Synergy Research Group published data on cloud computing market share that shows Alibaba making inroads into the top group, long and widely dominated by Amazon Web Services Inc.
Synergy’s Q4 2017 report echoes many of the themes of earlier research reports (most notably this one): AWS remains the undisputed cloud leader, with Microsoft, Google, and IBM often challenging it. Microsoft is sometimes said to be surpassing AWS in certain areas with its Azure platform.
Alibaba Cloud, a giant multinational conglomerate based in China, is seen as the new kid on the block.
Synergy stated in a February 2 statement that AWS maintained its dominant position with revenues exceeding the next four closest competitors. This was despite massive strides being made to Microsoft. “An important change in Q4 was the doubling of Alibaba’s cloud revenues, which enabled it to join ranks of the top five operator for the first-time.”
Synergy stated that AWS and its second-tier competitors — now including Alibaba — gained market share at expense of smaller players. Overall, the cloud infrastructure market is experiencing good growth. Spend on cloud infrastructure services increased by 46 percent in the last quarter 2016.
John Dinsdale, Synergy executive, said that while we expected a year-end increase in cloud growth rates, the numbers came in a little stronger. This speaks volumes about how strong the market drivers. “As cloud services become more popular, the top cloud providers have much to be proud of and are moving at a pace that is hard for most chasing companies. Although smaller companies can still succeed by focusing on specific applications or industry verticals, larger companies will not be able to compete with the big players. This is a game that only companies with big ambitions, big budgets and a strong corporate focus can play.