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The cloud computing market is close to hitting a $100 billion milestone, according to a new report. And competition is heating up.
The cloud market, which covers web-based services for infrastructure, platform, and hosted private clouds, totaled about $23 billion in the second quarter, according to Synergy Research Group. That means overall revenues are close to hitting a $100 billion annual run rate.
The same report found that Amazon had 33% of the market share, more than double that of Microsoft, the next biggest player. But Microsoft is catching up.
According to separate research, Microsoft's overall cloud-hosted businesses - including Azure, Office 365, LinkedIn, GitHub, Bing, and Xbox Live - now appears to account for as much revenue as the tech titan's more traditional businesses. That's a key milestone for the company.
Plus, Todd Pekats, vice president of cloud computing and services for a big Microsoft reseller partner, PCM, told BI's Julie Bort that there's an "obscenely large" opportunity for Microsoft's cloud, as customers are forced to give up a very old version of its database.
Still, it's not all good news for Microsoft. Outages, runaway costs, and frustration with tech support have hurt Microsoft's cloud in the eyes of its customers, according to analyst firm Gartner. (Gartner also had a warning for Amazon cloud customers: Beware of prices, new features, and Amazon's competitive behavior.)
And Google Cloud also appears to be making headway. There's a growing list of signs that new CEO Thomas Kurian is starting to make Google Cloud more successful with big companies, according to Bort.
In the cloud startup space meanwhile, hot startup Gusto raised a $200 million round, doubling its valuation to $3.8 billion. CEO and cofounder Josh Reeves told BI's Ben Pimentel that it's just a matter of time before it goes public. "It's not if, but when," he said.
And the new CEO of $3.9 billion Snowflake says there's no room for "distractions" like employee activism in his mission to fight Amazon and Microsoft. "You go somewhere else if you want that conversation," he told Pimentel.
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