Battle for the Cloud, once Amazon versus Microsoft, now has many fronts

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Many companies have treated Amazon. com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as the only options as they seek to embrace cloud computing. But IT managers are now realizing they have leverage in an increasingly competitive industry.

Businesses and governments are signing up for a mix of vendors, cherry picking capabilities, and pitting vendors against each other to keep costs down, company executives and cloud analysts say. It is opening up business opportunities for runners-up such as Google, Oracle Corp., and Alphabet Inc.’s International Business Machines Corp., although Amazon and Microsoft remain dominant and still account for the lion’s share of cloud revenue.

Credit reporting firm Experian PLC began its move to the cloud with Amazon Web Services in 2014. It has since added services from Microsoft, Google, and most recently Oracle, whose technology it had historically used in its data centers, he said. Mervyn Lally, the global chief enterprise architect at Experian.

More options are good, Lally said, adding that they create competitive pressures that we want to take advantage of.

Companies like AT&T Inc. are also putting together a network of vendors, including Microsoft, Google, and others.

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