What Has The Cloud Really Changed?

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Suppliers become providers

But hardware vendors aren’t the only players in the market. First off, they’re facing fierce competition from software makers (e.g. Microsoft, VMware) and technology services firms (for instance, Accenture or Deloitte). Secondly – and that’s even more important – the idea of cloud computing (if not the term and concept itself) first became popular when Amazon launched its Web Services and EC2 platforms in 2006 and Google followed short behind.

While both companies had been widely recognised for their technological achievements and compute power, they had also preferred not to battle the older generation. Now they leveled the playing field at rapid speed. For enterprises, this means that today they have a much larger group of service partners to choose from. For traditional suppliers and service companies, it increases the pressure to turn themselves into something we call an “IT provider” – in essence an organisation that offers hardware, software, services and compute capacities (including on-demand solutions) from a single source and at a high level of integration.

A market in transition

Over the past years, these trends have inspired some fundamental restructuring efforts, major changes in portfolios and unexpected mergers or coalitions. For example, Dell – once famous for its strict focus on building cheap made-to-order PCs – nowadays offers servers, switches, storage systems, and a wide variety of services from on-site configuration and deployment to cloud-based email continuity.

Database market leader Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, reigniting a staggering server business and expanding into the cloud with its new Exadata and Exalogic machines. Cisco, EMC and VMware formed the Virtual Computing Environment Coalition in order to build best-of-breed cloud solutions.

Finally, vertically integrated vendors such as IBM, HP and Fujitsu are fighting back and refining their multi-layered approach by delivering managed services, IaaS and SaaS packages straight from their data centers, offering better performance and reliability at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Add in the multitude of new competitors, and you have a “buyer’s paradise”.

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