Google partners with MobileIron, which offers a cybersecurity tool for phones, to create a new marketplace for cloud services to challenge Amazon
Nico Grant / Bloomberg :
Context & Ripple Effects
The MobileIron deal is another step in Google's campaign to make security its wedge into enterprise cloud. It had already added a beta encryption key management service to Cloud Platform in early 2017, and weeks after this partnership it rolled out new DDoS protections and data-transparency tooling across GCP and G Suite (March 2018 security push) — the marketplace gives those credentials a distribution channel.
The play also fits a broader pattern of security alliances aimed at unseating an incumbent: two months later, VMware and Okta partnered on secure log-ins explicitly targeting Microsoft. Where rivals bundle identity and endpoint security, Google is recruiting a mobile-security vendor into its own storefront.
First-order effects
- MobileIron's phone-security tools gain a storefront inside Google Cloud, giving Google a ready-made enterprise security catalog without building each product itself.
Second-order effects
- Amazon's cloud business now competes against a bundled offer — infrastructure plus third-party security services sold through one marketplace — pressuring AWS to deepen its own partner catalog.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, hyperscale cloud competition shifts from raw compute pricing toward ecosystem breadth, with security vendors becoming kingmaker partners whose marketplace placement shapes which platform enterprises standardize on.
The trend: Cloud providers are competing through partner marketplaces and security credentials rather than infrastructure alone, turning vendors like MobileIron into distribution assets in the fight against AWS.