Amazon's Global Public IaaS Space Tops Microsoft, Google and IBM

The delivery of global cloud services requires a massive infrastructure, which Amazon has invested in early in the game. Considering it is a retail business and technically not an IT company, its lead over Microsoft, Google and IBM combined in the global public IaaS space highlights Amazon's foresight, and the late entry by these tech companies. The quarterly analysis by Synergy Research Group shows a space with an immovable position on top for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the worldwide public IaaS market.

The latest figures show a commanding lead by AWS with 45 percent share of the global market for IaaS. Its lead also extends to the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market, even though the margin is not as large as it is for IaaS. However, the revenue for AWS is almost equal to Salesforce, Microsoft and IBM, its three main competitors in the segment.

When it comes to managed private cloud, AWS is in second position along with Rackspace and NTT, with IBM leading with almost 20 percent of the global market share.

Synergy is quick to point out there are second tier companies that are making impressive gains, with Alibaba in IaaS, and Oracle in PaaS. But keeping up with the leaders will not be easy or possible because they continue to invest heavily in data centers around the world, with AWS launching a new center in Paris and IBM in Norway. By the way, these are the two leaders of the Synergy report.

“Amazon, Microsoft and Google continue to invest huge amounts in their hyperscale data center infrastructure, and all three have recently expanded their data center footprints and also announced plans to open up more geographic regions in the coming months. This scale is the prime reason why they are able to gain market share and pressure smaller players into consolidation or refocusing their cloud activities,” said John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group

The growth in PaaS is much stronger than the other segments, and it is being driven by database, IoT, and analytics sub-segments, which are growing by 100 percent or more per year. As Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, smart cities and the Internet of Things continue to increase in adoption, the PaaS segment will capture a larger share of cloud services.

Total revenue for the market was $8 billion last quarter with growth of 50 percent per year, and Public IaaS’s getting the lion's share.