Re: Just one 'winner'?
The bit you’re missing is that cloud isn’t a services play (high touch, bespoke contracts, personal relationships) which lends itself to market fragmentation.
It’s a software platform play. Massive scale is required to compete on feature growth and feature growth is a big part of what locks customers in.
SME cloud players have died or are spreading themselves as fast as possible into service companies managing the big cloud platforms.
Telcos have given up on their own clouds and are focussing on becoming the network provider of choice for integrating cloud into your corporate network.
A host of big tech players have given up trying to run a public cloud or are on the verge of. HP and Fujitsu the latest 2.
Microsoft and Google are investing billions to win mindshare and feature roadmap over AWS who are printing money but still plowing lots back in.
IBM and Oracle are struggling to keep up, but still trying to because they know their software business is at serious risk if they lose control of the platform discussion.
5 or 6 players is no more stable for cloud than it is for social media. Big business will likely sustain 3 to avoid getting locked in 1980s IBM style.