Cloud Wars: Who Will Come Out On Top?

Grazed from SeekingAlpha. Author: Editorial Staff.

Google (GOOG) and Amazon (AMZN) are out at each other in a new invisible battlefield: Computer horsepower. Cloud computing has been around for quite a long time (since 1984, at least the concept) but its potential has only recently been discovered. Despite the buzz around the concept, very few people understand the underlying framework, which is ironic since most people have already used it. Simply put, cloud (another word for internet) computing is using other people’s server to run your network/application for your organization, remotely. Prime examples are Gmail and drop box. It essentially reduces the hassle and cost of the end user by outsourcing the entire IT department to the service provider; e.g. Amazon or Google.

Overview

Amazon is the pioneer, providing cloud computing services since 2004, but Google has recently caught on (began last year June). Google has the largest storage capacity in the world, which has made Amazon push harder, especially in terms of pricing. Amazon’s EC2 provides IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), outsourcing IT needs along with the hardware, while Google’s App Engine provides PaaS (Platform as a service)…

Cloud computing’s target market is extremely large, the global corporate sector. The race is on between the two tech titans; Microsoft (MSFT) wants a piece of it too. It is vital for mobile app and online video, which in its own right is a booming business. At this point in time Amazon leads the cloud servicing industry by a fair margin with its AWS, followed by Microsoft and HP, but Google is growing much faster given its expertise in data storage and computer power, although still in the testing phase. Google is providing customers a piece of its 14 years of computing infrastructure with the best data center in the world…

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