Data Backup Digest

Things have been heating up all around the IT industry. With a growing emphasis on networking apps like Snapchat, as well as an increasing reliance on cloud-based data storage, consumers are faced with a number of choices that, in some cases, can be downright overwhelming. When these markets begin to merge and blur their own lines, the industry becomes even more competitive.

Snapchat, which was originally developed by a team of Stanford University students and released to the public in 2011, has seen continuous updates and product improvements in just a few short years on the market. As such, their latest announcement to embrace Google and subscribe to their cloud solutions is big news - and even more so when you consider the fact that it comes just days removed from a similar contract with a top competitor.

Dueling Contracts

Per the recent announcement, Snapchat has penned a deal with Google to purchase 21 billion in cloud services over the course of the next five years. This alone would be huge news throughout the IT industry, but the announcement has one major caveat: Snapchat also has a $1 billion contract for cloud solutions through Amazon Web Services. Snapchat currently uses Google Cloud to cover much of their needs in data storage and bandwidth allocation.

A statement by Snap, Inc., owners of Snapchat, stated: "We have committed to spend $2 billion with Google Cloud over the next five years and have built our software and computer systems to use computing, storage capabilities, bandwidth, and other services provided by Google, some of which do not have an alternative in the market."

In another report released by Snap, Inc., the company attempted to clarify their recent moves by stating: "We have also committed to spend $1 billion with Amazon Web Services over the next five years for redundant infrastructure support of our business operations. In the future, we may invest in building our own infrastructure to better serve our customers."

With that in mind, it's obvious that Snapchat isn't planning on switching committing to one platform or another; at least not entirely and certainly not yet. The final path they choose to follow, however, could very much depend on the reliability, usability and innovation displayed by both Google and Amazon in the coming years.

The Future of Snapchat

Although it's unclear where Snapchat's loyalties are, at least in terms of cloud storage and management, the company has made significant progress since first hitting the scene. The recent announcement to embrace the Google Cloud coupled with a brand new contract with Amazon is confusing, but it gives the company the opportunity to benefit from the best of both worlds until they can pick a clear winner.

For more information on Snapchat, including any breaking news or developments, please visit their official website at www.snapchat.com. To find out more information about Google Cloud or Amazon Web Services, including details on any of their latest partnerships, please visit their respective sites.