ETCIO Article: Here's how Microsoft's secret weapon in the cloud wars with Amazon will work

According to this article in ETCIO, Microsoft's secret weapon to beat Amazon in the cloud is "Azure Stack, a product that lets you build your own version of the Microsoft Azure cloud on your own servers or data center."

They describe Azure Stack as a solution that for all intents and purposes works like Azure, including its efficient resource utilization and developer tools.  Since it's the same set of tools and infrastructure, Neil says, it makes it simple to pick up and move an application or a swath of infrastructure and move it from an Azure Stack installation in a local data center and into the Azure public cloud.

The article summarizes the opportunity by stating that this service will be in high demand for enterprise customers to transition their on premise infrastructure to the cloud and even smaller customers might be interested in taking advantage of a service like this.  It also states that Google and Amazon don't have any products in place today or in the near future that can provide the capabilities of Azure Stack.

Marketwatch Article: Microsoft’s cloud-computing efforts are paying off as it gains on Amazon

According to this article on Marketwatch, Microsoft is gaining momentum with its Azure product line, which saw a 140% year-over-year jump in revenue in constant currency.  Amazon Web Services reported $2.4 billion in sales for AWS on Thursday, with $687 million in operating income, for a revenue growth rate just shy of 70% — about half of Azure’s reported rise, though Amazon’s number did not use constant currency.

Microsoft continues to leverage it's long relationship with enterprise customers and is using it's success with Office 365 to build ties with Azure as well.  Amazon still has a huge lead over Microsoft, but with double the growth it won't be long until that margin shrinks.

The Motley Fool Article: Amazon Is Chasing After (and Winning) a $191 Billion Prize

According to this article on The Motley Fool, Amazon is poised to dominate the $191 billion "hypergrowth" opportunity that is cloud computing by 2020.  The article highlights over-hyped security concerns that supposedly keep organizations out of the cloud by mentioning the fact that Amazon Web Services (AWS) won a $600 million cloud contract for the CIA back in 2013.

This article states that Amazon is larger than it's next 4 largest competitor in Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) although we have been seeing articles that say Amazon is bigger than their next 14 competitors.

The article is concluded by trying to estimate a value for Amazon's cloud business by comparing them to pure-play cloud providers Salesforce and Box and coming up with a value between $51.5 and $68.2 billion dollars.

Market Realist Article: Will Amazon Web Services Lose Its Position to Microsoft in 2016?

According to this article on Market Realist, Microsoft Azure is projected to reach an annual run rate of $8 billion in 2016 compared to Amazon's AWS run rate of $7 billion in 2015.  They are saying Microsoft will begin to catch to up to Amazon because of their long history of selling enterprise software to big companies.

I tend to agree that Microsoft along with others like Oracle and IBM will continue to make inroads on Amazon's dominant market position because of their customer relationships as well as the absolutely HUGE investments each of them are pouring into this race to catch up to the leader.

Although Amazon has a huge lead on each of them, these other competitors have huge cash cow businesses that will allow them to make large strides in closing the gap.   Amazon will be able to rely on scale at least for the next year or two, but eventually these players will catch up and the then The Cloud Wars will really start beginning.