Dive Brief:

• Google is planning 12 new cloud data centers in the next 18 months as part of its strategy to better compete with rivals in the corporate cloud services space, according to a Bloomberg report Tuesday. 
• Google’s cloud chief, Diane Greene, said the company is also working on less technical tools to expand its corporate user base and plans to hire more sales staff dedicated to cloud services.
• Google is currently third in terms of cloud computing earnings behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. AWS took in almost $8 billion in cloud sales in 2015, while in that same timeframe Google pulled in just $500 million. 

Dive Insight:

Cloud is now a $20 billion per year business and is forecast to grow 35% over the next year, according to Gartner. But in terms of cloud sales, Google was a distant third behind AWS and Microsoft so the company brought on Greene to boost sales. Greene, formerly of VMware Inc. started with the company last November. 

Google will open two new cloud data regions in Oregon and Japan in the coming months, with another 10 planned over the next 12 to 18 months.

"We’re opening these new regions to help Cloud Platform customers deploy services and applications nearer to their own customers, for lower latency and greater responsiveness," said Product Manager Varun Sakalkar, on Google’s blog.

Google is also looking to buy "middle-market" business in cloud and workplace applications as another key step for winning more enterprise customers.