{"id":41181,"date":"2022-07-27T14:04:22","date_gmt":"2022-07-27T14:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techrepublic.com\/?p=3986527"},"modified":"2022-07-27T14:04:22","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T14:04:22","slug":"why-cloud-just-might-be-recession-proof-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudnewshub.com\/?p=41181","title":{"rendered":"Why cloud just might be recession-proof after all"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Enterprises are trying to figure out how to make important bets in an uncertain macroeconomic environment \u2014 a perfect storm for cloud spending. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Image: Ja_inter\/Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon all report earnings, giving us the first clue as to whether the cloud is truly recession-proof.<\/p>\n

Recent CIO surveys suggest<\/a> that enterprises are reluctant to cut costs on security and cloud in the face of a recession, but sometimes there\u2019s a gap between survey responses and budget realities. As the Wall Street Journal suggested<\/a>: \u201cEven the cloud can get rained on.\u201d And so far, each of the cloud bellwethers is reporting lots of rain, as it were.<\/p>\n

Even so, we shouldn\u2019t get caught up in the initial results, as it\u2019s to be expected that even \u201csafe\u201d spending like cloud and security will take a near-term hit as enterprises, grappling with a difficult macro economy, hit pause. The real question is whether that pause will last. For things like cloud computing, the answer is almost certainly \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

But first, the bad news<\/h2>\n

Alphabet and Microsoft both reported lower-than-expected cloud earnings this week. For Alphabet<\/a>, Google Cloud revenues came in at $6.28 billion, growing 37% year over year, down from 44% growth in Q1. Note that Google Cloud, along with MIcrosoft, isn\u2019t easily compared with AWS revenue, as each of the three companies includes very different things in their respective \u201ccloud\u201d categories.<\/p>\n

Microsoft, for its part, grew<\/a> its Azure revenue by 40%, down from 46% the quarter before. Amazon reports results on Thursday, July 28.<\/p>\n

SEE: AWS Lambda, a serverless computing framework: A cheat sheet (free PDF)<\/a> (TechRepublic)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, some of that apparent growth deceleration actually isn\u2019t. As cloud revenues get bigger, the growth rate necessarily goes down, even as overall revenues and demand go up. But let\u2019s assume that a healthy chunk of the lower growth is due to lower demand.<\/p>\n