Sinequa: Third-party marketplaces boost hyperscale cloud growth

Cloud enterprise professionals are drawn to the “big three” hyperscale clouds — Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure — because of the third-party products and services available. In a survey of cloud professionals in France, United Kingdom, and United States, 93% of respondents reported the strength and breadth of third-party marketplaces make hyperscale clouds “more attractive as a platform,” according to research from Sinequa, an intelligent search and analytics platform provider.

Above: Respondents expect to increase their use of blockchain, search and analytics, and AI and machine learning.

Image Credit: Sinequa

This new research highlights the importance of third-party marketplaces and demonstrates the competitive advantage that third-party offerings bring to the “big three” hyperscale clouds: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. On average, the survey found enterprise organisations are running eight different services bought from a hyperscale marketplace, and 90% of respondents plan to purchase more products and services from these marketplaces in the future.

When asked about the main benefits of using a hyperscale marketplace, 70% of cloud professionals reported that convenience was a key advantage. The ability to easily try new products and services was also an important feature for 50% of respondents, while 39% reported that the choice of products available was a top reason for using a marketplace. These findings point to the advantage hyperscale cloud providers have in being able to offer more products and services than smaller competitors.

As well as highlighting the benefits of hyperscale marketplaces, the research revealed which product or service categories are seeing the greatest increase in demand. Blockchain tops the list, with companies expecting to increase their use of blockchain by 112% in the future. Search and Information Gathering or Insights solutions are also in demand, with companies expected to increase their use of these tools by 43% going forwards. This trend reflects the need for high performance solutions that integrate and improve the accessibility of information across multiple applications, as companies shift towards a hybrid working model.

Sinequa ran a survey of 250 UK, US, and French cloud professionals who reported they worked at enterprises or large businesses. The survey, which consisted of 10 questions, ran on the 19th April 2021.

Read more about Sinequa’s research.