Cloud computing has been in the driver’s seat for some time now, with respect to driving revenue. Businesses are using the technology more and more as it develops its key aspects of data security, infrastructural and maintenance capacities and computation of larger volumes and varieties of data remotely. Reports of the second quarter revenues from the world’s tech giants show no difference in this trend. The three top companies - Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (parent to Google) have all recorded hefty increase in both usage and revenue shares. Alphabet and Amazon currently operate with just over 11% of their total revenue being generated from their cloud platforms, but in case of Microsoft, Azure contributes a whopping 32% of their total intake. Each of these giants offer a slightly different element as its core service, but what we can say for sure is that all of their market shares are on a steady increase as more and more businesses and organizations shift their operations on cloud platforms.
Amazon Web Services is the Market Leader
AWS accounted for 34% of all public cloud services in Q2 2017 as per data from the Synergy Research Group, making it by far the market leader in cloud computing. They reported nearly $1 billion ($916 million) as their operational income in Q2, which shows an increase of 28% year over year, and gaining 1% of the market share.
Microsoft is Moving up Fast
Microsoft follows Amazon in the cloud industry, recording 11% of the market share in Q2. Their Intelligent Cloud segment, which hosts Microsoft Azure, jumped 11% up from last year. Despite falling behind Amazon Web Services India by a significant margin, Microsoft is bolstering its sales, and gained 3% of the market share in the same quarter compared to last year.
Read more - The Top 5 Cloud-Computing Vendors: #1 Microsoft, #2 Amazon, #3 IBM, #4 Salesforce, #5 SAP
Google Cloud Platform Growing Steadily
Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform occupies third spot behind AWS and Microsoft in the cloud computing market, with 5% of the global public cloud market recorded in Q2. Google cloud contributed to a 42% growth year over year in the quarter to rise to $3.1 billion. In the Alphabet group, Google Cloud Platform is one of the fastest growing businesses, with an increase of 1% in total market share in the quarter.
With the focus of every major technology corporation on cloud, it is but certain that cloud computing will take over the world in the near future. Tech giants are pooling in efforts in AI and machine learning to shape the future of cloud-based enterprises. Further advancements will come in the form of implementation of these tools to enable businesses to effective use the platform for their operations.
Infrastructure is still at a nascent stage, but with insights into watertight security and predictive models, we expect enterprises to soon start preferring cloud systems over performing computation in local systems. The data that companies are drawing out is constantly increasing in bulk and diversity. The effect of AI in extracting meaningful insights out of data dumps of such magnitude will play a significant role in determining how our economies are handled in the days to come.
