There is an increasingly global battle to provide IT services to the enterprise. The clear leader in this activity is IBM, and there is a battle between Cisco, Oracle, SAP, and HP that has spread from databases and networks into all aspects of providing services to enterprises. And one cannot, of course forget Microsoft coming from its roots in the desktop and local network environment.
All the major players named above (except SAP which has been slow to move, although that is now changing with a new CEO) have significant initiatives to capture share in cloud computing – which is now rapidly growing as an enterprise opportunity. HP definitely has some of the greatest challenges in trying to overcome its desktop culture and move fully towards an enterprise mindset and this is slowing its efforts in cloud computing versus its competition (note that IBM resolved this problem by exiting the PC market).
Cloud computing has also made it possible for new competitors to expand their presence with enterprises and made them more compelling to large enterprises. Force.com and Amazon are two obvious examples, and Google is also gaining some traction in the space (although it remains more consumer and SMB focused).
What is most interesting about the Rankings report that we put together is how the space is currently shared between independent companies and the large behemoths that are committed to becoming leaders in enterprise services. There is also a question about how the leading players in the network services and foundation layers – such as Level 3 Communications and VMWare – avoid giving up value to players closer to the enterprise in the higher layers of the triangle. Cisco stands out as the company that has clearly been most successful in growing its range of services for the enterprise through well judged acquisitions and the quick and successful integration of those acquisitions.
VMWare is the clear star performer gaining from the move to virtualization that is a core part of cloud computing. However the leading Cloud Foundation providers like VMWare, Red Hat, and Citrix all need to figure out how to take their current advantage and translate these into a greater enterprise presence before the ‘heavy hitters’ like IBM, Oracle and Cisco start pressuring their current profitability.
Another obvious conclusion is that successful independent companies are clearly positioned to be desirable acquisitions, and possibly as soon as this year. I think that Boomi, 3Leaf Systems, and rPath are all prime candidates. VMWare itself could become a target too if its growth or profitability stumble. I would also add Rightscale to the possible attractive acquisition list even though it fell just outside of our Top Ten rankings.
Hopefully this provides some context on how the rankings might be useful.
http://www.btclogic.com/pov/rankings.cfm
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