Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google continued their reign as the leading cloud infrastructure and platform services (CIPS) providers, according to Gartner's 2022 CIPS magic quadrant.

The report assesses infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and integrated platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings and categorizes major industry players into four groups: leaders, visionaries, niche players, and challengers. The latest edition did not assess any cloud providers as market challengers, representing a “somewhat lopsided” market, according to the report's lead author Raj Bala. “There are no providers with significant execution capabilities which lack vision,” he told SDxCentral.

AWS marks the opposite end of the spectrum with its 12-year tenure as a CIPS leader, according to Gartner's analysis. The firm cited AWS' depth of functionality, market share that's double Microsoft's, and independent software vendor (ISV) ecosystem as the cloud giant's greatest strengths.

The magic quadrant report also highlights the most important, non-obvious cautions of each provider. “So what you see in the MQ by provider is what we think enterprises should consider,” Bala explained.

Although AWS leads the market, Gartner identified the provider's tendency to optimize for the short term when working with customers during contract renewals, which results in eroded customer relationships. “This, along with executive management changes, changing customer priorities, provider preferences in various regions, and well-heeled competition, paint a challenging picture for AWS ahead,” the report reads.

Gartner also described AWS' “relatively weak” sovereign and multicloud strategies, regional dependencies, and historical lack of communication regarding outages as significant cautions.

While Microsoft is the overall runner-up to rival hyperscaler AWS, it outscored the No. 1 leader in regards to completeness of vision “by meeting customers’ evolving needs through integrated solutions and a hybrid and multicloud approach,” a Microsoft spokesperson told SDxCentral.

And one of Microsoft's top strengths, according to Gartner, is its growing market share. “With Azure’s current pace, the worldwide gap with AWS will significantly shrink within the foreseeable future and is already happening in Europe,” the report reads.

Gartner also described Microsoft's differentiated early entry into segments like telecom and its commitment to hybrid and multicloud as significant strengths. The provider believes the majority of enterprises will continue to embrace hybrid or multicloud models, demonstrated by its Azure Arc offering that “attempts to address these needs but has nascent adoption thus far,” according to the report.

On the flip side, the magic quadrant report warns enterprises of Microsoft's security issues, lack of innovation, unexpected cost increases, and punitive licensing.

While the hyperscaler says it plans to adhere to fair software licensing principles, it uses licensing for Windows and SQL Server products against cloud competitors “by making it more expensive to deploy Windows workloads anywhere other than Azure,” Gartner explained. Microsoft also has a habit of not communicating to customers about the restricted use of Microsoft licensing on Azure itself.

Bala noted both the cautions and strengths detailed in the report may negatively impact cloud providers in the future. “For example, a vendor may have a compelling vision for the future that attempt[s] to seize upon evolving requirements, but then the vendor may ultimately fail to execute on that vision. This could result in backward progress with respect to execution in the MQ,” he said.