Mega Cloud companies doing a good job of avoiding Philly

Tom Paine


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Amazon's pullout from New York City as one of its two HQ2 sites yesterday didn't provoke a rethink of the selection process, the company saying it did not intend to reopen it "at this time." Amazon simply doubled down in Virginia where the other selected HQ2, (Crystal City) is located, and said it would further expand its already announced Nashville site. Apparently, it didn't call back Newark NJ, Philadelphia, or any other previous bidders to ask if they still had interest.

I do wonder, though, whether Philly's political environment would have caused problems for Amazon similar to those in New York.

A case in point is Amazon warning Philadelphia that it may cancel possible plans to open a brick-and-mortar store there because of the city’s proposal to ban "cashless stores." While there is a legitimate issue there for people who are unbanked or underbanked, the proposal sounds as if it is largely aimed at Amazon alone. A simple way around the problem might be a vending machine dispensing prepaid cards.

On Wednesday, Google announced it would invest $13 billion this year across the country in several states, primarily in support of the Google Cloud business, which is playing catch up to Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. Although it appears from this map that a new office location in North Jersey is planned. nothing new is planned for Pennsylvania.

Microsoft Azure doesn't appear to have any major locations in Pennsylvania, although Azure issues are handled out of Microsoft's Malvern office.


Amazon and Google both have significant offices in Pittsburgh, though not necessarily tied to their Cloud businesses.


Comcast, SAP and SunGard Availability are probably the largest Philly-area Cloud providers.