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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
- According to Flexera's RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report, Microsoft Azure is closing the gap in market adoption with Amazon Web Services.
- Within the past year, adoption of Microsoft Azure grew from 45% to 52% among survey respondents, while AWS is now used by 61% of companies surveyed, the study found.
- Most companies have a multi-cloud strategy, using an average of five public and private clouds, so companies may choose to use both Microsoft Azure and AWS, the report finds.
Amazon Web Services may be the leader in cloud computing, but Microsoft Azure is rapidly catching up.
Within the past year, Microsoft Azure adoption grew from 45% to 52%, according to Flexera's annual RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report. Flexera, which helps companies manage their software and cloud infrastructure, surveyed 786 IT professionals in small, medium, and large companies.
In comparison to Microsoft, Amazon Web Services is used by 61% of companies, the survey indicates, down from 64% last year. Among the largest enterprises, Microsoft adoption is at an even higher share of 60%, while 67% of those enterprises use AWS.
Read more: Microsoft has a chance at beating Amazon for the 'most important cloud deal ever,' and it could change the balance of power in the cloud wars
Google still remains in third place, with the use of Google Cloud only increasing slightly. 19% of companies use Google Cloud, up from 18% last year, the survey indicates. That being said, enterprises showed the most interest in using Google Cloud for future projects - 41% said they would be down to experiment with it.
Keep in mind, too, that the study indicates that 84% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, meaning that they're relying on a mixture of different cloud vendors and their own data centers to host their computing infrastructure. The survey shows that companies use 5 clouds in average overall, either from a big vendor or in their own data center - which is why the percentages add up to over 100%.
AWS was a $25.65 billion business in 2018. Last quarter, sales at Amazon Web Services rose 45% from the period a year ago to $7.4 billion. It generated $2.2 billion in operating income last quarter, which was more than two-thirds of Amazon's entire operating income for the period.
In comparison, last quarter, Microsoft Azure saw 76% revenue growth from the same period a year ago but the company doesn't break out specific figures, making it hard to compare exactly.
Analysts previously told Business Insider that Amazon's partnership with VMware is a way for the company to keep a check on Microsoft at the largest customers. Both VMware and Microsoft traditionally have had stronger standing among enterprises, owing to their longer legacies of working with those types of big customer. However, Microsoft is reportedly pursuing a deal with VMware of its very own, too.
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