Post announcement of newly formed partnership with Adobe Systems in September, Microsoft has made yet another important announcement early in October 2016. The tech giant has reported that it will be building its first ever Azure data center in France by next year. It is being seen as a strategic move by the company which has allotted $3 billion as an investment to build cloud platform centers/cloud services in Europe.
Mega tech giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are presently carrying out great plans in the domain of cloud services and data centers. This has also led to strong competition in this category of new age technological services. The latest announcement by Microsoft is definitely a move to expand its reach and eyeing the frontrunner position in cloud services provider category.
The declaration was made at Microsoft Ireland Tech Gathering in Dublin where MS CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith disclosed this important information. It must be noted that tech company already has its cloud centers in Ireland, United Kingdom and Germany. By 2017, the company will add the newest Azure data center to this list at Paris. Also, the total number of cloud center regions opted by Microsoft will increase to 36 in the same year.
At the tech gathering, Nadella stated, “Building a global, trusted, intelligent cloud platform is core to our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more,” Adding to Microsoft, CEO’s statement, Brad Smith commented, “Cloud computing has the potential to solve some of our world’s most challenging issues, but, as with all technological advancements, it raises important questions for society. We must work together to build a cloud for global good.”
Notably, the company also launched its new publication titled ‘Cloud for Global Good’ at the event which carries as many as 78 public policy recommendations spread across 15 categories including accessibility issues and data protection.
Microsoft President Brad Smith on A Cloud for Global Good, a roadmap to a trusted, responsible, and inclusive cloud.
(Video Credits: Microsoft)
In last few years the popularity of cloud based storage & services have seen an exponential growth. Major contribution to this demand growth curve can be accredited to significant increase in usage of smartphones and related gadgets in the recent years. These devices are majorly dependent upon cloud-based architectures primarily when it comes to running of apps. In addition, there has been a major rise in consumer and enterprise services category which now follows remote storage and processing approach so as to efficiently deliver software. Therefore, at a time when Microsoft lags behind companies like Google (Android) and Apple in capturing mobile platform mass market, it eyes to establish a strong presence in cloud services.
Amazon has so far captured almost 30% of the global cloud market which has an estimated potential of $300 billion. Microsoft on the other hand accounts for 10% of this market share. In September, Amazon announced its plans to add AWS (Amazon Web Services) centers in France. The competition demanded Microsoft to come up with its plan and the same has been devised by the company now.
When it comes to cloud infrastructure services, Synergy Research Group has presented a clear picture of market share and revenue growth of various companies competing in this industry. As seen in the graph below, Microsoft is clearly making a mark by registering 100% YoY (Year Over Year) growth in Q2 2016.
Based upon Synergy Research Group’s 2015 findings, Statista presented a graph of Top 5 infrastructure service providers. Microsoft has clearly gained from 9% to 10% of market share at present while at the same time Amazon has lost from 31% to 30% of market share in 2016.
This is an interesting insight but still Amazon leads in this category of technological services. Like other players, even Google has big plans to capture its share in the market and the company has already announced that it will add new cloud centers in regions such as Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Cloud services extend a great opportunity to businesses which are able to add data-storage and processing power capability by getting such services from big players like Amazon and Microsoft. For future of variety of businesses, data center growth has become imperative in regions like Europe where many countries have existing digital sovereignty regulations in existence. In some cases, these regulations require companies to store customer data within the country of origin. Notably, regulators across Europe are giving tough times to U.S. tech companies. A recent example of that is anti-trust charges that has been pressed onto Google by European Union. Also, Apple has been presented with $14 billion tax bill.
GLOBAL TECH TRENDS 