4 ms·

Something is off here. This can’t be cloud computing like we think when we think AWS.

jqpabc123 6y ago
Apples and Oranges --- a good portion of MS cloud revenue is from hosting MS apps which AWS doesn't really compete in.
baridbelmedar 6y ago
The thing is, cloud is more than just ordinary IaaS these days. Although AWS obviously wants the "cloud" to still be seen primarily as an IaaS thing.
- sidr 6y ago
  This definition of cloud is meaningless though - anything that sends a packet via the internet can now be classified as "cloud". This is cearly a marketing ploy to appeal to less-than-savvy enterprise customers.
  - baridbelmedar 6y ago
    I do not think anyone has said that Microsoft's way of defining what the cloud is is more accurate... What I am trying to say is that the criticism that you are "not allowed" to include PaaS and SaaS solutions to the cloud revenue doesn't seem correct either. I understand why someone like AWS would not want that to be the new way of counting. It is profitable to appear as the unthreatened champion of cloud (the default choice), but the fact is that Microsoft is closer in size than what many people may think.
- deleted 6y ago
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carlineng 6y ago
From the article: "I suspect that many still inaccurately equate or conflate “cloud” with “IaaS,” which is a perspective at least a full decade out of date. Without question, Amazon created and still leads the IaaS segment of the cloud—but the cloud of today looks nothing at all like it did 10 years ago when “cloud = IaaS” was a reasonable equation." The "Cloud Revenue" number includes things like Dynamics, 365, etc.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  If you're comparing Microsoft with Amazon on "cloud" revenue than yes, I'm going to assume you're discussing IaaS. Otherwise it's like saying "McDonalds wallops GEICO in burger revenue."
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  I don't like the tone of that quote - IaaS barely existed a decade ago in its current form; "cloud" back then was SaaS, PaaS and maybe some VM hosting. Cloud has never been "just" S,P, or I "aaS". But it seems clear to me if you're going to write an article comparing any company's so-called Cloud revenue to Amazon, you're going to be comparing IaaS numbers.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  I think that's a bit of a red-herring. I feel that increasingly the real difference is between 'end-user facing cloud products' (which essentially always means SaaS) and 'developer-facing cloud products' (which includes all your IaaS/PaaS/some-SaaS). Historically, the term for 'end-user facing cloud SaaS product' was 'a website'; we're just seeing tighter IAM integration in the enterprise space and more powerful products as a result of the increased capabilities of JS engines and better frameworks. The difference is basically "this is stuff developers used to build products" vs "this replaces a shrink-wrap product that would historically have been delivered to a user desktop".
deleted 6y ago
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dubcanada 6y ago
These numbers are completely different then other numbers I've seen https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2020-Q3/press-release-webcast https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2020-Q3... Microsoft says 13.0 billion, this says 15.3 billion I have no idea where these numbers are from.
- jsnell 6y ago
  Microsoft's fiscal year does not line up with the calendar year. Their FY Q3 maps to calendar Q1. Since the article is comparing companies, it's appropriate to use the calendar year.
chomp 6y ago
Office 365 is huge. Amazon's offering (AWS WorkMail/WorkDocs/etc) doesn't come close.
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sidibe 6y ago
Whether these companies account for their own use of infrastructure as cloud might be the difference. Do these companies consider all of their own products running on their infrastructure as cloud and therefore consider expenses for those as cloud revenue (and cloud expenses)? Or their kind of separate products like Github, Waymo, etc. Amazon's non-cloud products probably use much much less data center infrastructure than Microsoft and especially Google.

Apples and Oranges --- a good portion of MS cloud revenue is from hosting MS apps which AWS doesn't really compete in.

The thing is, cloud is more than just ordinary IaaS these days. Although AWS obviously wants the "cloud" to still be seen primarily as an IaaS thing.

sidr 6y ago
This definition of cloud is meaningless though - anything that sends a packet via the internet can now be classified as "cloud". This is cearly a marketing ploy to appeal to less-than-savvy enterprise customers.
- baridbelmedar 6y ago
  I do not think anyone has said that Microsoft's way of defining what the cloud is is more accurate... What I am trying to say is that the criticism that you are "not allowed" to include PaaS and SaaS solutions to the cloud revenue doesn't seem correct either. I understand why someone like AWS would not want that to be the new way of counting. It is profitable to appear as the unthreatened champion of cloud (the default choice), but the fact is that Microsoft is closer in size than what many people may think.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

carlineng 6y ago

From the article: "I suspect that many still inaccurately equate or conflate “cloud” with “IaaS,” which is a perspective at least a full decade out of date. Without question, Amazon created and still leads the IaaS segment of the cloud—but the cloud of today looks nothing at all like it did 10 years ago when “cloud = IaaS” was a reasonable equation." The "Cloud Revenue" number includes things like Dynamics, 365, etc.

whimsicalism 6y ago
If you're comparing Microsoft with Amazon on "cloud" revenue than yes, I'm going to assume you're discussing IaaS. Otherwise it's like saying "McDonalds wallops GEICO in burger revenue."
unethical_ban 6y ago
I don't like the tone of that quote - IaaS barely existed a decade ago in its current form; "cloud" back then was SaaS, PaaS and maybe some VM hosting. Cloud has never been "just" S,P, or I "aaS". But it seems clear to me if you're going to write an article comparing any company's so-called Cloud revenue to Amazon, you're going to be comparing IaaS numbers.
NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
I think that's a bit of a red-herring. I feel that increasingly the real difference is between 'end-user facing cloud products' (which essentially always means SaaS) and 'developer-facing cloud products' (which includes all your IaaS/PaaS/some-SaaS). Historically, the term for 'end-user facing cloud SaaS product' was 'a website'; we're just seeing tighter IAM integration in the enterprise space and more powerful products as a result of the increased capabilities of JS engines and better frameworks. The difference is basically "this is stuff developers used to build products" vs "this replaces a shrink-wrap product that would historically have been delivered to a user desktop".

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dubcanada 6y ago

These numbers are completely different then other numbers I've seen https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2020-Q3/press-release-webcast https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2020-Q3... Microsoft says 13.0 billion, this says 15.3 billion I have no idea where these numbers are from.

jsnell 6y ago
Microsoft's fiscal year does not line up with the calendar year. Their FY Q3 maps to calendar Q1. Since the article is comparing companies, it's appropriate to use the calendar year.

chomp 6y ago

Office 365 is huge. Amazon's offering (AWS WorkMail/WorkDocs/etc) doesn't come close.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sidibe 6y ago

Whether these companies account for their own use of infrastructure as cloud might be the difference. Do these companies consider all of their own products running on their infrastructure as cloud and therefore consider expenses for those as cloud revenue (and cloud expenses)? Or their kind of separate products like Github, Waymo, etc. Amazon's non-cloud products probably use much much less data center infrastructure than Microsoft and especially Google.