A Goldman Sachs survey finds that the biggest companies are flocking to Microsoft's cloud, and it's a worrying sign for Amazon and especially Google (AMZN, MSFT, GOOG)

Satya Nadella

Goldman Sachs asked CIOs about their choices for public cloud vendors.
A "significantly higher number of respondents" indicated they are using Microsoft Azure versus industry-leading Amazon Web Services.
Importantly, while Goldman Sachs says the number of respondents using AWS has been declining, "AWS clearly has a much larger share of the spend on a dollar basis."
Google's prospects, meanwhile, declined slightly as fewer executives said they use the Google Cloud Platform now or expect to in the future.
The results are significant as the so-called cloud wars intensify.
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More chief information officers from large companies say they use Microsoft's Azure cloud now and expect in the future, compared to rivals Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud — at least, according to a new survey of CIOs from Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs in December surveyed 100 information technology executives from Global 2000 companies and found, while AWS still gets the largest share of cloud revenue, a "significantly higher number of respondents" indicated they use Microsoft Azure and plan to in the next three years.

Google's prospects, meanwhile, dimmed slightly as fewer executives said they use the Google Cloud Platform now or expect to in the future.

According to a chart in the survey, 97 respondents said they are currently using Microsoft Azure, compared to 58 using AWS and 25 using Google Cloud Platform.

The results are significant as the so-called cloud wars intensify.

Amazon Web Services is still far and away the cloud computing leader (Gartner most recently estimated AWS had a $47.8 percent market share in 2018, compared to Microsoft's 15.5 percent and Google's 4 percent). Microsoft, however, is gaining, and the Goldman Sachs survey further proves AWS has to watch out.

The results

Goldman Sachs asked CIOs about their choices for public cloud vendors and a "significantly higher number of respondents" indicated they are using Microsoft Azure versus the number of respondents using AWS. Microsoft Azure's lead in that regard, according to Goldman Sachs, has been increasing in December 2017.

But importantly, while Goldman Sachs says the number of respondents using AWS has been declining, "AWS clearly has a much larger share of the spend on a dollar basis."

Amazon reported $9 billion in AWS revenue in the company's most recent quarter. Microsoft doesn't break out Azure revenue, but lumps it in with other cloud services. Microsoft's overall commercial cloud business, in which it also counts Office 365 and other cloud services, reached $11.6 billion in sales in its most recent quarter.

Microsoft was also the public cloud vendor more CIOs expected to use three years from now – although most of those CIOs also indicated they would be using AWS during that time period too.

The survey indicates Microsoft Azure will have "slightly more" workloads than AWS over the next three years, but as Goldman Sachs notes, workload usage is not the same as revenue, given that different types of virtual servers in the cloud are billed to customers at different rates.

Meanwhile, there was a slight decline for Google both in the number of respondents who said they currently use Google Cloud Platform, and those who said they plan to use it in three years.

What AWS is up against

Microsoft, at this time, appears to be Amazon's most formidable challenger.

Microsoft recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract over Amazon, though Amazon is now challenging the decision in court. The company also inked major partnerships with companies including Salesforce, SAP and Oracle.

Some analysts expect the company to gain "significant" market share from Amazon Web Services in the near future.

Google, while a distant third, has big ambitions. Google earlier this year hired a new Google Cloud CEO who, according a source who spoke to Business Insider in August, has a five-year goal to become "at least the No. 2 cloud" and a strategy to get there and it could include major acquisitions.

Amazon has assembled a team of high-powered executives to retain its dominance – and Business Insider recently identified 11 of those power players.

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