Contentstack ‘Reigns’ on Cloud Choice with Addition of Google Cloud Platform

When I spoke to Nishant Patel last week, he was floating on cloud nine.

You might assume it’s because the company he co-founded, Contentstack, just announced the addition of Google Cloud Platform to its offerings. This puts the headless CMS-turned-composable-DXP in the unique position of providing deployments across all three of the major cloud providers.

For those of us who work extensively in the cloud, we know it's a complex morass – and managing service architectures for diverse infrastructures like AWS, Azure, and GCP can present quite an entanglement. We’ll get into more of the “why,” but suffice to say that choice is driving much of the calculus.

No, Nishant’s lighter-than-air status was less banal and more sophistiquée in nature: he took my call whilst strolling the streets of Paris, absorbing the springtime air. 

I asked if he could spot the Eiffel Tower from his vantage point.

“I can't see over the buildings, but it's beautiful here,” he remarked. “It's awesome. Just an amazing day.” C’est la vie.

There seems to be a persistent positive vibe going around at Contentstack these days, whether it’s along the Champs-Élysées or elsewhere. The company continues its charge beyond headless as a full-featured ecosystem for powering omnichannel experiences. This includes the addition of Launch, a front-end hosting solution, Automation Hub for composing stacks, and a bevy of AI capabilities that offer more than the usual pre-fixe menu of generative content features. 

This evolution towards a more complete vision beyond CMS also garnered the attention of analysts, catapulting the company onto Forrester’s 2023 Wave Report for DXPs as a Strong Performer – outpacing a number of traditional players and chief rival Contentful. 

As CTO, Nishant is focused on more than just Contentstack’s capabilities. He’s also concerned with how enterprises can deploy it, particularly on their cloud of choice. When we connected in March of 2022, the company had just added Azure to the mix, making it the only multi-cloud SaaS play in the CMS category. 

The new partnership with Google Cloud presents a strategic opportunity to expand the addressable market for composable digital experiences, providing enterprises with even more options for how they create, manage, and deliver their products. This includes making its composable DXP accessible via the Google Cloud Marketplace, which offers production-ready apps, services, and solutions for quickly deploying on GCP.

"We're excited about how this new partnership will elevate digital experiences for both Contentstack and Google Cloud customers," Nishant said. “Brands will get even more flexibility, scalability, and security in their content and digital strategies. They can also take direct advantage of Google Cloud's AI models.”

That last part about the AI models is key. In our discussion, Nishant got real about the challenges that Google has faced in deploying its ill-fated Bard. But as you’ll read, he juxtaposes that with some real-world perspective on picking up the fumble. He captured that sentiment in a recent LinkedIn post, and in my opinion, it tells you everything you need to know about why he’s successful:

“Failure is not the enemy of progress – it’s complacency.”

Expanding the value of the cloud 

While there are numerous pros to the cloud, Contentstack’s new partnership with Google offers three unique benefits for users. 

The first is support for Google Cloud Hosting, which enables Contentstack customers to tap into a comprehensive cloud solution platform that is both secure and scalable for hosting their Contentstack data and applications.

Another is access to the Google Cloud Partner Advantage Program, where Contentstack has achieved Google Cloud Partner status for the “Build” engagement model. They joined this program to support and enrich customers with the latest innovative digital transformation capabilities – and to speed time to value through seamless integrations with Google.

Finally, as I’ve already mentioned, there’s the all-important listing on the Google Cloud Marketplace, which simplifies the experience for Google Cloud customers to discover and procure Contentstack as part of their existing Google Cloud account and billing invoice.

According to Nishant, a big part of the move to add GCP was about listening to the voice of the customer and following their lead. That meant going to where they find and purchase cloud services and SaaS software and joining those marketplaces across all major cloud providers.

“A big percentage of SaaS buying will happen in the [cloud] marketplaces in the next two to three years,” he said. “Azure, AWS, and GCP all have this quota relief for sales folks if their customers buy through their marketplace. So, for the SaaS provider, this optionality makes the buying process a lot simpler. And for the customer, whatever cloud they've chosen, it just makes it a lot easier in terms of managing vendors.”

There are compelling reasons for investing in a multi-cloud strategy. Sure, hosting might seem like a commodity, but of the Big Three cloud providers, some are just better at specific functions than others. 

Companies that are all-in with certain cloud providers are often driven by efficiency, and perhaps a modicum of loyalty. If they already have workloads running on Azure, it’s much easier to consolidate everything in one place and even optimize overall performance with greater control. Another consideration: they might only have DevOps teams that are skilled or have experience with a specific infrastructure. 

And then there’s “brand optics.” While AWS was the first big cloud for Contentstack, the albatross of Amazon.com still creates tacit friction for retailers who aren’t fans of Bezos Effect. When that resistance is a challenge, having alternative options means not having to compromise. 

“We just wanted to be the CMS of choice,” Nishant clarified. “And if you're committed to GCP, no worries, you can buy us from the [Google Cloud] Marketplace and deploy completely on GCP. And same thing for Azure and AWS."

Challenging the ‘Brand Relevancy Crisis’

In my recent connection with Contentstack’s new CMO, Gurdeep Dhillon, we touched on the rising phenomenon of what he calls a “Brand Relevancy Crisis.” You can read more about it here, but the crux is that we’re battling a swell of saturation across channels, which is being compounded by increased noise and fragmentation, the deprecation of third-party data, and the exponential growth of AI-generated content. 

While not a marketer himself, Nishant conjured the same “Brand Relevancy Crisis” moniker when reinforcing the need for choice in a complex cloud landscape. In doing so, he doubled down on the advantages that GCP presents despite trailing AWS and Azure with a mere 10% of the overall cloud marketplace – and how that could be an advantage for Contentstack to stand out.

“You know, I think the Google Cloud folks have done really well with up-and-coming brands and even tech companies,” he shared. “They're very much focused on Silicon Valley. So we're hopeful we can tap into the latest and greatest brands as well as legacy brands that have committed to GCP.”

As he noted, it’s weird thinking of Google as the “underdog,” but in the cloud world, that’s their current lot – and in some ways, it’s creating more of a culture that’s conducive to working with tech brands that are mid-market and building momentum. 

“Their technology is great, and it feels like they want to work with vendors like us,” Nishant surmised. “So we're excited to have them as a good partner. And then, of course, some of the e-commerce partners we work with, they've been on GCP for a long time. And you know, we can do some joint selling and stuff like that together. So that's also pretty exciting.”

More possibilities for AI

Like its competitive cloud brethren, GCP has its own discrete AI initiatives. In fact, Google proper was early to the game with its bumbling Bard chatbot (adroitly rebranded to Gemini), right around the time that Microsoft was touting its partnership with OpenAI.

AWS waited, launching late in 2023 with its Bedrock LLM and lining up with Anthropic and Stability.ai to make up ground. 

We’re already in a sort of “AI Cold War,” with startups struggling to reach revenue and major models fighting to prove their performance in an increasingly skeptical landscape. It’s all had a chilling effect on investors, and they’re scrutinizing which technologies are delivering the AI goods. It's worth consulting Gartner's AI Hype Cycle to reaffirm where we might be on the arc (although I can't be sure if their diagram is hallucinating). 

In its press release announcing the Google Cloud partnership, Contentstack indicated that customers would be able to take direct advantage of Google’s Cloud AI models. I asked Nishant what that meant for users – and why GCP presented an AI advantage over other clouds.

“I think it's a very good question,” he said. “Obviously, with AI, there were a lot of different changes along the way, but we jumped on it. I think our first release was last January with the AI Assistant. I want to say we were first in the market, at least in the CMS world. But the way we architected it, we didn't just pick one service to ‘catch up.’ Our AI assistant and all the stuff we're doing with AI is more about optionality and giving our customers the ability to configure whatever LLM they want to bring to the table.” 

There are lots of choices out there for models, but hosting and training still present significant challenges for brands looking to tap the potential of AI. Google’s multimodal flexibility is a key benefit, and one of the reasons why Nishant is bullish on GCP. It’s also aligned with Contentstack’s pursuit of greater scalability and automation. 

“I think Google is an exciting one,” he continued. “They kind of fumbled in the beginning, but they keep iterating and making it better. We were one of the first ones to work with them to enable our customers with an option. On the content side, we built a full-on integration platform alongside Contentstack where you could automate and create content on the fly, get it approved, and launch it live. So you could create some really powerful workflows. And of course, Google's Gemini will be awesome for that.”

Why it matters

Cloud infrastructure is a lot like plumbing. It’s obscured, living mostly behind walls and under cabinets. At times, you get your hands dirty dealing with a clog or a busted joint. One might say it’s ennuyeux – but at the same time, it’s absolutely vital to the modern software delivery experience.

As someone who’s worked closely with AWS since 2016 (I’ve even given a few Tech Talks on subjects like serverless), I can say first-hand that the cloud ain't easy. It’s a minefield of madness, with problems always lurking in shadowy corners. Given the complexity involved with managing DevOps, authoring AWS Marketplace AMIs and CloudFormation templates, and defining licensing parameters, managing the considerations of one cloud is hard enough. But all three? Is it worth it?

The answer is: yes. If you can dedicate the resources and support all the requirements. And there are many. To that end, it seems like Contentstack is committed to covering its bases and maximizing flexibility across the clouds.

To Nishant’s point, more of the future sales motion will be focused on all three of the big cloud marketplaces, where SaaS procurement will continue to grow. By showing up universally, Contentstack is increasing its discoverability and preference. By further aligning with partners in each ecosystem, they can potentially offer more solution selling (which we’re already seeing in places like the AWS Competency programs).

The cloud can be a decision-maker for customers. For brands that already have an established footprint with GCP and require a headless CMS or composable DXP, their first stop will likely be the Google Cloud Marketplace. Being available at the moment of need and deployable in an existing account greases the wheels and accelerates the buying journey. 

But rounding out the trifecta is just part of the competitive crucible for Contentstack. By making itself available across all three of the big cloud players, they’re sending a clear message that choice matters, and they’re committed to delivering on that. 

Finally, from an AI perspective, Contentstack has already been blazing trails. This just adds more fuel to the fire. Forget Google's initial faux pas – bringing Gemini to the fold could enhance a wide range of capabilities when integrated with tools like Contentstack, improving the search experience for customers as they engage with a brand’s digital experience. 

For Nishant, the value of investing in new technologies is clearly reinforced by his deep roots in headless and composability. There’s an ethos guiding the company’s innovation roadmap, and it has everything to do with the customer.

“It'll be interesting to see where all this stuff goes,” he said. “I think from a Contentstack perspective, we just want to make sure we provide the kind of tooling and the right choice for our customers to go in whatever direction they want. We shouldn't block them from trying out new technologies, using our services, or even using someone else's services. You should be able to compose the experience you need, right? That's how we think about composability, and it's the whole difference with our company.”

If I was standing below the Eiffel Tower, I might be inclined to say:

C’est bon.

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