SoFi aims to become the AWS of banking services: The US neobank plans to acquire cloud-based core-banking provider Technisys and pair it up with banking-as-a-service (BaaS) subsidiary Galileo.

Google Cloud is losing billions of dollars: Feature parity with AWS and Azure, greater global availability, and pivoting toward enterprise customers could help it regain momentum in the cloud services segment.

Health systems jump into the cloud to make digital healthcare more accessible: UC Davis Health partnered with AWS to roll out a digital health innovation center focused on health equity—we unpack why it matters and why more health systems may flock to AWS.

The news: Continuing efforts to raise its status among leading cloud providers Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud has unleashed its AlloyDB. During the annual I/O conference Wednesday, Google announced its new cloud database service AlloyDB, per Insider.

Spending on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud fell in April compared with Q1 due to business customers cutting costs, per Insider. AWS, with a 38.9% market share, dropped by about 4 percentage points in April, while Microsoft, with 21.2%, fell by 2 percentage points. Google, which has 7.1% of the market, lost 8 percentage points.

Third-party fees make up a sizable portion of Amazon’s revenues: In 2021, the company generated $103.37 billion in sales from its third-party seller services, which is more than the revenues from AWS and its advertising platform combined, per its earnings report. The big takeaway: The antitrust legislation would have a profound effect on Amazon’s ability to maintain its Prime program.

The road less taken: Although moving from on-premises data centers to public cloud providers can help companies effectively harness AI, ML, and big data analytics tools, it’s a false assumption that immediate cost savings will materialize—Dropbox saved $74.6 million by pulling its data from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to its own infrastructure, per Data Center Knowledge.

However, last month, Microsoft extended its Defender for Cloud security solution so that it now covers Google, AWS, and Azure cloud workloads.

It’s also competing on the cloud side through Amazon Web Services (AWS), offering auto manufacturers and suppliers a cloud computing service called AWS Connected Vehicle Solution. New entrants are driving innovation. Autonomous driving software startups, EV auto manufacturers, and new mobility entrants are leading the industry in connectivity developments.

Alibaba also attempted to copy Amazon’s success with AWS by launching its own cloud services. While the company is the world’s fourth-largest cloud provider, according to Canalys, its cloud business accounts for only 10.9% of its overall revenues and has yet to turn a profit. Looking ahead: The biggest problem facing Alibaba in the coming year is weakening consumer demand.

Amazon Web Services. Maturity, Iteration, and Market Sizing. Amazon brought Amazon Web Services (AWS), its public cloud infrastructure and computing service, to market in 2006. It has defined the on-demand IT resources cloud market since. AWS’s more than 200 services range from core computing and storage to AI tools and low-code or no-code solutions for product and app developers.

Amazon built up a cloud computing infrastructure to help it boost the speed of its software engineering before it leveraged that same infrastructure for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Similarly, American Eagle built up its logistics infrastructure to reduce the number of packages per order and shorten its delivery windows.

Joining the growing list of private 5G players, Google will sell the service directly to enterprise customers, putting it in direct competition with NTT, Ericsson, Verizon, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and others. Google’s new "private networking solutions portfolio" is based on its previously announced "Google Distributed Cloud Edge."

Fortunately for Amazon, the company has diversified its revenue streams to enable it to compensate for slowing growth thanks to its booming advertising business, Amazon Prime membership fees, and Amazon Web Services. The big takeaway: Amazon’s place as the dominant player in retail ecommerce is secure.

Why it matters: Consumers are aware of many Amazon products and services, including Prime, Prime Video, retail locations, Kindle, and even Amazon Web Services. But IMDb TV suffered from lack of consumer awareness. This rebrand hopes to change that and allow Amazon to make inroads into the profitable ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) business.

By extending the reach of its payment and fulfillment services beyond Amazon, the retailer could unlock more value while, at the same, providing a new revenue channel from its existing logistics infrastructure in much the same way it built out Amazon Web Services from its computing infrastructure.

While Amazon is grappling with higher labor and fulfillment costs like every other company, it has several major profit generators, including its marketplace, ad business, and AWS, that can help offset lower margins in the rest of its consumer business.

Amazon’s cloud platform Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Health linked up with prominent healthcare partners like Olive, GE Healthcare, and Moderna to provide healthcare, biopharma, and genomics solutions. Google Cloud secured partnerships with Amwell, Mayo Clinic, Highmark Health, and Ascension.

If the NSA-AWS deal succeeds, it could make AWS the US government’s preferred cloud provider. But if Microsoft succeeds, the government cloud space might go right back to where it started.

In a letter to Amazon employees published Tuesday afternoon, Jeff Bezos announced that he would step down as CEO and transition to executive chairman, where he'll focus on "new products and early initiatives." Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO of Amazon Web Services, will replace him.