Since he became the new Microsoft CEO in February 2014, Satya Nadella has been focused on reinventing the company in a “mobile-first, cloud-first” world. So far, this transformation has been a success as according to Microsoft’s data, 80% of the Fortune 500 is on the Microsoft cloud and the Redmond giant Microsoft aims to reach an annualized commercial cloud revenue run rate of $20 billion in the 2018 fiscal year.
According to a report from Investor’s Business Daily, the Redmond giant also remains the top “strategic vendor” of large companies in a recent survey of chief information officers by Goldman Sachs. Among the top five important providers of IT technology, IBM is currently number two and followed by Cisco Systems on the podium while Oracle and SAP round out the top five.
But while Microsoft’s Office 365 is currently the most used cloud application by businesses, the company’s Azure business is currently trailing behind the market leader Amazon Web Services. And according to Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Alphabet and Red Hat fast-growing cloud businesses will help them will make gains over the next three years:
Google and Amazon are expected to be the second- and third-most-strategic vendors in three years, despite not ranking in the top five currently. In terms of being the most strategic vendor three years from now, Google, Amazon and Red Hat are expected to be the biggest gainers, and IBM, SAP, and Oracle are expected to be the biggest losers relative to their current position.
The Goldman Sachs survey also explained that large companies have shifted 11% of their business workloads to public clouds, up from 6% in a December 2015 survey. This week, Microsoft is holding its Worldwide Partner Conference 2016 where the company will be showcasing how it can help its partners embrace digital transformation through scalable and flexible cloud offerings.
Do you think Microsoft is well positioned to stay a cloud computing leader in the years to come? Let us know by dropping us a comment below.
Further reading: Amazon Web Services, Azure, Cloud, Cloud Services, Google, IaaS, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP
