[abalone]

> This sounds like a really bad move on their part and they should have committed to building out their own infrastructure on 'bare metal' over the next 5 years instead.

It doesn't mean they won't. Apple is reportedly spending a similar amount on Google cloud.[1] They're also investing billions in building their own data centers.[2] Those things go together.

Do you really think a company facing literally hundreds of millions of dollars in cloud service bills is not going to run the numbers on plugging in their own servers.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-nabs-apple-as-a-cloud-...

[2] http://fortune.com/2016/02/02/apple-data-center-move/