Apple is looking to decrease its reliance on data infrastructure that it currently outsources to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Dubbed “Project McQueen,” the new project is meant to speed up Apple’s cloud services, like moving photos and videos onto your iOS devices.
Apple has purchased land in China and Hong Kong to build data centers, and hopes to cover these costs with savings based on having its own data infrastructure.
According to sources that spoke to VentureBeat’s Jordan Novet, Apple’s not happy with the current speed of Azure and Amazon Web Services, both of which hold nearly all of iTunes content.
Apple could also be looking at using Google’s public cloud while it builds Project McQueen.
The project grew out of a conversation between a Microsoft staffer and an Apple employee, with the Microsoft person saying Apple’s explosive growth could lead to higher data costs with Azure.
Public cloud infrastructure is great for startups and smaller companies, but larger corporations like Dropbox and Instagram need to manage their own data storage to keep prices down.
Novet points out that Apple’s already built data centers, mostly for iCloud, so this new plan fits right in with its larger outlook on managing its own data center systems without having to pay cloud fees. As the tech world increasingly moves to cloud-based services and data storage, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to control its own destiny and get data to its users in faster and less costly ways.
In addition, while Apple doesn’t currently offer as many online services as, say, Amazon or Microsoft, it may be more able to do so in the future without adding any of its record profits and cash hoard to another company’s bottom line.
Source: VentureBeat
