Amazon, Salesforce, IBM dominate IaaS, PaaS cloud infrastructure segments, says Synergy

Amazon (AWS) (Nasdaq: AMZN), Salesforce and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have become the three companies to beat in the growing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) segments of the cloud market, according to Synergy Research's fourth-quarter 2013 report.

While Amazon continues to enjoy its lead in the public IaaS market with more than 40 percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2013, IBM has emerged as an aggressive private and hybrid cloud infrastructure service player. In January, IBM announced a plan to invest $1.2 billion to expand its global cloud footprint, a move it said would give its business customers more flexibility in how they manage their data and IT operations in the cloud environment.

"While Amazon's lead in public cloud services is widely acknowledged, the battle for leadership in the private & hybrid cloud segment is less well understood," said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group. "IBM has been aggressively investing in the private & hybrid market and has now achieved a clear leadership position with revenues more than double those of any other operator.

One market that could see some potential movement is public PaaS, where Salesforce took what Synergy said was a "slim" lead over Amazon and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) during the fourth quarter.

Overall, all three segments are profitable, passing the $3 billion market, up 49 percent year-over-year. IaaS saw the most growth, followed by PaaS and then private and hybrid cloud infrastructure services.

For more:
- see the release

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