#46-Big 4 of Cloud: The future of Hybrid, Multi-cloud, and the intelligent edge
Some 5–6 years ago I wrote on Linkedin that all companies are slowly metamorphizing into technology or data companies and they may or may not know it yet.
All companies will eventually become technology-first companies. If they cannot technology companies then they have to atleast evolve as data-first companies.
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Most leaders have already accepted this ‘digital age’ or post-COVID world reality by adapting to it. Those who are still continuing the old path may face disruption threats that could even jeopardize the existence of the business.
Few companies which are very traditional and product-focused it is difficult for the board to make that mental leap right now, but over the next 5–10 years, a ‘data-first’ strategy will be the normal paradigm.
How big is a zettabyte?
A zettabyte is a measure of storage capacity also expressed as 1021 (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) or 1 sextillion bytes. 1 Zettabyte is approximately equal to 1000 Exabytes, a billion Terabytes, or a trillion Gigabytes
Why Data matter?
Business value chains, production plants, operations, customers, vehicles, utilities, social and entertainment platforms, are generating incredible and unfathomable amounts of data.
All data brings with it a monetization potential because it can be organized into information and further commercialized as insights related to productivity, efficiency, or consumer behavior. The insights can even be used to build future trend prediction and AI-based automation models.
All the data, across the categories (consumer, user, business operations, production, process, and transactions) can only be saved in cloud or on-premise servers.
Data-centers to Cloud, Intelligent edge is an irreversible shift
While the on-premise servers may be assumed to be more secure, they have limitations compared to cloud computing systems when it comes to:
- On-demand Scalability is difficult
- Higher costs
- Agility and slower response time
- More downtime/crashing issues
The On-premise server giants are moving fast to the Hybrid Cloud and the Intelligent edge strategy to compete head-on with the cloud-first players- ASW, Azure, IBM, Oracle, Google, Alibaba
The on-premise servers have been in use for a long time for storage and computation purposes- DELL and HPE have been leading the enterprise server category market race for decades.
HPE is moving fast on intelligent edge portfolio
Dell continues with renewed focus on Hybrid cloud, CMS, Private cloud and hyper-converged systems.
Hybrid cloud is a 1 trillion USD plus opportunity globally according to various market growth analysts. This is the reason big cloud players are keen to pursue it.
Both Dell and HPE have been innovating very fast to find their ‘next-big’ playbook. Antonio Neri and Michael Dell are two focused leaders, who know how to find the next opportunity.
While these two companies , will surely find their niche the REVENUE & Profitability growth has been slow as compared to AWS, Microsoft Azure and other big pure cloud players.
So who are the cloud players to be watched out for?
I think there is always a Big-6 who can transform the industry, and the cloud is no exception.
The Gartner cloud quadrant highlights some of the names, yet I do have a list of Big-4 I am watching out for (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM). Oracle and Salesforce are also the players that we can bet on to continue innovating and evolving as cloud/enterprise-tech players.
Alibaba and Tencent will be very big forces in China, SEA, and some other parts of Asia (excluding India)
- Microsoft Azure- They are part of the Microsoft ecosystem and have managed to stack up a lot of B2B solutions that empower them to emerge as the most preferred one-stop solution provider for the client going for digital transformation (cloud migration)- end2end Cloud stack (multi, hybrid), intelligent edge, and non-cloud ecosystem- Window, Office, Teams, new innovations like Hololens, Microsoft one drive, and public platforms like Linkedin business solutions. Strategy wise Microsoft goes for big projects- The pentagon project along is pegged around ~10 billion USD.
2. AWS- Amazon web services the crown jewel of the Amazon group. It has been the pioneer of cloud computing and The sheer number of digital transformation case studies across industries and geographies, clearly highlight AWS’s intention to be the winner of the cloud wars.
In addition to the cloud as a service, multi-hybrid solutions, and future-technologies (blockchain, analytics, , I also sense multiple digital consulting offerings beings developed. AWS and Microsoft may disrupt management consulting by the year 2030 because most management consulting will be ‘digital/implementation’ consulting by then.
They do need 1–2 more enterprise acquisitions (maybe a Zoom)
IBM (International Business Machine)- The Red Hat acquisition and the new org-restructuring of the company since Arvind Krishna took over from Ginni Rometty, outlines how serious IBM is about the hybrid cloud strategy and evolve as an AI-first company.
IBM Watson and ‘re-invention capabilities of IBM’ are the assets it must leverage. IBM was there when people did not understand the difference between ‘technology and science’. The innovation engine and the culture to adapt is IBM’s greatest strength.
According to Forrester Q3 report, Since IBM announced its acquisition of Red Hat in 2018,
the two companies have made OpenShift the centerpiece of a unified “open hybrid cloud” container platform strategy. IBM has ported valuable functionality such as multi-cloud management, data and AI services, and integration APIs from Cloud Paks to OpenShift to help enterprises modernize core legacy applications.
OpenShift is the most widely deployed multi-cloud container platform and boasts powerful development and unified operations experiences across many public and on-premises platforms. Red Hat pioneered the “operator” model for infrastructure and application management and provides a rich partner ecosystem and popular marketplace.
Red Hat and IBM aim to make “build once, deploy anywhere” a reality; both companies’ deep commitment to Kubernetes-powered modernization has paid off, moving OpenShift further ahead of the market since Forrester’s last evaluation.
Google cloud- Google cloud is only going to grow further in clout. Its hardware strategy has not been very successful and but its cloud business is evolving fast to get the big-ticket/high dollar enterprise tender of big companies. Yet, the Alphabet ecosystem is a powerful one and not to be taken lightly by its other cloud and enterprise tech competitors.
95% share in the search market engine, Youtube platform, and SME ecosystem market share gives a unique ecosystem advantage to its cloud business.
Cloud companies that can also play the role of ‘growth and disruption’ strategist for the clients will win their trust in the long run.
The Big -Cloud has all the tools, they just need to go out think on two fronts- ‘Develop Solutions not Products’, and think like ‘Management consultants’ when it comes to disruption.
Read my thoughts on cloud opportunity:
In my next post, I will write about the intelligent edge in more detail.
Regards,
Sidhartha Sharma
Digital Strategy, Transformation and Ecosystem expert
Director-Consulting, Views are personal
