Lionel Sujay Vailshery
Research expert covering the consumer electronics industry
Get in touch with us nowSegments of the cloud service market
For customers, cloud computing offers access to numerous technologies while lowering the barriers to entry, such as technical expertise or costs. Typically, the cloud service market is divided into three primary service models, encompassing infrastructure, platforms, and software. Depending on business needs and security concerns, customers can also choose between private, public, or hybrid cloud deployment models.Software as a Service
The largest segment of cloud computing is software as a service (SaaS). This segment currently generates the largest share of the total cloud computing market's revenue and has become a common delivery model for many enterprise applications. Popular applications of SaaS include customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning software. Under this model, customers pay for access to software and databases, while the infrastructure and platforms are managed by the service provider. Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe, and SAP are all major players in this segment.Platform as a Service
On the next tier, platform as a service (PaaS) grants customers access to a computing platform for application development. This platform may include an operating system, web servers, databases, and the access to one or more programming language environments. Among the most prominent PaaS providers are Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud. While experts predict that the cloud platform market will grow rapidly over the next decade, it is nevertheless expected to remain the smallest cloud computing segment by some margin.Infrastructure as a Service
Finally, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) gives customers access to off-site support in the form of storage, servers, virtual machines, and networking. At present, it is less than half the size of the SaaS market; however, research shows that traditional IT infrastructure spending is beginning to stagnate while companies increasingly adopt cloud IT infrastructure solutions. The leading provider, Amazon, controls almost half of the market, while Microsoft and Alibaba take the second and third largest share of the market.
