ESG Blogs

Welcome to 2019 and as is the tradition at ESG, I have made a video blog with my predictions for 2019. 2018 had a number of very significant announcements that impact all areas of cloud. My predictions video covers three main areas.

First, I talked about how 2019 will be the year we see the expansion of the cloud into hybrid cloud. Both Amazon Web Services and Google made significant product announcements in this area in 2018 and it puts pressure on the incumbent leader, Microsoft, to respond.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) recently held their 2018 North America event in Seattle, Washington. This event was both KubeCon, for Kubernetes, but also CloudNativeCon, for all the other cloud native associated projects that the CNCF supports. The show has seen wild growth, going from 500 to 1000 to 4000 to over 8000 attendees in the four years of the show.

With the departure of Diane Greene as CEO of Google Cloud, a lot of people in the cloud industry are asking, "What is next for Google and how does Oracle veteran Thomas Kurian drive it?" First, let's talk about Google's place among the hyperscale public clouds. Contrary to some industry observers, ESG research has found that 81% of companies are using two or more public cloud providers and 51% are using three or more. Even more important, our research has found that 97% of companies expect that number to increase or stay the same in three years.

What this all means is that the public cloud market is not consolidating down to one or two major vendors and the opportunity is there for Google Cloud in the marketplace. That being said, as public cloud use increases, we will see the market shift from simply grabbing the greenfield of cloud users to one that is increasingly competitive. Google is certainly looking at the challenges of going up against AWS, with its VMware partnership, and Microsoft Azure and the associated services, as well as others such as IBM and Oracle.

With what has become the dominant IT event of the calendar, AWS re:Invent keeps customers and partners excited and competitors on their toes with new announcements. But what should we expect from AWS at the show this year? I have a new video blog, discussing what I think will be the two keys areas for AWS, Cloud Services and Hybrid. Please watch the video below for my thoughts and predictions for AWS re:Invent 2018.

IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat has been termed a “game changer” by many, but what is the real impact of this deal? Where will the acquisition have a significant impact and where will the combination be less effective? I've written up a new brief for our ESG subscribers about the IBM/Red Hat deal.

In summary, while the deal is significant in scope, the near-term impacts will be limited by the lack of existing synergies in the combined product portfolio. This acquisition helps IBM’s position in the hybrid cloud market significantly but doesn’t enable it to leapfrog competitors like Microsoft, AWS, or Google. The biggest opportunity for IBM is in the container and Kubernetes space, especially if on-premises and bare metal containers become popular. The new IBM would be very well positioned for that type of cloud.

I recently attended the GitHub Universe event in San Francisco, where the word's leading software development platform laid out the future for developers worldwide. The reach and scope of GitHub really was on display at the show, with over 1 billion contributions from the community this year, 8 million new developers, and the fact that 80% of GitHub users are outside the US.  

As I've written before, I've been a long time attendee to VMworld (if you count EMEA events separately, this is my 15th VMworld). I have to say that the VMworld 2018 Day 1 Keynote potentially had the biggest impact on the industry I have ever seen from the show.

The latest moves in Google's cloud strategy were on full display during Google Next '18. What I saw was a company that is maturing in its focus on cloud for businesses, with a focus on Enterprise support and new efforts in hybrid cloud. Below is a video review of Google Next '18 with myself and other ESG analysts. For a more detailed analysis of the show, please read my research brief on Google Next '18 on the ESG Interactive Research Portal (subscription required).

As I often joke, as most families are getting their kids ready to go back to school, with new school clothes and school supplies, IT professionals prepare for VMworld. I've been going to VMworld almost every year, sometimes twice a year if we include the EMEA show, for over a decade. I think this year in particular, much more so than in years past, is when the future of VMware will be previewed. I think there will be some exciting announcements around the shift away from just virtualization, with NSX, VMware's role with cloud native and containers, and also VMware Cloud on AWS. Watch the video below and, during the show, tweet to me @edwinyuen if you have questions, and if you are at the show, reach out to me to meet face to face. When the keynotes are over, look for a summary blog from me with my analysis of the key announcements.

Google Next '18 is Google's annual show focused on their cloud offerings. Once again, I'll be going to the show and I have a quick video previewing what I think are the key things to watch at Google Next '18. I think there will be some exciting announcements around hybrid cloud, containers, and more enterprise offerings. Watch the video below and, during the show, tweet to me @edwinyuen if you have questions, and if you are at the show, reach out to me to meet face to face. And look for a summary blog from me after the show for my analysis of the key announcements.