Google to buy data migration company Alooma in cloud push

(Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google said it will buy data migration company Alooma, as part of efforts to catch up with bigger cloud service rivals Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp. Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in the fast-growing business of helping companies move to the cloud, with Google Cloud holding 8.5 percent of worldwide cloud market share at the end of 2018, according to Canalys. Amazon Web Services had a 31.7 percent share and Microsoft Azure 16.8 percent during the same period, the market research firm said. Google in November hired former Oracle Corp product head Thomas Kurian as the chief executive officer of the cloud division. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Alooma helps enterprise companies streamline database migration in the cloud with a tool that enables moving data from multiple sources to a single data warehouse. The company has raised about $15 million (11 million pounds) from investors including leading venture funds such as Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed, according to Crunchbase. Google did not disclose terms of the deal. Preuss added that Alooma will also give Google a bigger footing in Israel following its purchase of the Velostrata team last summer. The plan is to have the Alooma team join Google's Tel Aviv and Sunnyvale offices. Going forward, Google said that the existing Alooma product will continue to support its cloud competitors -- but with some limitations. "For now, it's business as usual for Alooma and Google Cloud as we await regulatory approvals and complete the deal," a Google spokesperson confirmed to ZDNet. "We will only be accepting new customers that are migrating data to Google Cloud Platform, but existing customers will continue to have access to other cloud providers.