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Gartner has ranked the top eight cloud services companies in its new 2022 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services (CIPS). The ranking is based on the companies’ ability to execute and completeness of vision.
Some of the largest technology cloud service provider companies in the world—including Amazon, Oracle, Google, Alibaba, Huawei, etc. have made it to the Gartner’s new Magic Quadrant cloud services report.
Enterprises are using public CIPS providers more frequently as they look to scale and become more agile in the aftermath of the pandemic. There are major differences between the providers, so I&O leaders should carefully consider their choices when selecting a cloud provider.
Top 8 companies leading the global cloud infrastructure and platform services market
2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services
- Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud continues to be a successful provider in China and has had a big impact on the surrounding countries in terms of market share and capabilities. Alibaba Cloud is good for businesses that want to use digital business workloads. The company is focused on expanding its success in Asia as well as advancing the use of ARM processors and database PaaS offerings.
Alibaba Cloud is just as good as any other cloud provider when it comes to engineering talent.
Enterprises view Alibaba Cloud as a pathway to transformation and better commerce due to its big data and analytics capabilities along with its parent company.
2. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS is trying to be a provider of many different types of IT services. This includes cloud-native services, edge services, ERP services, and other important services. AWS is also focusing on expanding the size of the market it serves by moving into new territories such as private 5G networks and partnerships with telecom companies.
AWS continues to be the best provider of cloud infrastructure and platform services. It has more capabilities than any other provider in the market. As per Gartner, AWS is among those service providers that do not exaggerate their business performance to the customers by selling products that are far outside of what can be considered reasonable for cloud services.
3. Google Cloud
Google was placed third by two independent companies for their vision and execution of products. The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is strong in almost all use cases and has made progress in improving edge capabilities. Google invests in being a broad-based provider of IaaS and PaaS by expanding its capabilities as well as the size and reach of its go-to-market operations.
GCP had both the highest percentage of revenue gains and improvements across Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report for cloud services of any cloud provider. According to Gartner, this is largely due to increased field sales, co-selling with partners and a commitment to offering a competitive platform from the perspective of capabilities.
4. Huawei Cloud
Huawei Cloud is focused on expanding its cloud services to new areas, in order to compete with its Chinese competitors. While the company is mainly concentrated in China, it also has a presence in Latin America and Africa. Huawei Cloud became the second largest cloud provider in China by market share in 2021, trailing only Alibaba Cloud. Huawei’s strong enterprise IT background has served it well in providing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to the customers.
Huawei can provide customers with both public cloud and private cloud solutions so that they can have more flexibility in how they deploy their systems.
5. IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud mostly focuses on moving existing applications to the cloud, using the cloud for extended enterprise scenarios, and industries that are heavily regulated. IBM has a focus on other areas of the cloud as well, including hybrid and distributed cloud, quantum computing, regulated industries, and industry-specific clouds. IBM has a vision for modernizing enterprise workloads. This includes work that is typically done on IBM Power Systems and IBM zSystems. This will help improve agility and make it easier to take advantage of cloud technology.
According to Gartner, IBM is one of the few providers having the assets and knowledge to move mainframe workloads that are focused on testing and development into modern environments.
6. Microsoft
Microsoft was placed first in the vision category and second in the execution category on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud infrastructure and platform services. Microsoft is strong in all areas, including extended cloud and edge computing with Azure well-suited for businesses that use Microsoft products. Microsoft is investing in hybrid and multicloud, as well as cybersecurity improvements to Azure.
Gartner believes that the worldwide gap with AWS will significantly shrink within the foreseeable future due to Azure’s current trajectory.
7. Oracle Cloud
Oracle has been doing well in the cloud infrastructure and platform services market. They have been upgraded from a ‘niche player’ in 2021 to a ‘visionary’ in 2022. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) focuses on lift and shift, hybrid and multicloud, and high-performance computing. They are also focused on offering sovereign cloud capabilities outside of North America and multicloud offerings on Azure and AWS.
One of Oracle’s strengths is that it is ‘out-innovating the market’ with respect to emerging enterprise needs such as sovereign clouds, according to Gartner. Oracle enabling third parties to private label OCI and operate completely isolated regions is highly differentiated in the cloud infrastructure and platform services market.
8. Tencent Cloud
Tencent Cloud has been recognized as a Niche Player in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CIPS. It serves multinational customers in China or Chinese multinationals expanding overseas. It is investing in network capabilities for supporting the low latencies essential for gaming workloads along with low-code platforms, video on demand, security, database and virtual video meeting services. Tencent Cloud offers a free trial of all services with no commitment. The private pricing is flexible, and customers can get quick decisions on exceptions and discounts for larger orders.
Tencent Cloud has created a coding platform that will help businesses use Tencent’s social media platforms more effectively to penetrate digital markets, according to Gartner.
Cloud providers are becoming more aggressive, which makes it more difficult for I&O leaders to make strategic decisions. In addition, there is rising inflation and competition for cloud talent. I&O leaders must also consider regulatory mandates and security and downtime incidents when selecting a cloud provider.
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