Microsoft vs AWS: If you can't bark with the BIG DOGS get off the PORCH Don’t be fooled: Microsoft’s cloud business is not bigger than that of Amazon’s AWS, although that’s the immediate implication. Whether it’s better is another matter, and that could be what helps tip the balance Redmond’s way in this neck-and-neck business. Amazon used the occasion of its first-quarter results on Thursday to …
"Don’t be fooled: Microsoft’s cloud business is not bigger than that of Amazon’s AWS, although that’s the immediate implication."
Yes it is. And growing faster. And is profitable.
"Also, Amazon comes at this as a purely infrastructure-as-a-business, while Microsoft is offering this with Azure plus software-as-a-service with Office 365.
You need to therefore take Office 365 out of the mix and compare Azure to AWS. Here, the race is cheek by jowl."
No, SaaS is still "cloud". The fact remains that Microsoft are way ahead of Amazon in cloud revenue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/technology/amazon-reports-big-profits-in-its-cloud-computing-business.html
In the above NY Times article of April 23, 2015 (yesterday), it is clear to see from the Synergy Research Group pie chart that:
(1) Amazon enjoys an approximate 28% of Cloud Services marketshare, with Microsoft at 10%.
(2) Most, if not all of the 43% "other" category, along with IBM at 7% and Rackspace at 3% - totaling approximately 53% is Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) "OpenStack" based Cloud technologies, including AT&T, Cisco, EMC, Juniper, Intel and especially Microsoft's most loyal dupes - Dell and HP.
See full list of Openstack users and member companies here:
http://www.openstack.org/foundation/companies/
That means Amazon AWS plus OpenStack based Cloud services represent about 81% marketshare (about 75% at minimum) versus 10% for Microsoft Azure Cloud services.
It thus becomes obvious that a lot of the tech punditry today is from technology non-expert shills pushing their beloved tech company's products and services, as has been proven unequivocally on several occasions in the case for Microsoft.
Crass partisanship and hero worship of specific technologies or companies based solely on ideology and technological ignorance is stupid and a waste of space in technology journalism.
"In the above NY Times article of April 23, 2015 (yesterday), it is clear to see from the Synergy Research Group pie chart that:"
Whatever some researcher estimated, the FACTS from the published accounts of both Amazon and Microsoft clearly show that Microsoft has a far larger revenue in cloud than Amazon.
"That means Amazon AWS plus OpenStack based Cloud services represent about 81% marketshare"
No it doesn't. It's just an finger in the air guestimate and a list of names. And by the way - one of the best hypervisor platforms to run OpenStack on - is Microsoft's Hyper-V....
Reply to: The Man who fell to Earth.
Obviously you have fallen to earth from a place where good knowledge of technology here on Earth is absent.
The jist of the article is competition between Amazon AWS and Microsof Azure Cloud Computing services, , so suggesion of not using either is a red herring and distraction away from the article comparison.
There "are" other choices than Amazon and Microsoft as clearly indicated in my comment, and several of the Openstack based alternatives - probably about 50% of marketshare overall, are available from Europe and orher jurisdictions not "legally" subject to US NSA dictates.
"Microsoft is offering customers a cloud that’s potentially easier to consume than AWS".
"Microsoft is making Azure easier to consume..."
I use both AWS and Azure and shake my head every time I see or hear comments like the above. The people that make these comments must just be parroting marketing they've heard without an actual experience with both products.
As an IaaS platform, AWS is easier to understand and use. With Azure, VMs run in a strange "cloud service" container that you must map TCP port "endpoints" on the cloud service public IP to a port on the VM that only has a private IP. Multiple Azure VMs can run in each cloud service and you must use this endpoint port forwarding to expose services to the internet. You also need to create a blob storage account to store your VMs virtual disks (VHDs). Then there is the fact that there are two different Azure web based management portals and each has different capabilities so you find yourself using both. Then there are many things that you can't do in either management console and you need to use PowerShell to accomplish. There is no meta-data tagging like AWS to organize, report and implement chargebacks, so you end up creating multiple accounts, one per department. There is not a rich policy based access engine like IAM policies... I use Azure when some customers prefer it (without a logical argument as to why) but really I don't feel it's as well put together or Enterprise ready like AWS is.
>>"As an IaaS platform, AWS is easier to understand and use"
This is true (though I would argue once you've got past the learning curve, neither is difficult). But Azure is more focused to PaaS and here it excels, imo. I don't have as much experience as you sound like you do with these, but I have used both professionally and this is how I personally have found it. And increasingly I find myself wanting PaaS more than IaaS for my needs.
Agree - once you get used to PaaS, IaaS seems primitive. I use both Azure and AWS and Azure is much simpler to use for deploying custom applications.
I have used a few of the other services from both (there are a huge number of services on AWS) and generally Azure services are easier to use but it varies by service. For example, service bus is easier to use than equivalent AWS services but S3 storage is easier than Azure storage.
"As an IaaS platform, AWS is easier to understand and use."
As an Infrastructure platform Azure is way easier to understand, manage and use than AWS.
AWS has some developer features that can be easier to use, but that's nothing to do with the IaaS features...
From an Infrastructure guy point of view, Azure is a no brainer versus AWS. Especially when you also consider PaaS.
Competition benefits all, among other things simply by providing choice. The competitors benefit also - they get better. Investors do also, there is a way to tell what worked lately and might do so some more.
I think others such as Amazon tend to be better ground-breakers into new fields. Microsoft however are the undisputed champs at making offerings for differing customer targets, form factors, and objectives work together, and also at providing an ecosystem as an infrastructure for third parties, essentially as the Roman Empire did, let others profit from securing the Empire, but largely at the risk and expense of those others.
I was also glad to see Microsoft humbled under Balmer - I've dealt with him directly and was not impressed. Microsoft are not quite as good at their core shtick as they usually imagine (witness Windows Phone, Windows 8, etc.). But they have theirs ups and downs, its not just one up, now one down. Today I think they are on one of their ups.
"...undisputed champs at making offerings for differing customer targets, form factors, and objectives work together, and also at providing an ecosystem as an infrastructure for third parties"
Umm.. what? First of all, I dispute that, so you can't claim that is undisputed. As far as ecosystem development, MS is awful at that. If anyone produces a substantial business in their ecosystem, MS just takes the entire category over, by using their control of the OS. Look at office productivity software: MS is the only player left. The Windows ecosystem has shown that MS tolerates minnows in their ecosystems, but anyone too big is taken out.
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