Google Cloud Taiwan has seen three leadership changes in the past five years after general manager Cally Ko left, highlighting challenges for the company in expanding the Taiwanese market.
Ko, who assumed the Google Cloud Taiwan General Manager role in October 2023, quietly departed at the end of May. Responding to inquiries from DIGITIMES, Google Cloud issued a statement citing personal family reasons for her decision to leave and expressed gratitude for her contributions during her tenure. The Taiwan team is now under the leadership of Kathy Lee, Managing Director of Google Cloud North Asia.
Sources revealed that after completing the Google Cloud Next event in April at the US headquarters, Ko resigned, citing family reasons, continuing until the end of May.
The position has seen three occupants in five years after Steven Shaw and Tony Hsieh left in February 2021 and April 2023, respectively.
During the October 2023 Google Cloud event, Lee introduced Ko. She expressed her intention to leverage her extensive experience in IT, cybersecurity, smart manufacturing, and ESG-related fields, utilizing Google Cloud's technology and talent to assist clients in deploying cloud and AI technologies. It's worth noting that Lee has continued to address recent Google Cloud public events.
The leadership change may imply a challenging competitive landscape for Google Cloud in Taiwan. Industry insiders point out that Google Cloud aims to secure large enterprise orders, including those in industries with higher cloud service usage, such as semiconductor manufacturing and financial services. However, many companies are tightly bound to their current ecosystems provided by Azure or AWS, making switching difficult. Meanwhile, startups often prioritize AWS due to cost sensitivity.
Google entered the cloud market relatively late, which presents significant challenges in competing against the top two cloud providers.
Additionally, for foreign firms like Google Cloud, maintaining good government relations is crucial. However, while a company such as Google Taiwan may have expertise in governmental affairs, this knowledge may not necessarily transfer smoothly to other divisions within the company.
Thirdly, Google was the first among the top three cloud service providers to establish data centers, initially targeting industries like finance and healthcare that require data to remain within specific geographic boundaries. However, as Microsoft and AWS also set up data centers in Taiwan, Google Cloud's competitive edge in business expansion diminished somewhat.
AI presenting opportunities
Cloud computing is dominated by three major players: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. The global market share breakdown is roughly 31% for AWS, 25% for Microsoft, and 11% for Google, with Taiwan reflecting a similar distribution.
Despite falling behind AWS and Azure in the cloud market, Google Cloud, which has LLMs of various sizes, stands out for its deeply integrated AI capabilities. In Taiwan, Google has partnered with the National Health Insurance Administration of Taiwan, Chunghua Telecom, KKDay, Klook, Carrefour Taiwan, and Hanlin.
Google Cloud continues to face challenges as many businesses adopt a multi-cloud strategy, and certain Taiwanese manufacturers are reluctant to fully transition to cloud services, opting to retain critical data on-premises. However, these reservations also present opportunities for cloud service providers to demonstrate their value and persuade cautious businesses to embrace cloud solutions.
