Study: Enterprises Choosing Microsoft Cloud Over Amazon’s AWS

Microsoft has increased its lead over Amazon as the most popular provider of public cloud services, according to a Goldman Sachs study.

The biannual IT Spending Survey of technology executives at large companies, carried out last month, found that 56 of the 100 executives surveyed were using Microsoft’s Azure for cloud infrastructure, compared to 48 using Amazon’s market-leading AWS.

Microsoft’s lead over AWS in cloud services first emerged in Goldman’s December 2017 survey and has increased since then.

In the latest study Microsoft “demonstrated continued momentum” and is likely to continue gaining market share, Goldman found.

Momentum

Azure also led over AWS when executives were asked what cloud services they expect their companies to be using in three years’ time.

Google remained in third place in cloud services, but Goldman’s study found slightly fewer executives than in the past – a total of 30 – said they expected to be using it in three years’ time.

But Goldman’s analysts said Google’s cloud business is showing “more upside” than had earlier been forecast as it becomes more profitable.

Public cloud boom

The analysts estimated that about 23 percent of IT workloads are now on public clouds, up from 19 percent in the June study, and are likely to hit 43 percent in three years.

Microsoft’s popularity with large companies doesn’t necessarily translate to higher revenues, with AWS bringing in more than twice the revenues of Azure, by some estimates.

AWS had $9 billion (£7bn) in revenues in the third quarter, while analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer of Griffin Securities estimated Azure’s revenues for the same quarter at $4.33bn, CNBC reported.

Microsoft doesn’t specify Azure’s quarterly income.