Google has acquired Qwiklabs to expand its cloud offerings. The company provides hands-on lab learning environments for cloud platforms.
Carlisle, Massachusetts-based Qwiklabs offers step-by-step hands-on training to professionals on various cloud services as well as infrastructures of their choice. This will help Google to close the IP skills gap in the cloud.
The ironic part is of the deal is the Qwiklabs’ training module for Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is clearly the biggest competitor to Google Cloud Platform. However, the company has made it clear that its existing offerings will still be available post acquisition.
“We plan to continue to offer lab learning credits and subscriptions for sale on Qwiklabs.com,” writes Enis Konuk, CEO of Qwiklabs, in a blog post. “Owners of existing credits and subscriptions continue to enjoy the same access to our library of hands-on labs. Our partners who deliver instructor-led training sessions and events can continue to do so.”
Google would reach out to a larger set of IT professionals to train them about Google Cloud through Qwiklabs. More than half a million users have already spent over five million hours in learning successful deployment and management of multiple cloud technologies through the Qwiklabs platform.
“We want to help businesses get the most out of their cloud investment and, with Qwiklabs, we’ll give users a place to learn and expand their cloud skills to deliver more innovation, more features and more efficiency for their customers,” said Jason Martin, director of professional services, Google Cloud, in a separate post.
This is not the first time when Google has acquired an AWS-focused company. It acquired Stackdriver in 2014, a service for performance analysis management for AWS. Stackdriver now offers services for both AWS and Google Cloud Platform.
