From «X-as-a-Service» to «Everything-as-a-Service»

In an earlier article, I emphasized on the importance of an infrastructure that is able to cope with new modern initiatives and steady growth as business development progresses. Cloud computing is undoubtly the promise of having a modern and state-of-the-art IT infrastructure without the need for substantial capital investments and personnel increases. Unsurprisingly, the cloud market revenue is expected to double in the next three years. However, surprisingly though, the market is dominated by few giants only. More than 65% of the cloud computing market is occupied by only a few leading giant providers such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. The remaining 35% market share is in the hands of thousands of cloud providers scattered around the world.

Nowadays we notice more and more a change in cloud competition. Microsoft Azure has surpassed Amazon AWS in terms of annual revenues. The cloud industry with its huge potential seems to undergo a change in competition which can be explained by a few notable trends that are emerging:

• The few giants that make up the cloud industry form the top-tier cloud providers while a number of smaller and niche players occupy 35% of the market. Interestingly, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are all of them American cloud providers.
• Releasing mainstream features to duplicate competitors’ features can be observed harder than before. Every provider strives to stand out! Nonetheless, compute, storage and are more or less essentially provided most of the cloud providers. However, innovation is mainly happening in areas such as big data, AI or machine learning.
• Despite the important number of smaller cloud providers, the giants still keep making the price. According to critics, a rate adjustment to pricing scheme is made once or twice a year by one of the giants.

Considering these three trends, the cloud market does not appear to be changing any time soon. An innovation-driven sector as the cloud represents is taking a risky step in falling into commodity. An increasingly strong price competition shows how difficult it has become to compete on features. The question therefore is which trends begin to emerge and express exactly what today’s customers look for?

Amazon AWS users share one common experience. Entering the world of AWS is easy but the exit is exceedingly hard to find. Cloud exit strategy is a thorn in the eyes of cloud providers that look desperately for ways to lock in their customers before they join a competitor. Attractive pricing models or charging on a per-unit basis are good examples of keeping a customer as long as possible. Another option include making data transfer to other cloud platforms expensive and unattractive. Nevertheless, the only best way of making a customer stay is to respond their needs and expectations. Differentiation is therefore what most cloud providers should be looking for. By observing the cloud industry, we immediately realize that technology in this industry, especially when it comes to software, it is particularly easy to that your innovation quickly becomes commodity for your competitors. The smartphone industry shows the same characteristics.

It has become extremely difficult to stand out and excel competitors through unique innovations that are hard to copy. When it comes to the cloud market, the only option one can have is products or services that respond to a maximum amount of customers’ needs and expectations. Now, cloud providers should get away from that typical “X-as-a-service”. Customers should enjoy flexibility and decide freely how to integrate the cloud into their daily business. “Make your own cloud” by n’cloud.swiss could indeed by a trend setter in this cloud market that falls into commodity and lacks pure innovation to stand out from competition. This Swiss multicloud provider developed an innovative cloud platform to compete with the likes of Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. Others might follow very soon but for now n’cloud.swiss is definitely the cloud provider to consider!