Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In this Cloud Wars Minute, I analyze the growth rates of AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud, as well as how customers are responding to each firm’s AI + cloud strategy.
Highlights
00:20 — Initial financial results from Cloud Wars Top 10 firms show Microsoft and Google Cloud are in a great position in the AI and cloud markets and it appears they’ll be growing twice as fast as AWS.
00:50 — The ongoing AI revolution represents a generational change; customers right now seem to prefer the solutions coming from Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Oracle (which recently reported its numbers) over AWS; that’s being borne out in the growth rates of these companies.
01:18 — Microsoft reported cloud revenue of $35.1 billion, up 23%; Google Cloud has $9.57 billion in revenue and a terrific 28% growth rate. AWS hasn’t reported yet — its numbers come out April 30 — but I project based on recent performance its revenue will be $24.2 billion with a growth rate of 13%. It’s smaller than Microsoft, which is growing almost twice as fast. Google Cloud is much smaller than AWS but they’re growing faster. The new AI technology with modern cloud technology is making the difference. Oracle grew at 25%, almost twice as fast as AWS.
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02:30 — There are three big factors in the growth rate disparities: Microsoft, Google Cloud, and AWS were in all born in the era of enterprise software. AWS doesn’t have that decades-long enterprise software capability that the others have. Second is GenAI expertise; AWS was a leader in machine learning but just doesn’t have the depth, range and breadth of experience and expertise that Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Oracle do in GenAI. Third, AWS was the category creator for cloud infrastructure and the dominant leader in that market for many years. But their focus was on designers, architects, technical people; in the GenAI revolution, it’s more a business-oriented decision, which favors Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Oracle.
04:53 — AWS could exceed my expectations and if so I’ll eat crow. But AWS just isn’t as advanced in the AI plus Cloud wars.
