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I think everyone agrees that AWS is a clear leader, but both Microsoft and Google report bundled Office Suite/Cloud Computing revenue as a single number, so it'

I think everyone agrees that AWS is a clear leader, but both Microsoft and Google report bundled Office Suite/Cloud Computing revenue as a single number, so it's completely unclear who is actually in second place.

epynonymous 8y ago
that's a great point, and as i was reading this, i was thinking that perhaps aws should get into cloud office as well.
oldmanhorton 8y ago
https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/microsoft-reports-30-1-billion-in-q4-2018-revenue-azure-up-89-surface-up-25-and-windows-up-7/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/microsoft-reports-30-1-bi... As far as I’m aware, azure and office get reported separately. Azure is “intelligent cloud” and office (along with some others) is “more personal computing”
partiallypro 8y ago
I wish this falsehood would die. Google isn't even #3 in cloud revenues, IBM is, Oracle is #4. Google is far, far, behind Azure and AWS. They have ~$1B/quarter in cloud revenues (that includes GSuite.) Even if you made the assumption that Office 365 made up 80% of Microsoft's quarterly cloud revenues it would still be bigger than Google's cloud (including GSuite.) This is based on their earnings fy 2018. I don't get why people are in denial that Azure is doing well. If you want to know why Google isn't doing -great- in the cloud, it's because people are afraid they will kill the project. It's because they don't have a "hook" like AWS and Azure have. AWS has a massive user base already, good reason to adopt it. Azure hooks into so many other Microsoft services and developer tools, good reason to adopt it. GCS has...what? Sure, some cool things, but we're talking about compute, compute where where the money is. Even if you adopt GCS for some edge or AI projects, that's not a lot of spend.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  I think part of the is ambiguity over what the "cloud" is; is hosted exchange/active directory cloud computing? Is hosted Oracle DBs cloud computing? I think analysts are estimating that 18% of commercial cloud revenue is Azure, which, you're right would put it ahead of Google, but what exactly is getting sold under the Azure umbrella? I'm pretty sure their Active Directory stuff gets sold as part of Azure. And while this may be splitting hairs, I think it matters what they're actually selling. If they're moving on-prem customers to SaaS, that doesn't seem like a particularly useful comparison, since we already know MS sells a tonne of proprietary software to enterprise.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    The answer is, yes hosted Oracle DBs are the "cloud" and yes hosted AD is the "cloud," in so long as they are on a pool of resources. Why wouldn't it be? How is that any different than moving your MEAN, LAMP or whatever stack from bare metal to a cloud provider on a VM? It's not. What makes the "cloud" the "cloud," isn't some serverless, edge, kubernetes fancy whatever. Most people do not use/need that stuff. It's pooled resources and a toolset that allows you to scale, provision, monitor, etc in a simple way with no human interaction. That's it. Everything else is nuance. I think the ambiguity that people are so inclined to over engineer that they can't possibly imagine something so simple as a vanilla VM with a SQL SaaS hooked to it as "the cloud" because it's not complex enough.
    - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
      Adding probably legacy businesses into the growing 'new cloud' revenue totals looks like they have more than they say, that's why they do it. Amazon cloud only started with aws, they don't have 30 year workloads from ancient companies moved to a cloud. It matters because you are hiding the new part from the legacy part, legacy is probably shrinking in general. It makes microsoft look much larger. you can argue that running active directory in a cloud vm is still in the cloud - yes, but that's not the same kind of growth because that entire old windows market is static at best.
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  > GCS has...what? The best Kubernetes hosting?
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    A tool that arguably 99% of people don't need and is even up for constant debate here on HN.
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    tool made by google runs best on google cloud. more at 11
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > If you want to know why Google isn't doing -great- in the cloud, it's because people are afraid they will kill the project. Spot on, and it is a sentiment I come across more than once every year. The number of startups hosted on AWS is huge, MS Azure is currently runner-up and Google a distant third.

epynonymous 8y ago

that's a great point, and as i was reading this, i was thinking that perhaps aws should get into cloud office as well.

oldmanhorton 8y ago

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/microsoft-reports-30-1-billion-in-q4-2018-revenue-azure-up-89-surface-up-25-and-windows-up-7/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/microsoft-reports-30-1-bi... As far as I’m aware, azure and office get reported separately. Azure is “intelligent cloud” and office (along with some others) is “more personal computing”

partiallypro 8y ago

I wish this falsehood would die. Google isn't even #3 in cloud revenues, IBM is, Oracle is #4. Google is far, far, behind Azure and AWS. They have ~$1B/quarter in cloud revenues (that includes GSuite.) Even if you made the assumption that Office 365 made up 80% of Microsoft's quarterly cloud revenues it would still be bigger than Google's cloud (including GSuite.) This is based on their earnings fy 2018. I don't get why people are in denial that Azure is doing well. If you want to know why Google isn't doing -great- in the cloud, it's because people are afraid they will kill the project. It's because they don't have a "hook" like AWS and Azure have. AWS has a massive user base already, good reason to adopt it. Azure hooks into so many other Microsoft services and developer tools, good reason to adopt it. GCS has...what? Sure, some cool things, but we're talking about compute, compute where where the money is. Even if you adopt GCS for some edge or AI projects, that's not a lot of spend.

Eridrus 8y ago
I think part of the is ambiguity over what the "cloud" is; is hosted exchange/active directory cloud computing? Is hosted Oracle DBs cloud computing? I think analysts are estimating that 18% of commercial cloud revenue is Azure, which, you're right would put it ahead of Google, but what exactly is getting sold under the Azure umbrella? I'm pretty sure their Active Directory stuff gets sold as part of Azure. And while this may be splitting hairs, I think it matters what they're actually selling. If they're moving on-prem customers to SaaS, that doesn't seem like a particularly useful comparison, since we already know MS sells a tonne of proprietary software to enterprise.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  The answer is, yes hosted Oracle DBs are the "cloud" and yes hosted AD is the "cloud," in so long as they are on a pool of resources. Why wouldn't it be? How is that any different than moving your MEAN, LAMP or whatever stack from bare metal to a cloud provider on a VM? It's not. What makes the "cloud" the "cloud," isn't some serverless, edge, kubernetes fancy whatever. Most people do not use/need that stuff. It's pooled resources and a toolset that allows you to scale, provision, monitor, etc in a simple way with no human interaction. That's it. Everything else is nuance. I think the ambiguity that people are so inclined to over engineer that they can't possibly imagine something so simple as a vanilla VM with a SQL SaaS hooked to it as "the cloud" because it's not complex enough.
  - NotSammyHagar 8y ago
    Adding probably legacy businesses into the growing 'new cloud' revenue totals looks like they have more than they say, that's why they do it. Amazon cloud only started with aws, they don't have 30 year workloads from ancient companies moved to a cloud. It matters because you are hiding the new part from the legacy part, legacy is probably shrinking in general. It makes microsoft look much larger. you can argue that running active directory in a cloud vm is still in the cloud - yes, but that's not the same kind of growth because that entire old windows market is static at best.
PopeDotNinja 8y ago
> GCS has...what? The best Kubernetes hosting?
- partiallypro 8y ago
  A tool that arguably 99% of people don't need and is even up for constant debate here on HN.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  tool made by google runs best on google cloud. more at 11
jacquesm 8y ago
> If you want to know why Google isn't doing -great- in the cloud, it's because people are afraid they will kill the project. Spot on, and it is a sentiment I come across more than once every year. The number of startups hosted on AWS is huge, MS Azure is currently runner-up and Google a distant third.