Whenever Google gives something away for free, it clearly serves one purpose: collect more data. So if giving away Web Services for free provides them with useful data, they will do it. If not, they won't.
I don't think for something like a computing cloud they could just go ahead and mine the data of their customers servers. But maybe they would get interesting traffic data. I doubt that alone would warrant giving it away for free.
I don't think for something like a computing cloud they could just go ahead and mine the data of their customers servers. But maybe they would get interesting traffic data. I doubt that alone would warrant giving it away for free.