Recode: Apple to Build Out Own Cloud Infrastructure

Mark Bergen, reporting for Recode on reports that Apple is shifting some of its cloud infrastructure from AWS to Google:

Then there’s Apple’s next step. Morgan Stanley, in a note last month, laid out the tea leaves: Apple has announced three data centers opening soon and spent an estimated $1 billion last year on AWS. It’s a logical move for Apple if it wants more independence from its tech rivals. And it’s one Apple should make to store the growing media libraries from its mobile, TV and TBD products.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Apple already has a team working on this; it’s known internally as “McQueen,” as in Steve. It’s unclear if that project will materialize or when. But a source tells Re/code that the codename refers to Apple’s intent, sometime in the next few years, to break its reliance on all three outside cloud providers in favor of its own soup-to-nuts infrastructure.

This is more in line with Tim Cook’s longtime refrain, “We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make.”

★ Thursday, 17 March 2016