the new startup platform is to give away $100,000 in cloud computing credits to businesses less than 5 years old and bringing in less than $500,000 in annual revenues.
The search giant will be consulting with more 50 top incubators, accelerators and tech investors around the world to decide how to award the free credits, and plans to recruit additional partners over time
Statement from Google
“Thousands of startups have built successful applications on Google Cloud Platform and those applications have grown to serve tens of millions of users,” Google’s Julie Pearl, director of developer relations, notes in a blog. “It has been amazing to watch Snapchat send over 700 million photos and videos a day and Khan Academy teach millions of students. We look forward to helping the next generation of startups launch great products.”
Pearl also noted in today’s blog post: “This offer supports our core Google Cloud Platform philosophy: we want developers to focus on code; not worry about managing infrastructure. Starting today, startups can take advantage of this offer and begin using the same infrastructure platform we use at Google.”
Cloud Platform For Startups not entirely altruistic
Despite its plan to give away $100,000 to deserving new startups, Google isn’t just being generous here. This plan is really design to lure potential new customers away from other cloud competitors such Amazon Web Services or Dropbox.
By giving startups cloud computing credits for free, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) is essentially bringing them into its own ecosystem. Moreover, as the startups grow, they’ll likely stay with Google, which means more business in the long run.
