Google has learned to “meet developers where they are,” with the end goal of making it easier for developers to build high-quality, high-performance cloud applications, said Greg DeMichillie, director of Product Management at Google Cloud Platform, at the Google Cloud Platform Live event. With both App Engine and Kubernetes, Google has placed a high premium on making sure developers can “color outside the lines” when they want to. App Engine was built based on an architecture of ideas that Google learned from building its own cloud applications, according to DeMichillie. But, App Engine also embraces languages like PHP and Python. It’s counterproductive to stay in an “ivory tower” when it comes to building cloud applications. “You have to be in the pubs, in the streets,” DeMichillie said, and by engaging with developers, Google seeks to build a product that it can use easily and effectively. He also said that Kubernetes is a breakthrough because both developers and IT professionals support it. DeMichillie anticipates much faster adoption, though the curve is already steeper than any other cloud technology that he’s seen. He attributes Kubernetes’ popularity to its functionality, which gives developers more flexibility in terms of how and where they can build applications. When discussing how far the cloud has already come, DeMichillie commented, “The one thing we know for certain is five years from now, when we look back at the state of cloud today, we’ll laugh.” Google expects the cloud it to evolve quickly and drastically. It’s why Google is “trying to innovate at all levels of the stack.” Even large enterprise IT is trying to break into Web-scale technology, he explained. The enterprise is tying to be agile and take advantage of new trends that will add value to the business. DeMichillie pointed to the rising adoption of SaaS products and containerization as evidence of that overall trend.