Admittedly they don't have to vertically integrate, and they wouldn't pay list prices if they use any other cloud.
But honestly, if the idea is to get off of Google search, what exactly is the gain by relying on a third party albeit at a lower level?
You have to ask yourself: Is running a search engine the best thing that Apple could be doing with its time? Is the fact that they don't run their own search engine a danger to their core business?
In the end it comes down to projected cost and income, and obviously I'm not in a position to calculate either one for Apple, not being in the room with their ruthless negotiators.
But yeah, the starting point of dropping google is losing out on these $15B. So already that's what you have to work with. And then the cost of public cloud egress traffic, which is famously ridiculously expensive.
Your comment seems a bit like "why don't they just…", which seems a bit naive when dealing with business at this scale.
Admittedly they don't have to vertically integrate, and they wouldn't pay list prices if they use any other cloud.
But honestly, if the idea is to get off of Google search, what exactly is the gain by relying on a third party albeit at a lower level?
You have to ask yourself: Is running a search engine the best thing that Apple could be doing with its time? Is the fact that they don't run their own search engine a danger to their core business?
In the end it comes down to projected cost and income, and obviously I'm not in a position to calculate either one for Apple, not being in the room with their ruthless negotiators.
But yeah, the starting point of dropping google is losing out on these $15B. So already that's what you have to work with. And then the cost of public cloud egress traffic, which is famously ridiculously expensive.
Your comment seems a bit like "why don't they just…", which seems a bit naive when dealing with business at this scale.