Analyst Expects Microsoft Azure To Overtake AWS In 2017

Talk about a bold prediction! An analyst believes that the Microsoft Azure cloud platform will overtake cloud revenue market leader AWS very soon. By the second half of 2017, as a matter of pure fact.

Pacific Crest, a US analyst house, is of the view that Microsoft is on track to surpass the Amazon cloud business this year. And they came to this conclusion by analyzing the financial performance of the 60 largest cloud companies on the planet.

Brent Bracelin, senior research analyst at Pacific Crest, made this prediction in a research note, claiming that Microsoft’s position in three key segments could mean the difference for the company in its fight against Amazon Web Services.

These being, Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service.

SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, to keep things simple.

Bracelin:

“We estimate that in the second half of this year, Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud segment could surpass AWS in absolute revenue, becoming the largest public cloud platform for the first time in 10 years and firmly marking its transition from cloud laggard to cloud leader.”

Pacific Crest estimates that the amount spent on cloud is set to triple over the next five years to an astronomical $239 billion, and Microsoft is neatly positioned to pick up a large portion of that.

Gartner also recently highlighted how the Redmond based technology giant has the right mix of products and services to attract new customers. It may be in second place behind AWS, but the average enterprise spend on Azure is about $500,000 a year.

With Microsoft also servicing a few organizations that exceed $5 million a year in cloud revenue.

Of course, considering we’re halfway done with the year now, we should find out in a next couple of quarters whether this prediction holds true or not.

What is your guess here?