Google joins the Modern Computing Alliance and vows to help organizations transition to the cloud

The rate at which technology is evolving is becoming quite baffling. For companies that continue to utilize legacy software solutions, they are oftentimes locked into slower, less responsive experiences and are limited to specific devices. On the flip side of the coin, those that wish to transition their infrastructure and teams to the cloud face significant challenges across the board. It takes a lot of effort and money to mobilize everyone in an organization and to re-train them as well – not to mention that many questions arise during considerations about whether or not cloud-based solutions are reliable or secure enough yet.

The Modern Computing Alliance seeks to find solutions to these problems and many well-known and influential companies have already come together under it to do so. Google has now placed their Chrome browser, Chrome OS and Google Workspace tools into partnership with the likes of Box, Citrix, Dell, Imprivata, Intel, Okta, RingCentral, Slack, VMware, and Zoom to help create an open, heterogeneous ecosystem that allows for freedom of choice across the board – from silicon to the cloud.

The question is no longer, “will we move to the cloud?” It’s “how fast?” And 2020 has pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor. We kicked off these efforts, because of direct customer feedback – help us accelerate our move to the cloud, provide us a better integrated choice, and prepare us for the uncertainty of the future.

Google Cloud Blog

Google’s contribution to the Alliance will, of course, come in the form of Progressive Web Apps or PWAs. The goal is to assist organizations in their transition to the cloud by removing the friction and uncertainty that comes with using web-based software. In order to be successful, Google will be focusing on a handful of key areas that have proven to be inhibitors:

• First, they are vowing to improve the performance of native PWAs by increasing their audio and video quality – thus improving their reliability.
• Create a more advanced cloud data security structure and improve data loss prevention solutions.
• Enhance employee workflow by providing better IT insights and analytics tools.
• Maximize healthcare provider’s resources by optimizing their productivity, efficiency, and authentication in hospital settings and improve performance for telemedicine applications (seamless tools and systems for accessing patient data securely across devices with support for EPCS workflow built-in).

Early innovations in these areas will be shared in the first half of 2021, so we’ll have to wait and see what they’ve got up their sleeve. They are also calling on IT professionals to become a part of the newly founded Modern Computing IT Council in order to get feedback and stay the course (and stay accountable) as they pursue these ambitious goals. Members will gain entry into early-access programs and connect with members of other Product Management teams, participate in exclusive advisory workshops which will help shape the outcomes of their roadmap, be the first to test new solutions and provide input, and participate in P2P networking, mentorships, and conversations with executives at industry-leading tech companies.

As we see Google pouring more raw computing power and machine learning and AI improvements into PWAs over the past few years, it’s clear that in time, many more organizations – both small and large – will begin their transition to the cloud. Their roadmap is impressive and thorough, but I think that they are going to have to do some work on the PR front in order to gain back the trust of many users who are disenchanted with them due to their outages and recent decisions – whether or not they’re warranted. I also think that as Google starts to offer more PWAs through the Google Play Store, they will become more accessible and important as they begin to realize these goals.