On June 4, HCL and Google Cloud announced the expansion of their partnership to bring HCL’s software offerings, starting with HCL Commerce, to Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform will now be the preferred cloud platform for HCL Commerce, taking advantage of the global reach, security, and elasticity of Google Cloud Platform.
Why is this big news for HCL?
There has been concern over the direction and future of the HCL Commerce platform since it was acquired from IBM. Some doubted that HCL could turn an aged platform that had lost momentum in the hands of IBM into a compelling offering that resonated once more with the market. Others had concern over the direction HCL would take with their efforts to rejuvenate the platform in the market and feared that HCL would develop their own software to help expand the platform in areas of AI, machine learning, big data, cloud native and many other areas that are critical to the future of commerce platforms. Some believed HCL Commerce lacked the vision to be relevant in a new age of commerce.
This announcement is a loud rebuttal to such HCL Commerce critics. A partnership with Google, leveraging its many cloud-native capabilities, will give HCL Commerce an accelerated timeline for developing next-generation capabilities based on the proven technologies of Google – all in a cloud-native platform. In the race to develop next-generation commerce features and capabilities, HCL has found a huge accelerator with this Google partnership.
Why is this big news for Google?
Google has not gained the market share that was anticipated with Google Cloud Platform. Although late to the cloud space, so too was Microsoft. However, Microsoft had something Google did not – long-standing relationships and entrenchment within enterprises. Google gains more attention and relevance in the enterprise and business space through this partnership. HCL Commerce powers many large commerce solutions for global leaders and this helps Google penetrate a market that has been difficult to make inroads against competitors. Google can now show how business clients are solutioning with its cloud portfolio and not simply rely on point integration plays.
What does this mean for the future of the platform? Is HCL Commerce now only available on Google Cloud Platform?
HCL has already shared plans to bring the full power of the Google Cloud Platform portfolio to bring the limitless scalability of cloud-native technology to HCL Commerce. In fact, HCL customers can leverage Google Anthos today to run hybrid and multi-cloud deployments of HCL Commerce. The freedom to run the platform on any combination of cloud and on-premise deployments is already a compelling differentiator for many HCL customers, and HCL continues to support all deploy patterns even with this announcement. This does not mean that HCL customers are now required to run HCL Commerce in Google Cloud Platform, although there may be some advantages that come over time for deploying in this way. What this does mean for HCL Commerce is a clear roadmap and technology stack to leverage and influence within a world-class cloud environment without the need to aggregate many point solutions from multiple vendors or try to develop its own proprietary technology in an already crowded market. HCL Commerce has a strategic go-to for an entire portfolio of cloud-native tech upon which to grow its offering.
What about privacy? Does Google own the data in these deployments?
It is natural for businesses to be concerned with the terms under which data in cloud deployments are governed. We are in the age of data being a competitive advantage, and companies are concerned with all the privacy and security needs that surround it. HCL and Google explicitly state that Google does not own the data within these deployments. Customers do not have to give up ownership and privacy of data to attain the benefits of the cloud-native capabilities Google Cloud Platform has to offer.
What does this mean for existing HCL Commerce customers?
HCL Commerce customers will see a roadmap that continues to innovate the same platform they run today with a predicable direction and technology stack. This allows customers to better plan and align to adopt these features and capabilities over time as HCL embraces more of what Google Cloud Platform has to offer. HCL Commerce customers also have a clear direction upon which to base their own shifts to cloud and cloud-native technology without having to worry about forcibly moving from their existing software to a new offering and separate product roadmap. It’s the same product and software whether you choose to run it in Google Cloud Platform, on premise, Azure, Amazon, OpenShift or any cloud provider or any combination thereof. HCL Commerce customers can move to cloud on their terms while knowing there is a clear focus on the future for the platform, whatever direction their cloud journey takes.
How can Perficient help?
As a Premier Google partner with an awarding-winning HCL Commerce practice, we are uniquely positioned to navigate these new waters and help with the evolution of your HCL Commerce investment.
We not only have the expertise, but also the experience. We recently helped launch HCL Commerce v9 in Google Cloud Platform for one of our multinational, enterprise clients, allowing them the ability to continuously scale without the limitations of a more conventional architecture.
Wondering what HCL Commerce and Google Cloud Platform means to you?
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