Cloud computing is consolidating, raising the risk of customer lock-in

Grazed from SiliconAngle. Author: Paul Gillin.

Barely a decade into the cloud revolution, consolidation is already setting in, and the implications for customers aren’t good. That’s according to a new report from Forrester Research Inc. The three areas of greatest consolidation are currently in the base-level computing and storage known as infrastructure as a service, desktop applications delivered via the cloud and customer relationship management.

The three largest providers in those markets already collectively hold 70 percent or more of subscription revenues and are unlikely to see their market shares decline, Forrester said. However, not everything is consolidating so quickly. Markets for electronic purchasing, supply chain management, human resources and financial management systems are still wide open. What’s more, the authors point out, far more money is still being spent on on-premises software than on cloud services…

One of the report’s more striking findings is that Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Corp.’s Azure will capture almost three-quarters of all public cloud revenues in 2017. Microsoft, Google Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc. together own nearly 90 percent of desktop application market share…

Read more from the source @ https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/08/07/analysts-see-cloud-consolidation-raising-lock-risk/