MGA Technical Research

Who are the top four Cloud Service Providers?

The answer to this question could be subjective. If you were to poll 10 IT executives, they would likely agree on number one. However, the rest might fall anywhere from two-four. Surprisingly, you probably already have some experience with cloud providers. Personally, you may have used Dropbox™, OneDrive™, or Google Drive™. The list provided here is based on statistics from the leading research company, Synergy Research Group. https://www.srgresearch.com/ The top four is based on three following service capabilities:

•  Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
•  Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Hosted Private Cloud

You will notice that service capabilities such as Network as a Service (NaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS), Data as a Service (DaaS), etc. are not listed as criteria. The assumption is that each of the top four integrates at some level the services offered into IaaS or PaaS capabilities.

For 2017/2018: https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/5-takeaways-from-synergy-s-paas-and-iaas-market-report/3

#1 – Amazon Web Services AWS. According to Synergy, Amazon was the leader in 2017, owning 1/3 of the market, making them as large as the next 4 providers. They continued that trend in 2018.

#2 – Microsoft Azure. Amazon was not the only provider to show significant growth. Azure Public Cloud jumped from 13% market share in 2017 to a 15% share in 2018.

#3 – Google Cloud Services. Google showed an up-tick by moving the needle from a 6% market share in the same period to 7% in 2018.

#4 – IBM. In 2017 IBM was in a virtual tie with Google but had since lost ground. Of the group, IBM was the only cloud provider to ceded ground, owning 6% of the market share.

The top three giants control some 56% of the market share in the cloud service providers arena. There is a fifth player that is gaining market share worldwide. Alibaba is a China-based corporation that is to that region of the world what Amazon is the US market. Alibaba’s market share grew to 5% worldwide. When you add in IBM’s market share and that Alibaba, these five control some 68% of the market share.

What is really telling is the revenue growth experienced year-over-year in 2018 from $33.6 billion to $70 billion. (48% increase) In the fourth quarter of 2018, the IaaS/PaaS/Private Hosted Service accounted for 49% of the overall growth.

So, what does the 2019 market share look like? Again, we turn to Synergy Research for the results. The top three have not changed. AWS still holds the number one spot and has for the past 2 years. Amazon truly is in a league of its own. However, there is some change in the overall complexion of the market. Below are the top four for the 1st quarter 2019 in order as researched by Synergy. https://awsinsider.net/articles/2019/05/16/synergy-q1-2019.aspx

• Amazon Web Services
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Services
• Alibaba

Interestingly, IBM is now considered a “niche” market player versus a top tier provider. They fall in with providers like Oracle, Salesforce, and Rackspace. Another excellent research paper that was written can be obtained at https://info.flexerasoftware.com/SLO-WP-State-of-the-Cloud-2019.