The war rages on for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud: Exploring the battlefield and strategy for 2020

The hyperscale cloud providers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, with other pretenders occasionally cited naturally generate the vast majority of revenues and, with it, the headlines.According to figures from Synergy Research in December, one third of data centre spend in Q3 ended up in hyperscalers’ pockets. The company’s most recent market share analysis, again for Q3, found that for public infrastructure (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS), AWS held almost two fifths (39%) of the market, well ahead of Microsoft (19%) and Google (9%).For those who say the race has long since been won, however, the course has gradually been changing as organisations explored hybrid and multi-cloud workflows, as well as tying infrastructure and platform together with software portfolios.
In Europe, the battleground is shifting rapidly. Each provider has planted their flag variously, aside from the hubs of London, Frankfurt et al. Google Cloud launched in Poland and Switzerland in 2019 making seven European locations in total, while Microsoft unveiled plans to launch Azure in Germany and Switzerland, also taking its European locations to seven. AWS, meanwhile, has six with two of these regions, Italy and Spain, due in early 2020 and 2023 respectively.