Top 6 cloud service providers who’ll dominate the cloud war in 2020

As 2020 begins, top cloud service providers want to strengthen their positions with their core capabilities, plans, and approach towards the market. The credit for the declaration of public cloud wars goes to the cloud giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. New emerging and large scale players like IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and SalesForce are also aiming at holding the battle against the market leaders.

Top cloud service providers and their performance

Upcoming technologies like Cloud-based Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, etc will have a crucial role in the results of this race to dominate the cloud market. Here’s a brief summary of major cloud vendor’s services and their performance against their peers. Our list includes market leaders and some new but strong entrants who we believe can give a tough time to the leaders of the cloud computing world:

1) Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a giant that enables companies across the globe to develop their digital infrastructure entirely or partially using the cloud. 2018 was the year of total supremacy for AWS. Half of the cloud users were under its umbrella. In 2019, their growth slowed down, but they still managed to stay on top as market leaders. With Microsoft Azure fueling the engines with a lot of innovations, it’s going to be an interesting cloud war. Since AWS is the oldest cloud service provider, they offer a plethora of services. They have an offering or more for every client. For the companies that already use on-premise data centers, Amazon has recently launched AWS Storage Gateway. This enables the customers to connect their existing storage and backup to the cloud, with a single console to access storage configurations.

AWS CloudFormation is another technology by Amazon that lets the firms to control the resources and application stacks that are required for mobile and web apps. Simply put, the customers get access to infrastructural components of cloud service with a central command-line interface to manage them. Such technological advancements have helped Amazon to establish itself as a global cloud leader for almost a decade.

Amazon also forms strategic relationships with other tech firms that have helped in its global expansion. Its collaboration with SaaS company Apptio is a prominent example, which enables the customers to make intelligent decisions on migrating to AWS. Talking about its market share, the company reported a revenue of 9 billion dollars in Q3 2019.

2) Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is the closest competitor of cloud king AWS and it’s getting even closer. Microsoft emphasizes a lot of innovations to deliver exceptional services. Like AWS they also have a hefty lot of services which includes cloud services to Office 365, business subscription to Dynamic 365 and LinkedIn services. This makes it challenging to compare their services directly with their competitors or other cloud service providers. One of the useful features of Microsoft’s cloud solutions is the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Service. The users can develop, test, deploy, manage, move, and even monitor their machine learning model in a cloud-based environment using this service.

A recent survey by Goldman Sachs among 100+ CIOs of top international firm reports that Microsoft Azure has gained more popularity than Amazon’s AWS services.

The tie-ups with numerous vendors in the world have helped Microsoft in bringing in more customers to the cloud. It was the most active company in 2019 managing two acquisition deals almost every month. To name a few popular ones, they have a ten-year LinkedIn migration on Azure deal, they also bought Movere and Mover which resulted in easier cloud migration over Azure. These strategic partnerships have also helped the customers in boosting their ROI.

A myriad of big giants has partnered with Azure to move a significant part of their operations to the cloud. One prominent example is that of a five-year partnership between Microsoft and Disney. As a part of this partnership, new methods will be developed to move production content to the cloud.

The recent technological developments and association with renowned organizations globally reflect a brighter future for Microsoft. In 2019, Azure’s growth rate was eighty-nine percent. It also extended its market share and had a significant jump in revenue generation.

3) Google Cloud

In 2018, the Google Cloud platform was too new to be a contender in the list of top cloud providers. In April 2019, GCP picked up the pace with Google Next. Google Cloud Platform and VMware announced a partnership in July 2019. It was one of the biggest collaborations of last year. They have proved a firm grip over the banking and finance sector by getting HSBC as a client. Around the same time, Google had reported an average revenue of 8 billion dollars a year through its cloud business. This report is noteworthy because just two months ago, the company had reported an average annual revenue of 4 billion dollars per year.

The company has made several changes regularly to make its mark as an enterprise cloud computing giant. One such change was the simplification of contract conditions and terms, along with compliance certifications. Recently, the company has acquired a Looker platform that offers analytical solutions to cloud users. GCP offers the cheapest cloud services in the market. They are actively acquiring SMB’s or the companies that can provide support in making the migration process smoother and faster. As per the analysts of Deutsche Bank, the cloud service is expected to hit a mark of 38-billion-dollar annual sales by 2025.

4) SalesForce

Salesforce, another major player in the cloud market, is expected to generate a revenue of 17 billion dollars in FY 2020. This prediction by interactive data and analysis platform Trefis also reported that this is a 28% growth compared to last year. The fact that the majority of the top 20 banks from Europe and the US use SalesForce also reflects its penetration in the cloud market. One of the facts that led to its success is the deployment of cutting-edge technology in its CRM platform.

The customers of SalesForce CRM can rely on AI to recognize sales opportunities, which in turn, leads to more revenues. Another reason behind its enormous growth is the early mover advantage. It was the first company to start offering CRM in the cloud. The launch of AppExchange, a third-party marketplace that allowed developers to create and sell their apps to Salesforce users, was also a major event that added to its success.

In the last few years, SalesForce has acquired numerous firms to expand its ecosystem. The year 2016 had witnessed 13 acquisitions by the company with the likes of SteelBrick and Demandware.

5) IBM Cloud

IBM reported a revenue of 5.3 billion dollars in Q3 2019, which is 6.4 percent higher than the previous quarter. Some features that have attracted the businesses include:

• Open technologies that ensure interoperability
• An integrated hybrid cloud that lets the businesses unlock hybrid data
• Powerful analytics system
• Development solutions for enterprises

In the near future, IBM plans to acquire the untapped area of hybrid cloud solutions. It has recently acquired Red Hat, which is expected to aid the delivery of hybrid solutions efficiently.

6) Oracle Cloud

When compared to other players in this list, Oracle Cloud lags somewhere behind. The contribution of its Cloud Services and License Support to the total revenue for 6.81 billion dollars in 2019. To maintain its presence in the cloud race, it is utilizing the extensive presence of its software in data centers of existing customers. Its tie-up with Microsoft in delivering cloud has also proved to be advantageous. The combination of these two services is also being offered in Canada.

The market research company MarketsandMarkets forecasted that the cloud computing market will reach 623.3 billion dollars in 2023. To get the largest slice, each player needs to emphasize more on unique technologies and strategic partnerships.

How TechAhead can help you with cloud computing needs?

TechAhead offers end-to-end cloud consulting services. We are expertise in migration, transformation, management, and maintenance. Our team can help you in accelerating product development, improving user engagement and increase business growth by adopting the latest cloud technology. Our enterprise cloud computing services stimulate business innovation, encourage communication and collaboration and reduce business expenses. We believe in enabling our clients with the latest technologies so that they have the competitive edge needed for rapid business growth.

We employ a three-step process to meet your needs. We begin with strategizing your requirements, planning the procedure and deploying the services. Strategizing involves discussing the services considering business goals and resources. Planning is a very detailed step which includes decisions like architectural designs, coding plan, testing plan, and deployment procedure. In the end, we produce high quality, secure and optimized deliverables at an affordable budget.

With TechAhead, you get the option to choose from a private cloud, public cloud or a hybrid cloud ecosystem. If you are not sure, then depending on your business needs and goals, our experts will offer you the suggestions. For public cloud services, we offer you the best in the industry. The public cloud services are hosted on Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

The hybrid and multi-cloud environment are the upcoming trends in the market and if you feel that it will suit your business requirement, then our team can definitely help you with the same and you can host some infrastructure on private cloud and some on a public cloud. In certain cases, a hybrid solution is considerably cost-effective.

Whether you’re just getting started with your mobile app idea or you’re a multinational trying to evolve your brand, we’re ready to fulfill your cloud computing requirements.

The Future of cloud computing

In 2020, we can expect businesses to have a growing line of cloud services at their disposal for speed application deployments, enhance security, manage workload efficiently and utilize additive technologies like Edge, Machine Learning and more. This decade will witness the brave new world of cloud that will deliver value, responsiveness, and resiliency.

Amazon Web Services is expected to continue to lead the market of cloud computing with Microsoft Azure continuing as close competitors for the next few years. A lot of start-ups will also come at the forefront as additive service providers for migration, security and other add-ons. Overall, 2020 is going to be an exciting year with new and innovative developments in the world of cloud computing.

Originally published at https://www.techaheadcorp.com.