Google Lawsuit Could Alter Business Calculations in Enterprise Tech Market

The go well with may make it tougher for Google to develop its share of the marketplace for enterprise software program and companies, the place it has been hiring extra workers, together with senior executives. And different enterprise tech firms may have to pay attention to the boundaries that emerge from Google’s contest with the federal government and be ready to tread calmly.

Michael Bradshaw, chief data officer at NBCUniversal Media LLC, stated the leisure large has restricted publicity to Google’s enterprise instruments at this time, however “danger evaluations” in regards to the unit may come into play if his firm used extra.

“If utilizing extra of their enterprise toolsets, I’d be keenly centered on how sustainable a future they may have with any potential antitrust actions,” he stated in an e-mail.

The case towards Google may take years. Analysts say there are lots of attainable eventualities for the way it unfolds.

Ray Wang, an analyst with Constellation Analysis Inc., stated the lawsuit alerts the necessity for firms to verify they offer rivals honest entry to their tech platforms. This largely applies to giant tech firms, however may stretch to different industries and up-and-coming companies—particularly as they more and more chase information, scout tech expertise and develop their very own tech.

“Each firm must take into consideration how opponents can entry their platform, how they will keep a aggressive atmosphere, and what actions [they] must take to appear to be they’re an open ecosystem,” he stated.

If Google loses, the broad implications of a possible breakup of the corporate on the enterprise tech market will rely upon how the corporate is likely to be divided up, stated Tim Crawford, a CIO strategic adviser at consulting agency AVOA. He stated one believable final result would see the creation of 1 entity that handles search operations and a separate one operating the advert enterprise. Whereas not best for Google, he stated, it will create competitors for the adverts enterprise with out slicing into the power of the info.

Splitting enterprise models may have implications for Google’s recruiting efforts, stated Mike Tung, CEO at Diffbot, which runs an AI-powered search engine for companies and doesn’t instantly compete with Google’s search enterprise.

“I believe the true structural impact of that break up could be Google’s potential to rent and appeal to,” he stated. “An antitrust breakup would simply exacerbate this impact.”

Google is attempting to catch up within the cloud computing market with leaders

Amazon.com Inc.’s

Amazon Internet Companies and

Microsoft Corp.’s

Azure. It employed Thomas Kurian, a former high government at

Oracle Corp.

, to run Google Cloud, and has been restructuring the division in an effort to spice up development.

As a result of the lawsuit focuses on Google’s consumer-facing enterprise, the impact on Google’s enterprise IT enterprise—generally known as Google Cloud Platform—will in all probability be muted, stated Mike Gualtieri, vice chairman and principal analyst at Forrester Analysis Inc. He added that Google’s rivals are unlikely to profit from the lawsuit whether it is a part of a broader regulatory effort to crimp the facility of huge tech firms.

Google Cloud provides cloud companies, software program purposes and AI companies and competes with AWS and Azure.

Forrester estimates that the Google Cloud unit may have 2020 revenues of $12 billion in 2020, in contrast with $43 billion for AWS and $23 billion for Azure.

However the situation of tech monopolies isn’t cut-and-dried and will miss some points of the enterprise tech market that make it extra aggressive than it could seem, in response to Mr. Wang of Constellation.

He added that Google’s dominance in search doesn’t at all times result in dominance in different markets, akin to commerce.

“Somebody who searches on Google would possibly find yourself shopping for on Amazon,” he stated.

AVOA’s Mr. Crawford stated he has doubts about how a lot good would come from breaking apart the tech giants, partly as a result of the info they’ve amassed drive advantages for the enterprise tech market as a complete.

“That isn’t good as firms enter an period the place insights from information and cloud sources are key,” he stated.

—Steven Rosenbush contributed to this text

Write to Jared Council at jared.council@wsj.com