Are you ready to jump on the Cloud Computing “bandwagon”? If so, you’ll need to know which Cloud Computing vendors are the most popular and therefore, the safest bets.
What is cloud computing? In a nutshell, it’s a way to get access to huge server farms and storage space that’s “in the cloud”… so you (or your organization) can perform computing tasks without having to invest in expensive hardware. Here’s a shortlist of the top 10 cloud computing vendors, with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft taking the lead:
Amazon
According to a recent study published on September 4th, 2014 by CB Insights, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the leader in public cloud computing. The research firm says AWS had a unique position within the market because of its ability to offer a complete cloud computing solution—from infrastructure to platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and deployment services.
If you use any of these services, you are probably already doing a lot of things on the Internet. However, many of those things could be done better and more efficiently if you were using the services offered by Amazon. For example, when you are looking for something on the Internet, you have to type in the name of the website or the product that you are looking for into a search engine.
This is a very time-consuming process. It would be much faster if you could simply point and click on the name of the website or product that you wanted to go to. This is where AWS comes in handy. With their complete cloud computing solution, all you have to do is tell AWS what you want, and it will give you back the information or the product that you are looking for. AWS has many strengths and has won the trust of many.
Rackspace
Talking of the leaders, we can say Rackspace has earned its position in the 10 most popular cloud computing vendors. Rackspace is one of the most recognized cloud computing companies in the world. They are often referred to as the “Cloud King” and they certainly live up to the moniker. But how did they get to be so popular? To answer that question, let’s take a look back at history. Back in 1997, when the term “cloud computing” was first coined, it referred to a model for providing IT services that didn’t require the customer to own or maintain the actual IT infrastructure.
This made it possible for companies with limited budgets to access enormous amounts of computing power without having to make major investments. The first big success of this model was Amazon.com. When they launched in June 1994, they had almost no computing resources of their own.
Instead, they relied on a network of 1,000 “Clams” (a nickname derived from the acronym CLOUD) to provide them with the computational capacity they needed. Rackspace was founded in 1997 by a group of Internet veterans who were fed up with the high price and long-term contracts of traditional hosting companies.
They decided to build their own data center and sell their IT services directly to their customers. And thus was born the model of cloud computing as we know it today. Rackspace went public in 1999 and is one of the largest “public” companies on the NASDAQ
GoGrid
Most people don’t realize it but GoGrid provides web-hosting services for some of the largest brands on the Internet. Examples include the Drudge Report, TMZ, Huffington Post, and Fox News. GoGrid is a certified public company listed on the OTC:BB stock exchange. They have a large and loyal following amongst entrepreneurs and small business owners. And with good reason.
GoGrid offers reliable, ultra-fast, cheap web-hosting along with a 24/7 technical support team who are eager and able to help. In fact, GoGrid has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any web host according to surveys by J.D. Power and Associates. This means that if you sign up for web hosting from GoGrid, you are almost certain to get your money’s worth.
In other words, you’re almost certain to have a positive experience. They have been listed in the top ten most popular cloud computing companies due to their immense performance in the industry.
Web hosting is important for any type of website. It is especially important for websites that get a lot of traffic. This is because it is very expensive to buy ad space on the Internet. It costs 10 times as much to buy ad space on a website as it does to buy ad space on printed media such as magazines or newspapers.
That’s why it is imperative that your website be hosted by someone who has the resources and expertise to make sure that your website gets the attention and orders that it deserves. GoGrid has both of these and they are the cheapest web host that I know of. Plus, they are tops in customer satisfaction. GoGrid also has an A+ rating with the BBB.
Microsoft
There are many benefits of using the cloud. However, one of the most compelling reasons for doing so is that it enables you to avoid having to purchase or maintain the infrastructure required to support your applications and that’s exactly what Microsoft does. Microsoft host a load of online consumers and has been listed among the top 3 most popular vendors online.
One of the biggest advantages of using the cloud is that it frees up your hard drive space. If you are running out of space on your computer, you can always make more room by deleting unnecessary files or by taking some of your music or pictures off your computer and storing them in the cloud. In addition, you don’t have to worry about viruses or other potentially destructive programs when you are using the cloud.
Your data is always safe because it is not stored on your computer. Also, because your data is in the cloud, you can access it from almost anywhere. You can use your computer at home, at work, or even on your PDA or your mobile phone. If you have Internet access, you can use your computer, tablet, or phone to log onto your account and access your files. You can edit them, upload new ones, and do whatever you want with them. These secure services by Microsoft make them one of the best 3 leaders in cloud computing.
This is a claim made by Gartner in their recent report “Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Service Providers 2015.” The “MUST READ” report from Gartner analyzed public cloud providers based on criteria such as quality of service, security, functionality and support.
The research firm concluded that Google is one of only four vendors (besides Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and IBM) to have achieved a Leaders position in all four quadrants. The Leaders position is the highest possible ranking a vendor can achieve. The Top Visionary vendors are considered the most innovative and forward-thinking of the vendors in the study, while the Visionary vendors are those that offer the most compelling value.
Gartner’s analysis seems to me to be accurate. Google does seem to be the clear leader when it comes to public cloud. But, they do have some challenges such as their data center outages. It would be nice if all public cloud vendors had the type of problems that Google has. However, I think that it is still safe to say that Google is currently leading in the public cloud arena.
Teradici
This is a somewhat surprising statistic, considering that most people are woefully uninformed about cloud computing and the myriad benefits that come with it. In fact, according to a report released earlier this year by the research firm Gartner, “Only 24% of North American organizations currently have a mature, well-defined strategy in place to exploit the capabilities of the cloud.”
Teradici (ranked #8. is a leader in the field of “private clouds” which enables companies to quickly and easily create and deploy their own, highly-secure, private cloud infrastructure solutions without having to invest in and maintain an entire data center.
When asked what they think are the top cloud computing vendors, the majority of respondents (58%) listed “Amazon Web Services” as their top choice. Closely following Amazon Web Services were Microsoft (13%), Google (9%), and IBM (4%). Here’s a tidbit from the report: “More than half (52%) of survey respondents ranked Facebook as one of the top 10 most popular cloud computing vendors worldwide. This is the highest percentage of survey respondents who listed Facebook in this category.”
Yahoo!
Why is Yahoo! so popular among cloud computing vendors? It’s quite simple… They do it right! They focus relentlessly on what their customers want and give it to them with a smile. This is a great lesson for all of us. It’s easy to get caught up in the minutia of our daily tasks and lose sight of the forest for the trees. The important thing to remember is that unless we are conscious of the “big picture”, it’s almost impossible to be a success.
Apple
While many people think of “the cloud” as simply something you access from a remote computer, that’s only part of the equation. There’s also the issue of your data being stored on servers owned and operated by someone else.
Who better to understand this issue than the people who own and operate the most widely-used cloud computing platforms on the planet? In fact, a report published by Gartner says that Apple is the top vendor of SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions today. And, according to the same report, Apple is the top vendor of SaaS solutions in the world… by a wide margin!
Conclusion
In conclusion, The top three players in the cloud computing market are Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, which together control approximately 90% of the market. They have grabbed their undeniable positions in the 10 most popular cloud computing vendors in the world.
These three companies are so dominant because they have such a wide array of different products and services to offer. It’s not unusual for one of these players to have 70-plus products in their portfolio! The top ten players in this market are all very different.
They range from relatively unknown players like Nirvanix and TeraScale to huge, well-known organizations like SAP and Oracle, Google, Microsoft and the likes. This is an intensely competitive market where new entrants virtually disappear overnight, while established players are often acquired by larger, more powerful competitors.
There are many different ways to approach the list of top ten players. One way is to examine what each of these companies offers. Another way is to examine how the market is evolving. Yet another way is to examine the companies themselves. In today’s world, size doesn’t necessarily matter. In fact, it can be a detriment to being successful. Being a “big fish in a small pond” can work against you if that small pond is full of sharks.
