Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are all companies that could not exist without their data center services. But, they all use data centers differently as they have different business models. The mistake too many people make is they want to be like one of these, but their business is not the same. One of the reasons why site selection methods are protected is not just the end result of the list of sites, but the fact that good site selection methods have business models embedded in the process.

Here is a brief description of the business models for the GAFAM.

Google is a company from the beginning built on servers running ad services for search. They accepted that software was a way to deliver high availability on commodity hardware.

Apple is a consumer device company that is a dominant force in smartphones and tablets. All these devices have some connectivity to an Apple Data Center service to deliver their customer experience.

Facebook is an ad services company for social media. They have the benefit of coming after Google and using many of the techniques Google has developed for running search services at scale.

Amazon is a retailer that has delivered a way to consume IT services as easy as ordering from amazon.com. Amazon's retail and logistics focus has delivered speed and efficiency that sets the pace for Cloud Services.

Microsoft the old guy. Well Apple is just as old. Microsoft the enterprise software company has shifted to the Cloud in the face of all the rest building businesses on data centers.

There are many others who count on data centers like the above, but they are not at the scale these five are.