According to Forrester Research’s Q2 2018 analysts report, it is a two-horse race to be the top “FullStack Public Cloud Development Platform”.
The Wave report compares seven top providers: Alibaba, Oracle, CenturyLink IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Microsoft. However, only the last three are included in the “Leaders” category. Microsoft’s Azure cloud is grouped at the top.
More and more application development and delivery (AD&D) pros are using cloud platforms these days, Forrester says, to take control of factors such as DevOps toolchains, languages, frameworks, containers, function-as-a-service, databases, security, myriad infrastructure services concerning storage and networking, and much more.
Providers are distinguished by their migration tools and services partly because more Web and analysis apps are becoming common on cloud via new development projects.
AWS and Microsoft are, as in many other studies.
According to the report, “Forrester’s research revealed a market where AWS, Microsoft, Google, and others lead the pack.” “Oracle, IBM offer strong alternatives. Alibaba and CenturyLink are behind.
AWS leads the two-horse race slightly, as in many other studies that are based on different criteria like this one from Canalys or this one from Gartner.
Forrester states that AWS generates nearly three times the annual revenue of its closest competitor, Microsoft, and is rapidly expanding its network of customers, partners, data centers, and development services. AWS is a favourite of hard-core developers and is now reaching out to a wider development community with preconfigured services and service bundles and higher-level tools such as SageMaker for machine learning (ML) apps and Quicksight to assist in business analysis and reporting.
Forrester also cited Azure with its Azure ML service as a unique offering in machine learning, although it acknowledged that Microsoft trails AWS in natural-language processing.
Forrester stated that Microsoft has been a quick follower of AWS. This strategy propelled the vendor to a solid second place in public cloud development platforms. Microsoft’s expertise in coding tools and database has helped to distinguish AWS products from the rest of the industry. Microsoft also helps to drive cloud platform adoption by selling addons for its deeply embedded enterprise products, Office in particular. Azure offers a first-rate developer experience. This is a remarkable turnaround for the vendor in less than two years.
Google is now a new entrant to the Forrester Wave “Leaders”, section, although it is not among the top two. The research firm stated that the Google Cloud Platform is attracting more traditional enterprise customers due to its strong identity and access management, security, and database.
AWS was also ranked No. According to a 2015 Forrester report, AWS was also ranked No. 1 for cloud software development. This was based on a breakdown of developers into three types: coders and DevOps pros.
AWS, the cloud powerhouse, ranked No. According to the report, Microsoft was closely followed by AWS for leadership status in all categories of developers except rapid developers. For those speedsters, Salesforce, Mendix, and OutSystems were the top platforms, according to Forrester. According to Forrester, AWS still has a strong advantage in the DevOps/coder segments and as a top choice for CIOs.
Forrester used customer reference surveys, product demos, vendor surveys and vendor surveys in its Q2 2018 31-criteria evaluation. Forrester stresses that the report is only intended to be a starting point for evaluating an AD&D platform that is most suitable for any given situation.