Apple to unify its separate cloud services teams to improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud & more

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Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is reporting today that Apple is in the process of unifying its separate cloud services team in an effort to foster tighter collaboration between them, better compete with Google and Amazon in the cloud space and improve Siri, Maps, iTunes, iCloud and other services.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s boss of Internet Software and Services, will oversee the effort to move cloud service engineering teams to a single campus as Apple continues shifting its cloud to its own infrastructure.

Siri servers, machines handling Apple Music downloads and Apple’s other cloud services will be moved onto an Apple-made platform, code-named “Pie”, which was designed to improve reliability, improve response times and give Apple more control over its cloud destiny.

Apple has already begun moving over parts of Siri, the iTunes Store and Apple News to the new infrastructure, while services like Maps and more will be moved over to the new system over the next few years.

“Apple has also developed an internal photo storage system dubbed McQueen to gradually end its reliance on Google and Amazon servers,” the sources said.

As for the internal reorganization, the sources said:

Apple cloud services teams run by executive Eddy Cue, including Siri, Maps, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple News and parts of iTunes and Apple Music, will move together into the company’s existing Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, California, the people said. Currently, most Apple services are developed separately from each other in office parks rented out in other parts of Cupertino and Sunnyvale, California.

The current structure is said to “contribute to software bugs and slow product development” so Apple is bringing these teams together. Apple’s Services revenue grew almost 20 percent in the last quarter so it makes sense for Apple’s leadership to double down on iCloud and other cloud-related services.

The report adds that many Apple executives want to move these cloud teams from the current headquarters to Apple Campus 2, a massive ring-shaped building that’s currently being built and scheduled to open in early 2017, but Cue apparently thinks that the old campus “is a suitable way to improve his organization.”

“A committee of Apple managers is working on the plan to reorganize Apple across its current and future locations,” reads the report. Apple Campus 2, which is less than a five minute drive from the current headquarters, was originally expected to become home to about 13,000 Apple employees, but now that number will “increase by thousands and Apple is adjusting internal office space accordingly.”

Only managers who are at a Vice President level or above will see their offices move over to Apple Campus 2 versus previous plans that included office space for Senior Directors, who report to Vice Presidents.

Source: Bloomberg