They got the profit after they changed the way losses are recorded though, not sure if it really shows improvement: "cloud unit had a $186 million operating loss in the fourth quarter, compared with $480 million before the change."
From the article:<p>> “Certain costs associated with corporate initiatives supporting consumer-facing activities, previously reflected in unallocated corporate costs, are now allocated to Google Services; and centrally-managed shared research and development activities, including our shared developer tools, are now allocated based on an updated measure of the relative benefit derived from the services,” Alphabet said in a filing.<p>> “As a result of these changes, more of the previously unallocated corporate costs are allocated to our segments, and more of certain previously allocated costs are allocated to our consumer-facing Google Services products and less to Google Cloud enterprise products.”<p>I guess the new tax rule on accounting of software developer salaries as amortized cost over 5 yrs <i>is</i> expected to positively impact profitability. Looks like they used this to also reallocate some central costs to various business units.
Unrelated but does anyone pay sticker price for Google Cloud?<p>Not that long ago they were aggressive with price reductions to sign new accounts and were not hesitant to give free credits.