Two pieces of news articles intersected in my mind yesterday. One was the Q3 results from technology bigwigs like Google and Microsoft, and the other was the launch of the most recent version of DJI’s pocket camera. This article is a result of that intersection.

If you are a drone enthusiast, you are probably familiar with DJI. As of March 2021, DJI accounted for 76% of the world drone market.

However, not everyone knows that DJI also manufactures action and vlogging cameras. Of course, they did not start with that. Drones are where they started, the segment where they are market leaders. But then, cameras were one specific technology area that they needed to master to make their drones better.

Cameras on drones like the DJI Mavic that I use need to be advanced if you want to capture high-quality media. The most challenging part is the gimbal, which stabilizes the camera as the drone maneuvers.

I believe that at some point, DJI folks realized that since they have put so much R&D into perfecting a camera that can capture UHD media under challenging conditions, why can’t we monetize it as a standalone product?

If you check out their handheld camera range, the recent ones, like Osmo Pocket 3, will blow your mind. The power, functionality, and media quality they pack in such a tiny device is exhilarating for anyone who loves technology in any shape or form.

But why are we even discussing this?

Because this is about creating new business opportunities, or enhancing existing ones, with your foundational capabilities in other areas.

Suppose you followed the results from Microsoft and Google. You may have noticed that while Microsoft’s cloud business has accelerated (I suspect at AWS’s expense, but we will know better later today), Google’s cloud division has sent mixed signals.

I have written about Google’s cloud platform before as well. And like those articles, this article also brainstorms on why Google is not leveraging the total value of this business unit. Like DJI, Google has a plethora of robust foundational capabilities. Many of these capabilities, repurposed and then paired with cloud offerings, can help build solutions sufficient for business acceleration, like how Microsoft has paired AI with almost everything. Some of those pairings will work.

But the game is still on, and opportunities galore for GCP. There can not be a better time. The cloud business itself is growing. That is why we could see later today that Azure’s growth might not be entirely at AWS’ expense (though I suspect it will be). However, being a relatively new entrant, GCP has many advantages. A couple of prominent ones are:

• A cleaner and newer infrastructure
• Shape the acceleration roadmap based on how the other two hyperscalers are performing

If you track cutting-edge research from top technology companies, so much keeps coming out from folks at Google. These capabilities that Google has developed are like the gimbal that DJI designed for its drones. And I see opportunities to build cloud-based offerings from quite a few of these capabilities. Google has the opportunity, capability, and resources. It can still seize the market, but it must be done in the next 3 years. After that, getting a foothold will become challenging.