Microsoft is becoming a key challenger to Amazon, says Synergy Research

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) may be still be the dominant cloud services player, but according to a new Synergy Research report, it is facing a larger threat from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), which has grown its cloud infrastructure service revenues over the past year.

Synergy said that Amazon continues to hold onto its first place position, with a market share greater than its four nearest competitors, but Microsoft has become the second largest player.

"Microsoft's cloud growth really is impressive" said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group. "A combination of marketing muscle and credibility with the target audience is helping it to make great strides."

Dinsdale added that despite Microsoft's gains, "Amazon's revenues are still more than three times those of Microsoft and it will remain in a league of its own for the foreseeable future."

From an overall revenue perspective, Synergy estimates that quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and private and hybrid cloud) have reached $3.5 billion. In a segment that is growing at an annual rate of nearly 50 percent, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have all gained market share over the last four quarters.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
Equinix, NTT dominate North America, APAC colocation markets, says Synergy
Amazon, Salesforce, IBM dominate IaaS, PaaS cloud infrastructure segments, says Synergy
Week in Research: Cisco, HP battle for enterprise router supremacy; Q2 broadband CPE rises 5.6%
Synergy Research: SaaS-based conferencing boosts UC applications market