As business customers begin to spend more aggressively to fund growth initiatives and capitalize on the Generative AI phenomenon, the Cloud Confidence Index has inched up over the past several weeks with Amazon (+ 6%), Google (+5%), and SAP (+4%) leading the way.
For the past year, I’ve been offering the Cloud Confidence Index as a way to gauge the level of commitments shown by business leaders to ongoing cloud investments. Using the market-cap numbers of the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies as a proxy for that overall level of commitment, the Cloud Confidence Index offers a perspective on the public’s belief in the growth potential of these 10 world-changing companies.
Here’s a look at the market caps of the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies as posted on Aug. 9 and compared against that same metric for my most-recent Cloud Confidence Index posting on June 20, which saw a 23% spike in the index:
CLOUD CONFIDENCE INDEX: as of Aug. 9, 2023
| COMPANY | 8/9 Mkt Cap | 6/20 Mkt Cap | +/- |
| Microsoft | $2.41 trillion | $2.58 trillion | -7%, -$170B |
| $1.66 trillion | $1.57 trillion | +5%, +$90B | |
| Amazon | $1.42 trillion | $1.29 trillion | +6%, +$130B |
| Oracle | $307 billion | $339 billion | -9.4%, -$32B |
| SAP | $168 billion | $162 billion | +3.6%, +$6B |
| ServiceNow | $112 billion | $115 billion | -2.6%, -$3B |
| Workday | $59 billion | $58 billion | +1.7%, +$1B |
| Salesforce | $201 billion | $206 billion | -2.4%, -$5B |
| IBM | $130 billion | $125 billion | +4%, +$5B |
| Snowflake | $50 billion | $60 billion | -16.7%, -$10B |
Since then, many of the Cloud Wars top 10 have released Q2 numbers that have been quite strong, with a few companies saying they believe customers are ready to shift from “optimization” with a relentless focus on clamping down on expenses to the more-bullish approach: growth-oriented cloud investments.
A few notable outliers from this edition of the Cloud Confidence Index:
- Biggest percentage drops came from Snowflake’s -16.7% and Oracle’s -9.4%
- But, biggest drop in total market cap — and this really underscores the power of big numbers — goes to Microsoft, which saw its total valuation fall by $170 billion over the 7-week period, which equates to a decline of 7%.
Gain insight into the way Bob Evans builds and updates the Cloud Wars Top 10 ranking, as well as how C-suite executives use the list to inform strategic cloud purchase decisions. That’s available exclusively through the Acceleration Economy Cloud Wars Top 10 Course.
