Synergy Research Group recently released a report detailing the Q1 cloud market. The growth of the cloud continues in this quarter and illustrates a likely increase during the rest of the year. This quarter was the highest growth rate achieved in the previous five quarters. The Synergy cloud report focused on the top enterprises holding the marketplace: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba.
Spending on cloud infrastructure has jumped 51% from the first quarter of 2017. The growth rate of 51% is higher than the full 2017 growth rate of 44%. Although this is a single quarter, it provides an insight into what we should expect for the rest of the year. The cloud market is growing and should continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Changes in the cloud market
Perhaps the least surprising takeaway from the Q1 report is that Amazon leading the charge amongst the big cloud platforms. AWS has a worldwide market share of around 33%, which has been the case for the previous twelve quarters. The market’s boom hasn’t impacted their stability, and there’s no reason to think it will in the future.
The market is consolidation, as is expected, as Microsoft Azure and Google have both found growth in market shares. Microsoft recently announced that Azure would be its primary focus rather than Windows, so this growth is a positive sign for the cloud platform.
Although this report focuses solely on the big players in the cloud infrastructure market, this growth impacts the entire cloud space. Each tool that can be utilized in the cloud will benefit tremendously from this growth.
What this means for cloud solution providers
The big cloud players, also known as hyperscale IaaS providers, need the help of outside solutions to be fully optimized. For example, cloud managed service providers help companies make the most out of their cloud infrastructure. Most MSPs are available to work with AWS, which helps AWS stay at the top of the cloud market. However, there is an increasing number of MSPs available for Azure and Google Cloud Platform, coinciding with their growing market share.
Cloud solution providers don’t have a lot of flexibility on who they work with. This report goes over only 5 IaaS options, with this number bound to shrink as this market blossoms. Who solutions providers choose to work with is important. As is noted in my post about the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, all listed vendors work with AWS. It’s clear that AWS is easy for these vendors to work with, and this is reflected in the market research. The other key vendors are catching up though.
It may be safe to say that the influx of cloud tools per infrastructure vendor is an accurate measure of that vendor’s growth. This is reflected in the Q1 stats of this year. Azure and GCP are growing and so are the available MSPs and other tools.
Market share isn’t always the most efficient way to evaluate a cloud platform. You should look at what tools are available that align with your company’s goals.
Doug Atkinson
An entrepreneur and executive with a passion for enterprise technology, Doug founded Solutions Review in 2012. He has previously served as a newspaper boy, a McDonald's grill cook, a bartender, a political consultant, a web developer, the VP of Sales for e-Dialog - a digital marketing agency - and as Special Assistant to Governor William Weld of Massachusetts.
- Solutions Review Best of 2018: Top Container Security Articles - December 20, 2018
- Logicworks and AVANT Communications Announce Alliance - December 19, 2018
- A Look at the Container Lifecycle and How to Keep it Secure - December 14, 2018
