What is the significance of Google Cloud’s new Flex Agreements?

The Flex Agreements and flexible pricing show us that Google is saying, ‘Hey, we don’t want vendor lock-in. We want you to use us where you need us and not feel locked into a commitment because you need to meet some commercial terms for your business.’

That’s a really a powerful position to be in. That’s a position of strength.

For us, we don’t have too many long-term commitments with our customers. If they would like to go into a long-term commitment, of course we’re open to that. But we want folks to stay and be on our team and partner with us because they want to.

So I see the flex pricing as more access.

It gives different sorts of benefits, discounts and access to Google’s cloud that some companies may have seen as prohibitive based on where they were at. That’s really what we get excited about as a partner because they say, ‘We’re willing to do our best to put our hat in the ring and deliver a ton of value and to help our customers accelerate.’ Google Cloud is always looking to push the needle and understand how they can have commercial terms that are going to support that motion.