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Evans Data has released the results of a new study that indicates that software developers view Google as the company most capable of executing in a public cloud setting and they view IBM as best for the private cloud.
The survey, conducted in September, measured developers’ perceptions of leading vendors in the cloud space including Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T, Rackspace, VMware, Sun, and HP, among others. Adoption, adoption intentions, completeness of offering, and ability to execute were rated by the developers along with capabilities such as security, scalability, low latency, reliability, no vendor lock-in, and cost-to-value ratio. In addition, developers positioned the vendors as better suited to either public or private cloud offerings.
“The cloud environment is currently very dynamic both in terms of development and vendor offerings,” said Janel Garvin of Evans Data and author of the report. “Many are evolving their cloud services to span both public and private clouds and we’ll soon see some interesting competitors vying across the spectrum as cloud becomes more pervasive.”
Amazon was seen as having the most complete solution today, but Google was thought to have more ability to execute, and Google topped Amazon in most other categories, Evans officials said. Additionally, adoption intentions in the next 12 months were much stronger for Google than for Amazon. IBM was thought to be able to provide the most secure cloud environment and was also rated high in reliability and ability to execute – qualities essential to large enterprises considering private or hybrid clouds, Evans Data officials said.
“Google is likely to be the top performer in the public cloud space,” Garvin said in the report. “Amazon, who was first to market in the public cloud space, now shares the leadership position for publicly accessible clouds with Google. However, Google shows more strength in both perceived capabilities and perceived ability to execute, and the adoption patterns for Google are stronger going into the future.”
Regarding IBM, Garvin said:
““For private clouds, IBM has already taken the lead perceptually, and is in an excellent position to dominate the market going into the future. This is especially true amongst the largest corporations who are most likely already IBM customers, as well as those who want the security and reliability of a vendor with an established reputation for excellence in the large enterprise space. IBM offers private cloud services built behind the customer’s firewall and will even run those services for customers, providing the same kind of management that public clouds provide but without the security risk. They also provide pre-integrated cloud appliances that make private cloud setup easy.”“
Moreover, Garvin added, “The two companies that truly straddle the cloud worlds, AT&T and Microsoft, both have excellent potential: through existing physical infrastructure in the case of AT&T or as in the case of Microsoft, by virtue of a prodigious developer network and well known software capabilities. But, both are late to the party. And, in a market that’s evolving as quickly as this one, that’s a significant handicap.”
IBM is considered to be the company capable of providing the best security, according to the survey. Indeed, 21.7 percent of respondents said they believe IBM offers the best security for cloud environments, but Amazon came in right behind IBM with 20.2 percent of respondents saying they believed Amazon could provide the best security.
Regarding scalability, Google far outpaced others, with 31 percent of respondents saying they view Google as providing the most scalable offering, followed by Amazon with 17.8 percent, Microsoft with 10.9 percent, and IBM with 8.9 percent.
“Google has been perfecting scalability across multiple datacenters and has demonstrated deep proficiency in this respect,” Garvin said.
Meanwhile, 29 percent of developers surveyed said they think Google offers the most reliable cloud platform, while 17.3 percent listed IBM, 16.9 percent listed Amazon, 8.1 percent listed VMware and 7.3 percent listed Microsoft as most reliable.
Also, developers ranked Google as the best cloud platform to avoid vendor lock-in, followed by Amazon, Sun Microsystems and VMware, Microsoft came out in the middle of the pack and IBM came in dead last.
Of these results, Garvin said:
““Although there should be some concern about the proprietary nature of Google’s Big Table database, developers were nonetheless most assured that Google would avoid locking them into their technology. The odd thing here is that AT&T and IBM scored so poorly. Both are building their cloud structures on open technologies, which should result in little to no vendor lock-in.”“
The survey report, which is free with registration, can be found here: http://www.evansdata.com/research/market_alerts_start.php.