Public cloud platform usage and adoption worldwide 2019, by service provider

As of 2020, around 76 percent of technical professionals from industries around the world stated that their organization was currently running apps using Amazon Web Service (AWS), with an additional 12 percent stating that they were experimenting with the use of AWS apps. The second most popular service was Microsoft’s Azure, a cloud platform service through which 63 percent of respondents stated their organization was running applications.

Cloud computing as-a-service

One of the most prevalent ways for companies to utilize cloud computing is to take advantage of the various “as-a-service” options available from many of the world’s largest tech companies. These services provide organizations with access to computing power, software, and other cloud-related functions without the need for in-house hardware. The software-as-a-service market alone is expected to grow well past the 150 billion U.S. dollar mark by 2020, while the infrastructure-as-a-service market is expected to reach around 50 billion itself by then. Companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have all been quick to incorporate cloud services into their offerings, providing small and mid-sized companies with the opportunity to utilize cloud computing resources without the need for extensive investments into hardware. Having only introduced the business segment in 2014, Microsoft’s intelligent cloud segment has grown rapidly, rivalling even the company’s long-established personal computing segment in terms of revenue generation.