Which Vendor is the Big Cloud Winner?
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By
Frank Konkel
IBM banked $2.7 billion in cloud dollars in the last five years.
It might surprise some to learn that IBM has pocketed more federal dollars in cloud computing than any other vendor since fiscal 2011.
Big Blue’s total capture in the growing infrastructure-as-a-service market over the last five years is $1.1 billion, or $500 million more than the next closest competitor in that market, DLT Solutions. According to research from big data and analytics firm Govini, IBM is also the big winner in cloud migration and support since 2011, pocketing another $1.1 billion, well ahead of DLT Solutions ($623 million) and other competitors, including Booz Allen Hamilton and Dell.
Across all cloud segments of the federal market, IBM banked $2.7 billion in the last five years.
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Amazon Web Services, the private sector’s largest and most widely used cloud service provider, does not break out its federal cloud business spending. However, InfoReliance, an AWS partner, has tallied $283 million in infrastructure-as-a-service business since 2011.
AWS has expanded its government business to more than 2,300 federal, state and local customers since it burst on the federal scene in 2012, and continues its dominant perch atop Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service.
Yet, IBM’s status as the market leader in federal IaaS is largely because of its history in government — "a large share of legacy hardware used by agencies was both made and is serviced by [IBM],” the report states.
Amid a major IT modernization effort in government, some in Congress have called legacy technology a “ticking time bomb.” IBM, however, is sitting pretty, Matt Hummer, director analytics and professional services for Govini, said. As builders and developers of many of the mainframes that now promulgate the government, IBM also is experienced in moving those systems.
“As the government migrates major systems, IBM is in a very strong position,” Hummer said. “They have a competitive advantage.”