Google throws a GDC Virtual spanner into the edge market

Red Hat has with OpenShift always had a position that the customers can choose the how, where, and on what to deploy edge. This approach was clearly differentiated from the leading public cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft, and Oracle that have a different approach. As to which approach is better is a matter for personal choice; freedom to select the architecture and accept the complexity of the Red Hat approach, or the simplicity but lack of architectural freedom of the cloud provider. Google with GDC Virtual now crosses both these with a third choice, which Omdia considers will be compelling. However, the one major difference between Google and Red Hat is in the Google approach the control plane is housed in GCP, whereas Red Hat offers more flexibility, but at the cost of complexity. Ultimately it is the complexity to freedom balance that organizations must consider, but Google has just made that calculation harder.