Cloud computing War China: International giants landing public cloud

The War on the Clouds

June

The editor's words/A battle over the cloud is at war in the Chinese market.

On the December 18, 2013, Amazon's Public cloud services AWS (Amazon WEB Services) announced a limited preview of its China Regional cloud computing platform service. Through extensive cooperation with the industry chain, the world's largest cloud services provider-Amazon's public cloud services will officially land in China. Although the previous Microsoft, IBM's public cloud has first landed, but the landing of the Amazon, whether Microsoft, IBM and other international giants, or Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba and other domestic giants, are closely watching, and positive action to deal with the market after the landing of Amazon may bring impact.

Amazon public Cloud landing China is destined to give other cloud companies unlimited pressure, they have announced in the cloud services have entered a strategic preparation period: IBM announced with China's largest neutral IDC service Provider Century interconnection, the IBM's top cloud computing infrastructure services sce+ (SmartCloud enterprise+) formally introduced to China to open Chinese enterprises to enjoy the high value of private cloud services. Microsoft announces that Lenovo has become China's first cloud OS strategic partner. Aliyun announced the "flying" platform as the cornerstone, through the "Ecological support + Platform Upgrade + large-scale reduction" strategy, integrated cloud computing ecological chain of all the forces, the overall layout of the cloud ecological circle, and announced a full range of product prices, the highest decline of 50%. Tencent Cloud announced that it will launch a week-long year-end promotion, in the cloud server, IDC bandwidth discounts to bring an unprecedented super discount, but also a lot of funds and gift package gift ...

Cao Kaibin, a senior expert in software industry and president of the Sea Derby, believes that the landing of Amazon AWS will boost the quality of cloud services in the country. Giants in the Chinese market "gather", the rapid development of the market will be accompanied by fierce competition. On the other hand, there are many challenges facing international giants in China: A complex network environment, relatively poor infrastructure, immature customers, policy constraints, and localization needs of Chinese customers.

The cloud computing war is really starting.

The war-makers

Amazon: The market leader is ferocious

Amazon's public Cloud service, AWS (Amazon Web Services), announced December 18 to launch a publicly-owned cloud computing platform for the Chinese region, the 4th in the Asia-Pacific region in which Amazon AWS is based and the 10th region in the world. China's limited preview is expected to start in early 2014, the official charge operating time is still uncertain.

Because the foreign-owned public cloud landed China is subject to legal and regulatory restrictions, so Microsoft, IBM, Amazon have to take the form of cooperation with local companies to enter China. It also affected the rhythm of their landing in China. Microsoft grabbed the first on May 22, 2013 to announce a partnership with the century to land in China. On July 31, IBM announced its cooperation with the capital online. Amazon comes a little late, but it thinks it is more prepared than Microsoft or IBM.

Special Landing

The public cloud is a huge and complex project, and the future is also a huge market. As you can see from this announcement, Amazon is trying to integrate more resources to make the ecosystem more complete.

Like Microsoft, IBM's public cloud landed in China, Amazon ended the meeting after a series of signing ceremonies, and did not disclose the specific form of cooperation. But unlike Microsoft and IBM, the landing of the Amazon public cloud has not only tied more partners, but also binds the government. When AWS enters China, it obtains more government and industry resources through various cooperation.

AWS China has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Beijing municipal government, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Broadband China Quartet to build and develop AWS cloud computing services and services to customers in China through facilities and resources in Beijing and Ningxia. At the same time, in Ningxia Zhongguancun Industrial Park and the western cloud base listed, Amazon will be the first to be settled into enterprises, play a leading role, in order to drive the Western cloud computing industry development. The government has called it a "front shop", in which AWS built a cloud-based ecosystem and built large data centers in Ningxia.

The public cloud is a huge and complex project, and the future is also a huge market. As you can see from this announcement, Amazon is trying to integrate more resources to make the ecosystem more complete. In the press conference, Beijing, Ningxia, Ministry of Management has a high-level leadership, China Mobile, the Chinese telecom, the top executives of Unicom also spoke at the meeting. In addition, the Internet technology is AWS China recommended CDN Solution partners; Amazon's consulting partners include: Cloud fruit information, Xinyi Technology, bamboo technology, cloud technology and Hitachi Consulting (China), and other technical partners include: Neusoft, trend technology, Madeira and so on.

Amazon, though belatedly, seems to have done enough to prepare.

The most important

Public cloud services have become one of the fastest growing businesses in the Amazon. US investment bank Evercore Associates analysts expect Amazon's public cloud services to be valued at more than $50 billion trillion by 2015.

In the plans of Amazon's founder and CEO Bezos, AWS is likely to become Amazon's biggest business, and cloud computing is slowly evolving into Amazon's pillar business. And for the world's fledgling cloud computing market, Amazon has really come to the forefront. The three-quarter cloud computing market has a capacity of $2.5 billion trillion, up 46% from a year earlier, according to the Synergy report, a technology market research firm. Among them, Amazon AWS Revenue soared 55%, market share also increased. Among them, Amazon's revenue has exceeded Microsoft, IBM, Google, Salesforce and other rivals of the total. Of course, this number is for the public cloud statistics, does not contain the private cloud. From that figure, Amazon has become an absolute leader in the public cloud market.

Today, AWS has become one of the fastest growing businesses in the Amazon. Evercore, a US investment bank, analysts estimate that AWS will be valued at more than $50 billion trillion by 2015.

On the day of release, AWS Senior vice President Andy Jech said China is a very important strategic market for AWS, and AWS is looking to help companies of all sizes use cloud computing services. According to reporters, AWS China team has been working for a long time, mainly in the construction of ecosystems, partner selection and the localization of cloud computing. As Amazon's heaviest priority, Andy Jech says AWS will be fully localized in China, including working with local companies, cloud interface localization, 7x24-hour Mandarin technical support, building a local marketing team, and so on. Especially now the most sensitive data security issues, Amazon proposes that AWS China is isolated from other regions to fully comply with local laws. This is the first foreign-owned public cloud to make such a commitment in China.

Triggering a ripple effect

Amazon is a famous price killer, both for its traditional electric-dealer retail business, Kindle E-book business and cloud computing business, which is what makes its rivals nervous.

What cloud computing services should Chinese companies choose? Andy Jech gives a few suggestions: experienced, functional both depth and breadth, the rapid pace of innovation, the global business support capacity, affordable, ecosystem integrity. Clearly, Andy Jech's recommendations are "made" according to Amazon's standards, but these are indeed the advantages Amazon has shown in the public cloud.

such as experience. Amazon has been providing public cloud services for nearly 7 years, and has "eaten its own food" in the first place, where other departments are required to use the service when the service is not yet ripe. This is painful for the interior, but it also gives Amazon a lot of years ahead of its rivals to confront the problems that may arise in the service. In 7 years of operation, Amazon has accumulated a large number of users. Experience will be a barrier that other competitors cannot cross.

Another example is the price. AWS has cut prices 38 times over the past 6 years, Andy Jech said. Amazon's price concept is in every business, are trying to show higher value at lower costs, Bezos believes the flywheel effect of the ever-lower price: Increased user use will allow Amazon to continue to build up infrastructure, reducing costs and supporting Amazon's continued price cuts. And in this process, the benefit is the entire system, as the acceleration process creates more innovation and provides more functionality and services to the ecosystem as a whole. Amazon is a famous price killer, both for its traditional retail business, its Kindle E-book business and its cloud computing business. This is where the competition is most stressful, especially for IBM, the company that Microsoft has always pursued for profit.

It is because Amazon is so far ahead of cloud computing that this landing in China will be closely watched by many cloud companies. However, there are also insiders believe that Amazon does not understand China, it is difficult to thoroughly localized, to win the recognition of Chinese customers. At the same time, Amazon's China complex partnership, although it will receive a lot of favorable government support and preferential policies, but will also be affected by various aspects of intervention, or will affect the Amazon's own decision-making. In the short term, indigenization and autonomy will be a key factor in the success of the Amazon public cloud in China. Cao Kaibin that the Amazon landing time is better, but the Amazon model of cooperation is not conducive to the operation of the cloud, multi-party cooperation needs a multi-party coordination, and the cloud needs to respond quickly.

Challenger

IBM: Corporate transformation depends on cloud computing

June

2013 is a tough year for IBM: Falling performance, layoffs and losing cloud computing to Amazon's competition ... But in IBM's view, as a century enterprise, IBM has undergone several transformations, but also several times, the difficulties encountered this year are the necessary experience in the transition.

In IBM's plan, the next four directions are cloud computing, social networking, mobile computing, and large data analysis, while cloud computing is the core of these four directions. IBM China set up a cloud computing division as early as 2010, and in more than three years, gradually find the direction.

Not long ago, in the fourth quarter of sales swearing, IBM Greater China President and Chief executive Officer Chanda asked his more than 300 sales staff "to find your customers, integration of today's big data, cloud computing, social media technology, to help customers round his dream." IBM's third-quarter earnings show that its revenues fell 4% as overall hardware revenues dropped 17%. The decline in the hardware market has left companies with 6 consecutive quarters of declines, and IBM must speed up its transition to new business to avoid a crisis. 2010 cloud computing was identified as one of IBM's four growth areas, IBM CEO Rometty proposed to the 2015 IBM Cloud computing revenue reached 7 billion U.S. dollars target.

Since 2010, the cloud computing as an important transformation direction, IBM began to fumble and trial and error. Sabbah, IBM's chief technology officer, said: "Every step of success is not easy, not overnight, we constantly adjust, the middle is full of many setbacks." "He has been involved in every technological innovation and business model change, has experienced this tortuous development model, and eventually we have made progress." He believes that the most important thing is to understand the core competitiveness of enterprises, the core competitiveness of enterprises and new market and technology change needs to match.

From the hardware to the software's full range of products, as well as services, consulting capabilities, so that IBM in the private cloud relative in the lead. But on the public cloud, IBM's SEC compares Amazon's AWS to Microsoft's Azure, and the market sounds thin. In July 2013, IBM bought a cloud-computing infrastructure provider, SoftLayer, with $2 billion trillion, and spent 1 billion dollars to promote its public cloud computing business. began to chase with a stride. The company gained 1 billion of billions of dollars from its first public offering of cloud computing products and services in the previous quarter.

In 2010, IBM China set up a dedicated cloud computing division, "At that time the resources to invest in the full range of IBM products, from hardware, software, services, consulting and so on, the integration of all things, to provide users with a platform." The challenge for us is how to integrate people from different sectors and limited resources. Wang Shengai, general manager of IBM Greater China's cloud computing division, told the China Business newspaper that for more than three years, IBM has provided new cloud computing services to its users through integration and innovation.

July 31, 2013, the IBM public cloud through the online cooperation with the capital of the model landing. So far, IBM has basically completed the layout of cloud computing in China. Wang Shengai told reporters, IBM after the formation of three kinds of public cloud landing strategy: one is to actively seek IBM public cloud SCE, sce+ and local qualified partners to cooperate; second, to help users build a smart city and industry cloud-led public cloud platform, but IBM does not participate in the cloud platform after the completion of the transport and peacekeeping management Third, the use of IBM Public cloud technology, and partners to build local public cloud. IBM's collaboration with the capital Online is a third form of cooperation. In Wang Shengai's view, China's huge market, user demand is complex, it is impossible to meet all the needs of a cloud, these three models also reflect the current development of China's public cloud characteristics, in different industries all kinds of enterprises have their own advantages and characteristics, so they realize the way of public cloud landing can not generalize.

Wang Shengai that the key factor in the success of cloud computing in China is localization: "Imported cars have stores in China, but the design and manufacture of vehicles are abroad and technology has not been implanted in China." IBM is now bringing technology to China, from design to sales, maintenance, quality tracking are landing in the country. We have to do things not just to open a store to sell things abroad, but to actually bring the public cloud technology to China and grow with the local cloud operators in China. ”

Unlike Amazon, IBM wants to integrate all of its products to provide users with a different public cloud service model, with particular emphasis on the localization process. Although IBM has a late start in the public cloud, its product line advantage and its original large customer base will be the most powerful challenger to Amazon.

Combatants

Microsoft: Software is the core ability of cloud computing

June

2011, Microsoft formally proposed "Service + equipment" strategic transformation direction, "cloud + End" is another way of expression. In Microsoft's plan, "cloud" will be in the form of services to enterprises and individual customers, "end" will be the use of the various terminal equipment cloud services. Microsoft's transition has been widely recognized in the industry, but the pace of transition is slow. In July 2013, CEO Ballmer announced that he would leave the office because of "slow change in board dissatisfaction".

In fact, Microsoft has been most active in cloud computing and has been seen by the industry as one of the most important players in the era of cloud computing. Microsoft has been particularly active in the Chinese market, the first international giant to adopt a flexible approach to China's public cloud. November 1, 2012, Microsoft announced the joint Shanghai Municipal government, century interconnection to bring its public cloud services into China. This May 22, Microsoft Windows Azure officially landed in China. At present, more than 2000 customers are using Windows Azure, which is operated by the century, and more than 70 are large well-known enterprises such as Coca-Cola and Renren.

"Time is our greatest advantage. "A Microsoft insider told the China Business newspaper," The public cloud landing is not simply moved to serve Chinese customers, from landing to operation is a very complex process.

Zhi Jiqing, general Manager of Microsoft Windows Azure China, said, "the details of the service need to be addressed now." Perhaps many people can not understand, the difficulty of solving these details is sometimes like a needle in a haystack, and there are many ' China's particularity '. "For example, China's network of islands and interconnection issues, China has the world's most complex infrastructure network environment, in the service of customers need to coordinate operators to solve the problem." Zhi Jiqing believes that Microsoft has formed a very complete layout in China, with the in-depth cooperation with different customers, Windows Azure shows a very grounded gas service program and awareness, to better integrate with domestic customers. Zhi Jiqing frankly public cloud landing China is not easy, for other late landing China's competitors, want to achieve relatively ideal service status, it is necessary to pay the corresponding time cost.

Another advantage of Microsoft is the ability to go from platform to software. Microsoft is a software company, cloud service is popular to say is three layer: the bottom is the hardware equipment, the middle is the platform software, the upper layer is the application software. The more you go to the upper margin, the greater the profit space, the closer the client is, the quicker the layout is implemented. Microsoft, by nature, is a software company that is better able to close users on cloud computing. Microsoft's partners in China--century interconnection (22.4, 0.96, 4.48%)--have done their own cloud services business, but failed. Century interconnection chief financial officer Shang told reporters, the century interconnection itself is to do infrastructure services, in doing cloud computing time to make things simple. Public cloud is the most important platform, the application, the data are placed on the above safe and reliable earthquake line, must have very strong software capabilities, not hundreds of engineers plus overtime can be done. The failure of cloud computing attempts to connect the century to understand the importance of software, but also understand the importance of cooperation: "The cloud cake is very big, do not need all the things to eat, you can work with partners to do." He believes that the era of interconnection and Microsoft's cooperation model is very complementary.

After Microsoft, IBM, Amazon's public cloud has landed, Microsoft pressure? Hele, Microsoft's global senior vice president and chairman and chief executive of Greater China, first put IBM's competition out of the question: "IBM is not a provider of cloud services in any market." "In his view, cloud services and simple data hosting are not a concept at all. Hele that the real cloud computing service providers are mainly three companies: Amazon, Google, Microsoft. "The so-called cloud services provided by other companies are interfering with the market. ”

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)