Sorry for missing last week. I’m getting ready to head down to North Carolina to visit some family, and I had some projects I needed to finish. And since I’m just about in “check out” mode, let’s get right into it.

A perfect match?

A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Symphony is switching from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud. As execs from Symphony told Max Bowie, there were a few reasons that led to the signing. For one, Google was a cheaper option, they said. But beyond price, they believe that Google will help the collaboration platform provider build out its data-sharing capabilities through the use of the tech giant’s AI tools and big data analytics services.

But what the execs made clear was that this is not purely an infrastructure play.

“We see infrastructure as a commodity. So the focus of this is what will come from working with Google beyond infrastructure,” said Dietmar Fauser, chief information officer at Symphony. “What excites us is that in the discussions with Google, it became clear that there was the potential for more, beyond just classical cloud provision—for example, around data sharing, where Google is one of the historical leaders in the space.”

And Brad Levy, Symphony’s CEO, had this to say: “We’re focused on new issue markets because they are more of a ‘greenfield’ scenario—there’s a lot of room for digitization and because they involve a lot of confidential data. Transactions data needs to be widely shared—with the parties involved in a deal, securities services providers, fund administrators, and custodians. Right now, a lot of that information is held in deal rooms and in emails. Our goal is to make sure that federated firm-to-firm transaction can happen.”

In Q4, Symphony will begin the process of migrating its platform to Google Cloud, with the project expected to be completed about a year thereafter. Fauser said that beyond cloud infrastructure needs, the company is seeing that more of its users are looking to lessen their over-dependence on Microsoft Office and are increasingly incorporating Google Sheets, Docs, and Gmail into their investment workflows.

I’m skeptical of that claim. The idea of moving away from Excel spreadsheets is a conversation I’ve heard about for at least a decade, and I’m sure it didn’t start there. But fair enough. The point is that in the primary markets—where there’s always been a great reliance on spreadsheets and emails—Symphony believes that Google can help streamline communication workflows. And our story (which, again, can be found here) explains the thinking there.

Now, if I were a betting man—and I am—I’d put a sizable percentage of my stake on Google, AWS, or Microsoft as being the company who one day gobbles up Symphony, as one (or probably all) of them looks to make a more concerted capital markets play. I recently asked Gurle about just that. Here’s what he had to say:

“Zoom didn’t exist really for our world, and now it’s a verb. Slack gets bought by Salesforce. Teams is rolling out [new services], and Microsoft owns the stack pretty much. Google is trying to up their game in cloud and become more relevant in the workflows. Amazon has the big presence but doesn’t do much more than that in our space. … What is the right thing for the long-term industry in working with these very large technology companies that could be incredibly helpful, or so big that they may not know enough about you to care in the right way? We’re a bit of that bridge in bringing them in and managing them in a productive way. They will be disruptive in some spots and helpful in other spots, and so we’ll wait.”

I asked a long-time fintech CEO about the idea of a Big Tech company buying Symphony. Now, it should be noted that the exec is not a fan of Symphony, but I do trust their opinion and I figure it can’t hurt to get an outside perspective in this column, as this person’s company does not compete with Symphony.

They say that they do not believe that a financial services company will buy Symphony, but they do not believe it will be a giant that buys them, either. They view this latest move as the natural fit simply because Google is already an investor in Symphony (making its initial investment in 2015), and argue that Google needs to start adding some big scalps in the capital markets arena to keep up with the other major tech companies growing in the space.

“Amazon is the default player in financial services, and Microsoft is coming up very fast because everyone is very comfortable working with [Microsoft Office] 365, and Azure has done some good things around security,” they say. “So this is Google’s way of forcing some financial services adoption of its cloud. That’s what happened here: We invested in you, you better get on our cloud. I don’t think this is a precursor to Google acquiring them, but I could be wrong.”

OK, fair enough. So if this announcement isn’t a precursor to a deal (and I’m not sold on that, for what it’s worth), then here are the questions that I have, which I suspect some of you may also have.

At the top of the list is this: Why didn’t this happen sooner—you have one of the major cloud infrastructure providers as an investor, why not use them? And why wasn’t Google pushing it? We didn’t get much of an answer on that front. Maybe the prior deal with AWS was a leftover from the original setup of Symphony or even from Perzo, which was the precursor to Symphony. Or, maybe the original backers were directly familiar with AWS, as Google hadn’t made a big cap markets push prior to 2015.

There’s no doubt the pair is strengthening their ties to each other. The cloud deal is strategic, and the additional capabilities they can get from working more closely sets them up for doing more in the future. It also allows Google to test the waters in a more active way, letting guinea pigs try on some high-tech wheels for size, and the deal gives it a much broader exposure within financial services. So this could be just an opportunistic quid-pro-quo, but when you have millions of dollars sunk into a platform, it makes sense for Google to put some effort into protecting (and hopefully growing) that investment.

I think what happens next will be a strong signal. First, who else does Symphony buy/ally with, and for what purpose? (On Monday, Symphony announced it had acquired StreetLinx, but that’s not the kind of needle-moving deal that I’m talking about.) Second, will Symphony raise more money, and if so, from whom? Third, will any existing investors try to cash out, or will others buy out their stakes—essentially, will it turn into a “joint venture” between fewer, but bigger participants?

Are there questions I’m missing? Let me know: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.

The image at the top of the page is “Attributes of Music” by François Bonvin, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s open-access program.