AWS, Google, Microsoft Battle Over $76B Q1 Cloud Market Share

“We are forecasting that it will double in size over the next four years,” Dinsdale said. In Garman’s case, he was sharing advice rather than issuing a dire warning that developers will go extinct because of AI. His tone was optimistic, suggesting more creative opportunities for developers.

Google’s cloud business won a record 12 percent share of the global cloud services market during the second quarter. It ensures every element of its product R&D is agile and rigorous, including design, development, market survey, and user experience, while guaranteeing the usability and quality of its products. It creates value for farmers and SMBs by resolving their pain points amid the social commerce surge.

While responding to an analyst’s question, Microsoft said it could see consistent revenue growth even without this sort of elevated capital expense because of the variable nature of the capex. However, in August, Microsoft updated its reporting structure to enhance visibility into its cloud consumption revenue and the benefits of AI for the overall business. Arjun Sethi joined as co-CEO of Kraken alongside David Ripley as the crypto exchange announced an unspecified number of layoffs. Decrypt also reported that Ethereum software giant Consensys Tuesday announced it had laid off 20% of its global workforce, or 163 employees. Later the same day, decentralized exchange dYdX said it cut 35% of its staff.

The revamp to its reporting structure will likely enhance visibility into its cloud consumption revenue and the benefits of AI on the overall business and ease any investor apprehensions. With growth in Xbox Content and Services revenue, gaming will likely shape up to a decent revenue stream as the global cloud gaming market gathers pace. Microsoft has the potential to reach a $4 trillion valuation by 2027, if all goes as planned.

Salesforce tied for fifth place in the worldwide cloud market during the second quarter by winning 3 percent share. The Austin, Texas-based software and cloud specialist won 3 percent global share of the cloud market during the second quarter of 2024. Enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services during the second quarter of 2024 reached $79 billion. This represents a $14.1 billion, or 22 percent, increase year over year compared to Q2 2023. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s cloud business, Google Cloud, generated $9.6 billion in revenue during Q1 2024, up a whopping 28 percent year over year.

Maximizing the potential of data

“If you go forward 24 months from now, or some amount of time — I can’t exactly predict where it is — it’s possible that most developers are not coding,” said Garman, who became AWS’s CEO in June. So we’re approaching the whole concept of generative AI in a fundamentally different way because we understand what it takes to reinvent how you’re going to build with this technology. We’re also announcing the preview of our first instance based on Graviton4.

Much more than breaking news, our diverse reporting digs deeper with unparalleled insights that empower you to make better informed decisions. Become a Forbes member and unlock unlimited access to cutting-edge strategies, actionable insights, and updated analysis from our network of leading finance experts. Customers love Sapio’s platform because it is robust, scalable, and with no-code configuration, can quickly adapt to meet unique needs. Collaboration enables customers to securely and confidently use AI to accelerate drug research and discovery.

More than 77,000 organizations have adopted GitHub Copilot, and the number is up 180% year over year. The use of Copilot has pushed GitHub’s annual revenue run rate to $2 billion and accounted for 40% of GitHub’s revenue growth in fiscal 2024. In addition, when companies create a model, it’s defined by its training data and weights, so keeping track of different versions of an AI model might require keeping copies of every individual training data set. “Everybody is learning as they’re iterating.” And all the infrastructure problems — the storage, connectivity, compute, and latency — will only increase next year.

For example, they can tell it that they want to improve a segment of code directly in place. The benefit is that instead of having to use a sidebar chat interface they can merge the suggestion immediately, rather than copy/paste the changes. Google Cloud generated a total of $10.3 billion in sales during Q2 2024, representing a 29 percent year over year growth rate. The San Francisco-based company generated nearly $35 billion in total sales in 2023, up 11 percent year over year. Overall, Synergy Research Group is forecasting that the cloud market will continue to expand substantially over the next few years.

• Much more than breaking news, our diverse reporting digs deeper with unparalleled insights that empower you to make better informed decisions.
• Xbox content and services revenue increased 61% during the fourth quarter, of which 58 points were attributed to Activision.
• But it’s amplified because the amount of data you need to access is significantly larger.” Not only does gen AI consume dramatically more data, but it also produces more data, which is something that companies often don’t expect.
• This compares favorably with the sector’s 10 consecutive years of dividend payment and one year of dividend growth.

For the first quarter, revenue growth for the new Azure and other cloud services is expected to be 33% in constant currency (vs. prior projections for growth of 28% to 29% in constant currency in July). The San Francisco-based cloud and CRM specialist has consistently captured around 3 percent share of the global cloud market for the past several years. Combined, these three tech giants accounted for 67 percent of the entire cloud services market in Q on a worldwide basis, according to market share data from IT research firm Synergy. Here’s the global cloud market share results and six world leaders for Q2 2024, which include AWS, Alibaba, Google Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft and Salesforce, according to new market data. Salesforce has consistently won approximately 3 percent share global cloud market every quarter over the past three years, according to Synergy data. CRM and cloud giant Salesforce captured 3 percent of the global cloud services market to rank at No. 5 in the first quarter of 2024.

The chat interface helps generate code from developer prompts, but also explains why, as well as assists with improving code, including refactoring or generating tests and documentation. Global cloud market share for the three cloud giants—Microsoft, Google Cloud and AWS—shifted during the second quarter of 2024 as enterprise cloud spending reached a new high of $79 billion. “This was a really good quarter for the cloud market with growth rates bouncing back from the relative lows seen through much of 2023,” Dinsdale said. Public Infrastructure as-a-service (IaaS) and Platform as-a-service (PaaS) services account for the bulk of the market, with that section growing 23 percent in Q1 year over year. So critically, other providers have launched tools without data privacy and security capabilities which virtually every enterprise requires.

Managing storage, networking, and compute resources while optimizing for cost and performance even as platforms and use cases all evolve rapidly is a concern, but as gen AI gets smarter, it might be a means to help companies. But it’s amplified because the amount of data you need to access is significantly larger.” Not only does gen AI consume dramatically more data, but it also produces more data, which is something that companies often don’t expect. For companies who know they’re going to have a certain level of demand for AI compute, it makes long-term financial sense to bring some of that to your own data center, says Sharma, and move from on-demand to fixed pricing.

Microsoft’s Generative AI And AI Chips

With the reorganization in reporting structure, the upcoming first quarter earnings print will likely offer more helpful context on how Azure is shaping up for the second quarter and future periods. AWS has been Sapio Sciences’ preferred cloud provider for over 10 years, with customers using AWS to securely host Sapio’s no-code/low-code, unified and configurable lab informatics platform. Today, there’s a relatively small number of gen AI use cases that have moved all the way from pilots to production, and many of those are deployed in stages. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. As more pilots go into production, and the production projects expand to all potential users, the infrastructure challenges are going to hit in a bigger way. And finding a solution that works today is not enough, since gen AI technology is evolving at a breakneck pace.

Although MSFT reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter, the market chose to focus on the shortfall in its Azure cloud revenues. Many AI software development tools work as inline code completion and as chat tools in the sidebar. Inline code completion acts by showing suggestions as developers type allowing them to simply accept or reject as they go, saving time.

A key finding of this web-based global survey of 638 Microsoft partners was the “partner multiplier” metric. For every $1 of Microsoft revenue, Microsoft partners who provide services generate $8.45 and partners who develop software generate $10.93. This compelling number could spur further partner-led growth for MSFT. Sapio Sciences’ mission is to improve lives by accelerating discovery, aws chat bot and because science is complex, Sapio makes technology simple. Sapio is a global business offering an all-in-one science-awareTM lab informatics platform combining cloud-based LIMS, ELN, and Jarvis data solutions. Other companies who captured approximately 1 percent share of the cloud market include Baidu, China Telecom, China Unicom, Fujitsu, NTT, Snowflake, SAP, Rackspace and VMware.

While some economic, currency and political headwinds remain, Dinsdale said the strength of the market continues to push spending on cloud services to new highs. Others would have you think that all clouds are the same, but it’s just not true. … Our global infrastructure was fundamentally distinct from other cloud providers and that is still true today. It has capabilities to safeguard your generative AI applications with more responsible AI policies. To create Guardrails, Bedrock configurates through credentials to enter natural language description of the topics that you want the model for.

To digress for a moment, this tells a lot about how tech companies see us consumers as guinea pigs willing to spend money for that privilege. Whether it’s mastering cutting-edge strategies, uncovering actionable investment opportunities from influential leaders, or breaking down complex topics, our in-depth journalism has you covered. Become a Forbes member and gain unlimited access to bold ideas shaking up industries, expert guides and practical investment advice that keeps you ahead of the market. Stock buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding and offset any dilutive impact for existing shareholders from a past stock offering or stock option exercise. Atypical of technology stocks, Microsoft has paid and grown its dividend for two decades. This compares favorably with the sector’s 10 consecutive years of dividend payment and one year of dividend growth.

AI drives a cloud resurgence, but it’s costing a lot

Currently, Microsoft distributes more than 25% of its annual earnings as dividends, which seems safe and sustainable for now. Earnings reports, company developments and competitive dynamics have a stronger sway on MSFT’s stock price. Microsoft has made partnerships the cornerstone of its growth strategy. To understand the economic value partners realize through their collaboration with Microsoft and its technology—particularly with AI, IDC conducted a global study (commissioned by Microsoft).

Microsoft increased its quarterly dividend payout by 10% or 8 cents to $0.83 per share from the present $0.75 per share and made the announcement in mid-September along with the buyback plans. MSFT stock goes ex-dividend– the cutoff date for new buyers of the stock to be eligible for the upcoming dividend–on November 21. At current stock prices, the new dividend has a forward yield of nearly 0.8%.

Many CIOs actually ban the use of a lot of the most popular AI chat systems inside their organization. Just ask any Chief Information Security Officer, CISO—you can’t bolt-on security after the fact and expect it to work as well. It’s much, much better to build security into the fundamental design of the technology.

Why your company is struggling to scale up generative AI

Microsoft pegged this estimate to 8.5 million Windows devices representing around 1% of all Windows machines. However, many of these customers were providers of critical services, like airlines and Banks. Although the outage was caused by the CrowdStrike update, Microsoft may likely face some pushback about the perceived chinks in its operating system. Strong FCF generation characteristics render solid support for Microsoft’s capital spending plans. MSFT appears to have adequately addressed the concerns regarding its capex boost for fiscal 2025.

They are often unable to respond to consumer inquiries in time and end up losing business. In view of this, many developers are endeavoring on commercial chat platforms that integrate multiple social media. IBM, Tencent and Huawei each won around 2 percent share of the global cloud market. The global generative AI market could reach $109 billion by 2023, according to analysis from Grand View Research. With the growing demand for generative AI applications for use in just about every industry, cloud computing providers have an opportunity to help businesses develop and scale their applications. About 10% to 20% of total revenue in generative AI goes to cloud providers, according to analysts at Andreessen Horowitz.

And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive, Breaking Analysis, arriving this weekend, for some lean-back reading. Supermicro’s financial situation looks so bad to its auditors that they exited stage left, tanking the server provider’s stock to the tune of 33%. The Ukrainian CERT has published an advisory with further details on the case. Cybercrime plays a role on both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine. In June, for example, the Ukrainian authorities arrested people they suspected of cybercrime who were allegedly acting on behalf of Russian clients. And according to a report by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti, Russia is apparently aiming to create a cyber security authority.

Its MantaGO integrates five major platforms including LINE, FB, IG, Google, and Live Chat, and offers smart AI chatbot capabilities to help users effortlessly harness the power of marketing technology. Alibaba subsidiary, Alibaba Cloud, is one of the most popular cloud companies in Asia. The Chinese tech giant won 4 percent share of the global cloud services market in Q2 2024. Oracle along with Chinese IT giants Huawei and Tencent are also trying to rise about the heated cloud competition.

In most cases, it will create a comment block at the beginning of the code documenting the software, to explain how it functions, and then place inline elements to explain anything that might need additional attention. Microsoft Azure revenue is included in the company’s Intelligent Cloud group, which generated a total of $28.5 billion in revenue during Q2 2024, up 19 percent year over year. Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud group now has an annual run rate of $114 billion. Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group generated nearly $4 billion in sales during fourth quarter 2023, up 3 percent year over year. However, the underlying strength of the market is more than compensating for those constraints, aided in no small part by the impact of generative AI technology and services,” he said. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has speculated that easier access to AI technologies will create 1 billion developers.

Although it’s possible to generate documentation using a chat interface, it would force the user to copy and paste each comment block manually and laboriously. Using the new inline chat is designed to be simple, rather similar to involving another developer in the process. ChatGPT App Developers need only select a code segment and invoke Q Developer using ⌘ + I on Mac or Ctrl + I on Windows. Inline chat allows developers to invoke a chat interface directly within their coding editor and talk to the AI assistant to tell it what they want to do.

Moving data to a modern warehouse and implementing modern data pipelines was a huge step, but it didn’t resolve all of the company’s AI infrastructure challenges. That relevant content could include thousands of pages of information such as compliance rules for specific countries. And this internal information would be augmented with data stored in the Salesforce platform and sent to the AI as part of a fine-tuned prompt. The answer then comes back into Salesforce, and the employee can look at the response, edit it, and send it out through the regular Salesforce process. Getting data out of legacy systems and into a modern lake house was key to being able to build AI. “If you have data or data integrity issues, you’re not going to get great results,” he says.

However, Microsoft typically features the slower-growing per-user pieces in the Azure and other cloud services’ revenue stream, complicating the visibility into the consumption of Azure. Spirent’s decision to use a public cloud for data storage is a popular approach. According to a survey of large companies released this summer by Flexential, 59% use public clouds to store the data they need for AI training and inference, while 60% use colocation providers, and 49% use on-prem infrastructure. And nearly all companies have AI roadmaps, with more than half planning to increase their infrastructure investments to meet the need for more AI workloads. But companies are looking beyond public clouds for their AI computing needs and the most popular option, used by 34% of large companies, are specialized GPU-as-a-service vendors. Alibaba has constantly been ranked No. 4 in the rankings for the past several quarters, typically owning between 4 percent to 6 percent of the global market share.

For example, by importing a Q&A database or applying a template, users can build an AI chatbot in just 30 minutes. Eslitec also offers one-to-one customization services to help ChatGPT users who are not digitally fluent make use of MantaGO. According to Eslitec co-founder and CEO Yu-Han Hsu, social media have become a major communication channel today.

Specifically, TaskUs needs to move more compute and data back and forth. While everybody can use ChatGPT, or has Office 365 and Salesforce, in order for gen AI to be a differentiator or competitive advantage, companies need to find ways to go beyond what everyone else is doing. That means creating custom models, fine-tuning existing models, or using retrieval augmented generation (RAG) embedding to give gen AI systems access to up-to-date and accurate corporate information. And that means companies have to invest in infrastructure for training and deploying these systems.

• Collaboration enables customers to securely and confidently use AI to accelerate drug research and discovery.
• Although MSFT reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter, the market chose to focus on the shortfall in its Azure cloud revenues.
• However, the new buyback authorization does signal that the tech giant remains committed to robust free cash flow generation, despite its elevated AI-driven investments.
• But he sees the proper focus not on artificial general intelligence but humans plus AI — and also neural networks plus symbolic systems, not just gen AI.

There are two major types of AI compute, says Naveen Sharma, SVP and global head of AI and analytics at Cognizant, and they have different challenges. On the training side, latency is less of an issue because these workloads aren’t time sensitive. Companies can do their training or fine-tuning in cheaper locations during off-hours. “We don’t have expectations for millisecond responses, and companies are more forgiving,” he says. Telecom testing firm Spirent was one of those companies that started out by just using a chatbot — specifically, the enterprise version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which promises protection of corporate data. Once it’s completed, the user can review the work of the AI assistant and accept or reject the changes.

Other companies that won market share of approximately 1 percent during Q include Baidu, China Telecom, China Unicom, Fujitsu, NTT, Snowflake, SAP, Rackspace and VMware. Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business generated $26.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter, which means Microsoft’s cloud group has an annual rate of $107 billion. Talk of AI changing and even eliminating jobs has intensified lately as companies lay off employees or stop hiring to shift resources toward AI development. New AI tools that automatically generate code can help companies do more with the same number of engineers or fewer of these pricey employees. Other cloud providers have not even delivered on their first server processors yet. Their general knowledge and their capabilities are great, but they don’t know your company.

Typically, investors buy the MSFT stock for its capital appreciation potential with lesser emphasis placed on the dividend. In the near-term, there’s a very high likelihood of the Microsoft stock revisiting its highs, given an upcoming key catalyst, Microsoft’s first-quarter earnings report scheduled for release on October 30. After more than doubling in value over the past two years, a 10% correction in the MSFT stock is not exactly devastating. It could also be an opportunity to buy into a quality, futuristic business with the stock headed for new heights. Oppenheimer downgrades Microsoft to “Perform” From “Outperform,” citing higher-than-expected losses from Microsoft’s OpenAI investment and slower enterprise adoption of AI technology. Wall Street analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on the MSFT stock with an average price target of $496, which represents roughly an 18% upside from current stock price levels of around $420.