What do the Google Cloud Support Staff Layoffs Mean?

Google Cloud could have made the job cuts for a couple of key reasons.

1. The division of Alphabet might finally be feeling investor pressure to shore up quarterly earnings and actually start reporting a profit, not just feel good about its revenue increases. After all, Google Cloud — usually through CFO Ruth Porat — has insisted for years that it’s just keen to put money into the business and fuel its strategy. But the time for those almost free-for-all efforts may be coming to a close.

2. Google Cloud might be ready to shift more responsibility to its managed service providers and other channel partners. That saves it some money, in the form of fewer people to fund. However, that does put more burden on partners to handle customer care and technical support. Sometimes that’s a plus, sometimes it’s not.