Ever since cloud shifted from being something you need for yourself to something you sell, it has been assumed that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) would be a big name provider. This was true even as the company was late to the market (Google Compute Engine was only announcedin June 2012) and as it was slow to match other clouds' features. Google does have a big-time cloud presence, but it has gone after the re-sale market in a desultory manner, reacting to change rather than initiating them. Now, just as the "price sells cloud" era seems to be fading, trumped by features like platforms, security, reliability and questions of nationality, which is giving even Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) a chance to compete, Google has re-ignited the price war and acknowledged its own weakness in the process. It's not just the magnitude of the price cuts, up to 30%, that should concern Google bulls. It's also the focus on a "pre-emptible virtual machine" model for Google Compute Service, an offering aimed at batch provision that sounds a lot like selling cloud remnants. Read more