Thread by @QuinnyPig

And the #GoogleNext19 keynote is off to a start by ripping off @awscloud's Amplify framework and turning the volume dial ALL THE WAY UP OH MY GOD I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF SHITPOST

"At Google nothing excites us more than solving a problem--except maybe--" Ooh, I know this one! "Turning off services you love?"

Rats, it was "solving problems at scale." #GoogleNext19

"We are in on cloud for the long term," which to Google feels like about six years, give or take. I'm being slightly unfair, but on balance they've done this to themselves.

#GoogleNext19

Two new datacenters, Seoul and Salt Lake City.

Not touching that one. #GoogleNext19

"We're focusing on spending more time talking to customers."

I think the stronger phrasing there would have been "listening to customers," but I do like the sentiment. #GoogleNext19

"Google has a 20 year history of building completely open ecosystems."

Except AMP. And AMP for Email. And killing XMPP support in Hangouts. And...

#GoogleNext19

"Today, Kubernetes (based on Borg) is the industry standard for running containers," which you should avoid doing if at all feasible for your workloads.

#GoogleNext19

"But Kubernetes doesn't let single workloads span multiple cloud providers, but we have an answer to that now." Uh... does anyone actually want this? #GoogleNext19

"Introducing Anthos. Fully managed by Google" so your multi-cloud deployments have a single point of failure that rests with Google?

Why do we want this again? Are we sure?

#GoogleNext19

"Thomas Kurian has only been here ten weeks but he's met with hundreds of customers so far." YES! THAT IS WHAT GOOGLE NEEDS TO COMPETE IN CLOUD!

#GoogleNext19

Thomas Kurian takes the stage by starting with a thank-you to Diane Greene. #GoogleNext19

"Anthos came from listening to customers." YES.

They wanted 3 things:
1. A stack they could run in their DCs.
2. A single model that gave them choice and flexibility to move to multiple clouds without changes.
3. A platform that lets them operate it simply. #GoogleNext19

Number 2 is a White Whale. You can spend a lifetime looking for it, but you probably don't want to--nor do you need a whale in your living room.

#GoogleNext19

"80% of workloads are not in the cloud." I think IDC lowballed that. There's a HUGE non-cloud surface out there. #GoogleNext19

"Uniformity across multiple clouds" means that you're using lowest common denominator offerings. That's great if all you want is "your datacenter running VMs but in a cloud environment." There's a lot more to modern cloud than that. #GoogleNext19

Wow. Anthos is Generally Available today. No beta that lasts for my daughter's entire childhood?! #GoogleNext19

Don't get me wrong; I like the concept. I just don't think it solves actual customer pain (this is an area where "listening to customers" is insufficient), and is going to struggle to gain traction.

We shall see.
#GoogleNext19

"We've been working with a number of partners to make this a success." Credit where due, your partners likely aren't worrying whether you're going to stab them in the next keynote segment.

#GoogleNext19

"And now to show how modern and forward-thinking we are, we'd like to invite a Cisco executive to the stage."

#GoogleNext19

Now doing a demo--and Anthos looks great *IF* your needs are simply "run some VMs in an arbitrary cloud provider."

As soon as it needs higher level services that cloud providers offer the whole thing falls completely to custard as a conceptual model.

#GoogleNext19

Now showing security models, which is fascinating. Getting different providers' security group equivalents to play nicely together was like pulling teeth with a dustbuster.

#GoogleNext19

I'd just like to point out that this demo leverages Google's Cloud Shell, part of their console that should embarrass the crap out of AWS. It is *glorious* and should be celebrated.

#GoogleNext19

"And now this VM is running on another public cloud." There's an ELB address from AWS shown on the screen.

I like that. Picking another provider would have rung false / desperate. You just know there was a heated debate in Google Marketing about that though...

#GoogleNext19

"Most companies already have a multi-cloud strategy."

Most companies also have some 20 year old Perl scripts keeping the site running too, but that doesn't mean it's good.

#GoogleNext19

VMware's COO takes the stage. "We've embraced Kubernetes by acquiring Heptio."

That's not embracing. That's going shopping. You went on a shopping trip.

#GoogleNext19

"Thank you VMware for purchasing that speaking slot. The audience may now awaken refreshed for our next announcements."

#GoogleNext19

"Why did Kohl's pick GCP?"

"To be honest we picked anything that wasn't Amazon, and we sorta figure that if you try to enter retail you'll get bored with that too."

Amazon.com does a lot of damage to AWS's brand perception.

#GoogleNext19

Now a Philips group CIO takes the stage--and she's a woman! Alpna Doshi. Excellent!

Healthcare, unlike your bullshit "Tinder for Pets" apps, is fucking important.

#GoogleNext19

I wish to apologize for my previous tweet to #GoogleNext19 Tinder for Pets sponsor, Date a Dog.

"How do you view delivering healthcare to billions of people?"

She has the good taste not to answer "A shit-ton more seriously than you apparently take user privacy."

#GoogleNext19

I snark, but if you ever listen to a healthcare executive speak, they're incredibly on-message and controlled. If GCP screws up, sites go down. If Philips screws up, *people will die*. It's no joking matter.

#GoogleNext19

Chase CAO Chambers now on stage.

That's a good pick. If you went with Wells Fargo you'd have to answer for the fact that I need six distinct G-Suite accounts to do business.

#GoogleNext19

"We're excited to announce that we're announcing--" pregnant pause, everyone wonders if Chase is going all-in on GCP.

"...our first new branch model is opening in Harlem."

Collective sigh of relief from Chase customers.
#GoogleNext19

"We're bringing expertise to enterprise customers, and we're making ourselves the easiest cloud provider to do business with."

I think Azure wins the latter so far due to its existing EAs, but we shall see.

#GoogleNext19

They're saying the right things with respect to partners as well.
#GoogleNext19

They're hurting themselves trying to form a resonant customer/partner message--try this:

"We won't compete with you."

If you think this is unfair, please name three businesses Amazon will never possibly enter. I'm listening.
#GoogleNext19

"Google Cloud does not access customer data for any reason other than to fulfill our contractual obligations. Please don't ask us about non-Cloud Google divisions."

#GoogleNext19

Now talking about flexibility in prepurchasing resources.

Let me translate what they're saying:

"Reserved Instance purchasing on @awscloud is a fucking nightmare from which you cannot awaken."

They are correct.

#GoogleNext19

An awful lot of CIO / CTO types on stage, not so many CEO / CFO / CMO types. Hmm.

#GoogleNext19

"We at Colgate chose GCP back in 2016. As long-time GCP customers..."

Uh... that doesn't sound nearly as good as you think it does, Google.

#GoogleNext19

"You're a huge SAP customer!"
"OH FUCK YOU BUDDY--wait, that was an insult, right?"

#GoogleNext19

TK is back on stage touching on developer experience.

Credit where due--GCP *nails* this.

"Terminate all billable resources in project."

"Spin up test account."

"Implement the thing I built in the console with code."

#GoogleNext19

Now announcing an integrated open source ecosystem. "Unified billing, supported by us + partners, single customer experience."

"Now the CEOs of some of our open source partners!"

#GoogleNext19

Confluent, Datastax, Neo4j, MongoDB, InfluxData, Elastic.

It's a who's-who of who AWS has stomped on recently.

Partnering with GCP seems a lot less perilous...
#GoogleNext19

Now the CEO of @RedisLabs on stage.

He's had recurring nightmares about a "Google Cloud Redis" service that's announced directly after his segment.

"No!" he sobs himself awake. "Not again!"

#GoogleNext19

"When you came to #GoogleNext19 this morning I bet you didn't see any of the stuff we just announced coming!"

That was rhetorical, right?

"Thank you for coming, enjoy #GoogleNext19!" and the keynote is over as they begin the process of deprecating everything they just announced.