Gartner positions Microsoft as cloud leader in Magic Quadrant

Azure is the only platform challenging AWS

Gartner has identified Microsoft as a leader in its cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) ‘Magic Quadrant', due to its prominence in the market. It is now the only company positioned in the ‘Leader' category, just behind Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is not slowing down and Microsoft continues to invest in Azure: both companies are growing away from the rest of the market.

Gartner says that Microsoft ‘is…seen as more of a strategic enterprise cloud partner instead of just being another IT vendor.' The firm continues that this view is ‘key' to Microsoft's continued growth in the IaaS market, differentiating it from AWS. While Microsoft can provide end-to-end cloud solutions (based on its existing products like Office 365), its service experience, support, documentation and training ‘is not up to the level' of Amazon.

Popular with existing customers...

Microsoft Azure is second in the IaaS market in terms of market share, and holds the same position in the IaaS+PaaS market. It is already a broad and capable platform, and Microsoft continues to launch new features - now by innovating itself, rather than copying competitors. The ability to bundle Azure with other Microsoft products and services is also helping to drive adoption. Gartner says that ‘many' customers are already spending $500,000 or more per year, and ‘a few' exceed $5 million.

Azure is especially popular among customers that are already committed to Microsoft technology, or that like the firm's cloud strategy (spanning IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and on-premise). Azure is also popular amongst customers pursuing a multi- or hybrid cloud strategy.

...but confusion holds Azure back

While Azure is enterprise-ready, Gartner says its clients call it ‘less enterprise-ready than they expected.' There have been issues, as above, with tech support, documentation, training and the breadth of the ISV partner ecosystem.

Microsoft says that it is actively addressing the above issues and has made improvements in the last 12 months; however, the disorganised service partner ecosystem makes it difficult for customers to obtain expertise. Not all functionality is enabled to the level desired by enterprise customers, and complexity is introduced by the inclusion of multiple generations of solutions, coupled with unclear guidance on when to use each one.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant is widely thought to favour large vendors and investors than IT buyers - largely due to the firm's lack of disclosure around the amount of money that it receives from the vendors on the Quadrant, and a lack of transparency in the methodology used.

Gartner's response has historically been that the report contains ‘pure opinion'.