Amazon Web Services (AWS) is comfortably the most popular cloud provider, but Microsoft’s Azure has carved out its own market success. Both companies are thriving, and Azure is increasingly painting itself as a robust AWS alternative and competitor.
For example, a new report shows organizations prefer Azure over AWS and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) because of its “compatibility with existing services”.
Tech network Spiceworks detailed its study findings in a report titled “Public Cloud Trends in 2019 and Beyond”. While Azure scored well in service compatibility, AWS was ahead in numerous other areas. Amazon’s market-leading platform ranked highest in value, security, and uptime. As for GCP, Google’s service was best in terms of innovation and ease of use.
It is worth noting that across all categories, there was little to separate the three providers. While AWS is significantly ahead of Azure in terms of market position, and Microsoft is in turn well ahead of Google. However, each is enjoying significant growth and success… in other words, there’s room in the cloud market for all of these companies.
Service uptime is the most important factor for organizations, according to the report, with 72 percent valuing this aspect above others. Next is security (53 percent) and service compatibility (46 percent).
Cloud Expansion
Spiceworks also found organizations are preparing to expand the cloud business by double its current size over the next two years. Around 27 percent of workloads are currently on public cloud. By 2021, the number will reach 48 percent.
Smaller businesses are most likely to be embracing the cloud over the next two years:
“small businesses expected to run 53% of their workloads in public clouds, compared to 46% for mid-size business workloads, and 41% for enterprise [organizations with 1,000-plus employees] workloads.”
Study participants say they are most likely to leverage the cloud for websites (55 percent) and email (54 percent).
To find its results, Spiceworks asked over 450 IT professionals across North America and Europe.
