Cloud Wars Top 10: SAP Rises to #4, Palantir Rockets to #5, AWS Tumbles to #7, OpenAI Debuts at #10

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore the massive reshuffle in the Cloud Wars Top 10 driven by the rise of AI-first strategies. Later this morning, I'll expand upon these themes in a second fireside chat with my CEO, John Siefert, specifically focusing on numbers four through ten on the list.

Highlights

00:03 — We’ve got more big changes going on in the Cloud Wars Top 10. SAP moves up to number four. Palantir rockets from number 10 to number five. AWS tumbles from number four to number seven, and OpenAI makes its debut on the Cloud Wars Top 10 at number 10.

00:37 — So, SAP's got 25% consistent growth for the past couple of years. Clearly, customers are voting for SAP as they move aggressively into agents. Palantir is intensely disruptive, but not just in technology and not just to be different. It feels that today’s move — the evolution from this into the AI economy — requires new types of technology.

01:46 — In Q3, the last quarter for which Palantir has reported numbers, revenue grew at a remarkable 63% to almost 1.2 billion during that Q3. The number of salespeople that Palantir has actually went down. So, it's finding new ways to engage with customers. AWS started off as number one. It's still a great company, but “great company” is no longer good enough.

02:45 — They are not, though, being the leaders — the agenda setters. That has slipped over to Google Cloud; Oracle has taken that away. So, they are the big leaders here, as AWS goes from number four to number seven. OpenAI makes its debut in the Cloud Wars Top 10, as they have now much more than the ChatGPT phenomenon from three years and three months ago.

03:49 — Got lots of people now, and certainly Palantir, saying, “Hey, we’re an AI platform company as well.” The whole premise for the last nine years of the Cloud Wars Top 10 is tech vendors are now able make their own internal operations, product development, how they engage, who they partner with, how they go to market, tied very tightly to the directions that customers want to go.

04:19 — In the old days, the tech vendor sat back, said, “I’m going to make my server 2% faster and 3% less expensive than theirs,” and expected, you know, the world to beat a path to their door. No longer the case. Now, it’s the tech companies that have to respond incredibly fast and incredibly decisively and effectively to the new directions that customers are heading in.

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