Google to base new cloud push on Diane Greene's Bebop technology

Google cloud to go Greene as internet giant plans new environment for developing enterprise applications

Google is planning a major push into cloud computing based on the technology of Bebop, the start-up it acquired last month, which had been founded by VMware founder Diane Greene.

Google acquired the 39-person company last month, and put its founder Greene in charge of a renewed push into cloud computing. According to Greene, Bebop has been working on technology to enable companies to quickly and easily build enterprise applications.

In a first interview since her appointment last month, Greene - who has been a Google board member since January 2012 - revealed more about Google's plans.

"We've got a programming environment that we think will provide a much cleaner and easier way to build the mobile and web-based easy-to-use apps that the enterprise really hasn't seen a great deal of yet," she told the Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, Google is hoping that Bebop's technology will fill a gap between Google's cloud infrastructure services and its email and office tools. "Bebop's technology lets companies store and retrieve their data securely and control employee access," it says.

In mid-2013, it was reported that Greene was working on a new start-up, called Datrium Storage, a "server flash storage system" that was emerging from "stealth mode", which would compete against EMC, Nimble and others in the fast-growing flash-based storage market.

According to the WSJ, Bebop's technology has been trialled at Datrium, and a number of ease-of-use issues ironed.

While Google is widely considered to be a cloud player, CIOs that Computing regularly talk to suggest that they feel its commitment to cloud is half-hearted.

Google's reputation for ruthlessly purging unprofitable services makes many CIOs wary of committing their business apps to Google in the same way that they would commit to Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace and many other software and services vendors.