Has the cloud service market de-centralized from the core cloud service providers, hence increasing competition and toppling the cloud provider hierarchy into an increasing level playing field. Today Amazon web services (AWS) is the “Coca-Cola” of the cloud service industry! AWS maybe the mainstream cloud provider for the majority of marketplace technology. Approx. 85% of cloud services are dominated by AWS and some 15% by Windows Azure, Google, Verizon and EMC with the rest being ‘openstack’ based cloud providers such as Rackspace, Go Grid, and Elastic Hosts etc. according to ComputerWeekly.com. But the small fish must not be underestimated as a continual rise in SMEs prefer using cloud based services integrated with openstack software. This shift in power and increased competition is advantageous to enterprise as it lowers overall cost of using the cloud. Yes CTOs have progressively moved to the cloud but they want to see improvements that will make using the cloud more federated, automated and interoperable for the user. If cloud services become more federated and easier to work with, end users will be able to know what applications to deploy on the right platforms.
The shift of monolithic cloud computing cause’s beneficial consequences:
- Increased competition in the market leads to the decrease in cost of cloud services.
- Having more players in the cloud market leads to standardisation and cloud federation which can be beneficial for investing in cloud.
So why has the cloud market expanded from the core mainstream cloud providers such as AWS? Question is simple, the modern organisation today with a tighter budget has to find new innovative ways to gain competitive advantage, cloud computing is evolving to be the norm in the business world today. Companies will have to adapt to cloud computing not just to gain a competitive advantage but to stay in the competition, “stay in the game” in other words.
Question: Cloud is moving at a rapid pace and eventually all organisations that need IT will eventually be moving to “the cloud”, so why are companies so slow today in adapting this IT investment in order to “stay in the game”?
So Opinionated ... 
It’s an interesting question you pose here, but the title is completely misleading! I expected you to search for ‘the Pepsi’ but you kind of just illustrated the need for competition, something which is necessary in every line of business. There actually are these medium sized competitors that you seem to be crying out for: Microsoft Azure and Rackspace have scared Amazon Web Services enough over the years to force them in to NINETEEN price cuts over the past 6 years! I think the title was inviting and essentially was the reason I clicked to read your post, but as they say “you can’t judge a book by its cover”.
No the title is not misleading, I merely asked the question is there another major competitor to AWS using the Coca-Cola, Pepsi analogy of being two major competitive brands. But as you read my blog there isn’t a Pepsi i.e. there isn’t another major competitor today but instead cloud service providers have been decentralized.This does not mean that the title is completely misleading! It actually answers the title’s question that there is no “pepsi” (Major cloud competitor) today but what you will see is a gradual increase in companies using the alternative “openstack” based cloud providers. As they say “don’t pass judgment unless fully informed”.