Amazon and Google are the most highly rated Cloud services providers, according to new research from Evans Data Corporation, but Microsoft struggles to get any attention.
The research firm asked a global sample of software developers familiar with Cloud services offerings to offer assessments of the leading vendors based on the vendors offerings, as well as their impressions of the companies' ability to execute on them.
The main finding was that developers believe Amazon and Google have the most complete solution, and the best ability to execute. EDC found that currently Amazon and Google are roughly neck and neck in terms of adoption rates, though more developers expect to be using Google in the next 12 months than Amazon.
“Google and Amazon, who both got a quick start in the public Cloud arena, are the most familiar for the provision of Cloud services and developers know more about their offerings,” noted EDC founder Janel Garvin. “Couple that with the fact that these two vendors established their cloud offerings early in the game, and the heightened perceptions for these two vendors are quite understandable. The fact that they implemented their offerings some time ago also demonstrates their ability to execute.”
VMWare, IBM and Microsoft were all named by developers as recognised Cloud services providers, but the perception of their ability to execute on their promises varied greatly, with Microsoft particularly suffering from lack of confidence on the part of the survey respondents.
“The lack of confidence in Microsoft may have something to do with the nature of their traditional business model - a model that Cloud is at odds with,” suggested Garvin. “Although Microsoft has vigorously promoted the Azure platform and has obviously been successful in recruiting developers to the early versions of Azure, they lag behind Sun, HP, and Citrix in eliciting confidence from developers in their offerings. However, Microsoft has the most capable and extensive developer organization in the world, so it would be foolish to discount them.”
Faring better
On the other hand, IBM fares well among the developer community. “The fact that [IBM is] rated so strongly on both completeness of offerings and ability to execute, coupled with the fact that developers are enthusiastic about adoption in the near future present a very positive outlook for IBM in the world of Cloud services,” noted Garvin. “IBM has the lead over each company except Amazon and Google when it comes to the perception of ability to execute.”
The survey resondents were also asked about their perceptions of the companies as either public or private Cloud providers. Only Amazon and Google are perceived as being primarily dedicated to the public option, while IBM and Vmware were cited as the best for private Clouds.
“It is unlikely that either Google or Amazon will be able to shift the strong market perception of themselves far enough to the private area to compete with either IBM or VMware when it come to large enterprise private Cloud offerings,” suggested Garvin. “Though most Cloud service vendors have announced intentions to provide both public Cloud and private cloud infrastructures, these are two very different markets, and there are distinctly different market leaders.”
She concluded: “The two companies that truly straddle the Cloud worlds, AT&T and Microsoft, both have excellent potential: through existing physical infrastructure in the case of AT&T or as in the case of Microsoft, by virtue of a prodigious developer network and well known software capabilities. But, both are late to the party. And, in a market that's evolving as quickly as this one, that's a significant handicap.”
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