In the era of digital economy, almost all enterprises are embracing cloud computing. From it manufacturing plants to domestic service companies, "enterprise cloud" has become the main battlefield for the transformation and upgrading of all walks of life.
But in the public cloud, which provides infrastructure services, it is a game that only the strong can participate. After many rounds of wars, the market share has been concentrated to the head. At present, the four giants represented by bath (Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Huawei) have successfully ranked at the top of the industry pyramid with long-term technology accumulation and deep market cultivation.
According to Canalys, a leading market research firm, the top four China's cloud infrastructure markets were Ali Yun (33.8%), HUAWEI cloud (19.3%), Tencent cloud (18.8%) and Baidu Intelligent Cloud (7.8%) as of the two quarter of last year. It is worth mentioning that the total of the four companies increased to 79.7% from 78.7% in the same period in 2020, continuing to erode the remaining market share.
As the other side of the coin, small and medium-sized cloud computing companies are performing the drama of bleak departure. At the beginning of last year, Suning and meituan, both Internet giants, had to announce their withdrawal from the cloud service market after several years of technical struggle. It can be seen that the cake of cloud computing is much more difficult than expected.
Under the oligarchic pattern, all aspects of our production and life will be covered by a few "flowers" in the future. At the same time, as the cloud computing industry is still in the initial stage of industrial development, the current separatist situation is not invariable, and the story of horse racing enclosure will continue.
/ 01 / cloud computing market scuffle, "bath" pattern initially determined
"Matthew effect" is an old topic. In the business world, the story of "the strong is always strong" happens every day. However, it is clear that in the field of cloud computing with higher requirements for technology investment and more complex industrial chain, the "Matthew effect" has been further amplified. At present, China's cloud market is no longer the old pattern of the strong eating meat and the weak drinking soup, but presents a more cruel "t" structure: baths control the absolute voice of the industry, and it is difficult for cloud computing manufacturers in the second tier to have room to stand.
From the development track of the "four clouds", because each company is attached to different business systems and has different focus, its style on the road of "going to the cloud" is quite different. But on the whole, the eight immortals cross the sea and come to the same goal by different ways, and from each "flower" cloud, we can see many traces of Companies in the Internet era.
First of all, Alibaba, an Internet giant that has dominated the field of e-commerce for many years, can be called a pioneer and preacher in China's cloud computing era. In 2009, when the whole of China did not know what cloud was, Alibaba cloud had written the first line of cloud computing core technology code "Feitian". More than a decade later, Alibaba cloud blossomed and fruited, crushing a number of competitors with a market share of nearly 40%.
Alibaba cloud's success actually has traces to follow. Like Amazon AWS, the world's largest cloud service platform, Alibaba's unique e-commerce gene and natural advantages for b-end services have not only created a strong demand for the platform to "go to the cloud", but also made it quickly commercialized.
In contrast, Tencent cloud's entry is not as urgent as Alibaba cloud's "going to IOE". Therefore, Ma Huateng, chairman of the group, once considered this concept too advanced. However, as a major Internet manufacturer, Tencent's node of "going to the cloud" is not too late. As early as 2009, the popularity of QQ farm Games brought strong data demand, which initially laid the thinking prototype of Tencent's cloud service; In 2015, Tencent's cloud computing business was officially and fully opened to partners, and the business revenue of that year increased by more than 100% year-on-year. Since then, Tencent cloud's market share has remained the second largest in China until it was overtaken by Huawei cloud last year.
As Huawei outside the Internet bat camp, it established a cloud computing company in 2005. However, since China's cloud computing market has not yet sprung up, Huawei cloud, which is committed to infrastructure services, has developed slowly. In 2017, Huawei established cloud Bu, a cloud business unit, and entered the public cloud market with a high profile. In the following four years, Huawei cloud became a blockbuster, surpassing Jinshan cloud, Tianyi cloud and Tencent cloud to become one of the most popular cloud computing companies in China.
In recent years, doubts about "Baidu lags behind bat" have been emerging in the Internet circle. In the field of cloud computing, baidu also has some "hindsight", because it was not until 2016 that baidu president Zhang Yaqin put forward the "ABC (AI, big data, cloud) strategy" that the company officially established the core position of Baidu cloud.
However, with the help of Baidu's traditional AI strength, Baidu's cloud computing business has made rapid progress in recent years. At present, it ranks fourth with a market share of 8.4%; Revenue grew by 71% year-on-year, outperforming the growth rate of the whole industry. Facing the decline of the market, Baidu intelligent cloud has achieved the most easily underestimated "cloud" in the industry.
/ 02 / barrier alienation, each family has its own "killer mace"
Taking a closer look at the track of the big four in the cloud, they opened up the advanced technology and mature fields of the platform at the beginning, and then built their own barriers that are difficult to shake. Therefore, although bath ranks first and then in the cloud computing market, each company has a trump card to dominate the industry in specific segments.
For Alibaba cloud, the most powerful competitiveness comes from its technology accumulation, deep cultivation and practical combat ability. Under the leadership of Wang Jian's team, Alibaba cloud has built a complete software and hardware technology system from the operating system "flying" to the chip "relying on the sky". It has invested the most in human and financial resources, so it has the greatest return. In particular, relying on the huge ecological resources of Alibaba economy, Alibaba cloud has unique advantages in providing accurate empowerment for the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially e-commerce customers.
During the "double 11" period last year, all Alibaba businesses have been running on Alibaba cloud. The company revealed that through cloud technology innovation, the computing power of the platform data center has been more reasonably configured. The DPCA cloud server architecture and the self-developed database polardb have improved the efficiency of server resources and reduced the computing cost; 290000 merchants participating in tmall's double 11 have performed well, including Guochao time-honored brands, new brands and international brands.
According to public data, in 2018, Alibaba cloud's computing business covered 80% of the country's technology companies; In 2020, 60% of A-share listed companies will become Alibaba cloud customers; In 2021, Alibaba cloud won the cooperation of nearly half of the world's top 500 enterprises. It is worth mentioning that due to the high cost of cross cloud data migration, once customers choose Alibaba cloud, it means that they will maintain stable loyalty for a long time, which is of deeper significance for the platform to give play to its brand effect and maintain market control.
The barrier of Tencent cloud is based on the long-standing ecological resources of the group company. Although the technical reserve and R & D capacity are slightly inferior to Alibaba cloud, Tencent cloud is an "invincible" presence in the field of social and cultural entertainment. Especially in terms of subdivided games and audio and video, Tencent cloud has almost achieved market monopoly. In addition, due to the strong rise of wechat payment, Tencent cloud has made rapid layout in the field of financial technology and entered the head.
Not long ago, for example, the "hero League S11 finals" popular all over the network. This global sports event staged in Reykjavik, Iceland, needs to be transmitted to North America through a special line, and then across more than 10000 kilometers of The Pacific Securities Co.Ltd(601099) to the screen of Chinese audiences. Tencent cloud is the cloud service provider of S11 finals. It is understood that based on 68 availability zones and more than 2800 acceleration nodes covering the world, Tencent cloud can easily meet the challenge of cross ocean transmission and reduce the picture delay by more than 50% to less than 400 milliseconds. In addition, Tencent cloud also provides technical support for stations B, Betta, tiger teeth, Penguin E-sports and other platforms, carrying 90% of the traffic of the whole network.
According to the Q3 financial report of Tencent, at present, Tencent cloud has served more than 90% of China's audio and video companies, more than 80% of head game companies and most e-commerce platforms. Its customers cover various segments such as banking, insurance, securities, consumer finance and industrial finance; In addition, Tencent cloud database tdsql serves nearly half of China's top 20 banks, of which the top 10 banks account for six.
For a long time, Huawei has been known as the benchmark of Chinese science and technology enterprises. It has accumulated technology for 30 years in the field of ICT infrastructure, and mainly faces traditional government and enterprise customers. Therefore, Huawei cloud can hardly meet its competitors in the to G market. According to the report "China's Government cloud infrastructure market share 2020" released by IDC, Hua Weiyun has a share of 32.2% in China's Government cloud infrastructure market, ranking first for four consecutive years.
In June last year, Huawei cloud and relevant departments in Changsha jointly established a new smart city government cloud benchmarking laboratory to promote the intelligent upgrading of Changsha City Industry and become a display window of Changsha Government cloud achievements. At present, Changsha Government cloud has successively implemented smart Governance - government blockchain, people-friendly Services - my Changsha app, industrial economy - Digital RMB red envelope, ecological livability - Smart environmental protection and other applications.
More noteworthy is that with the comprehensive promotion of 5g, Huawei cloud has become the first cloud service platform integrating "5g + cloud + AI". The "fusion effect" produced by technology integration is likely to detonate the future industrial Internet, which is a unique advantage that other Internet cloud manufacturers do not have.
Baidu's label is "AI", and in the cloud computing market it becomes "Baidu Intelligent Cloud". In order to achieve differentiation, baidu cloud services integrate with AI computing power, algorithms and open platforms, and use AI technology to help enterprises establish competitive advantages and digital transformation. At present, Baidu intelligent cloud has an advantage in image and video, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent transportation and so on. In the field of face recognition, NLP and other segments, it has built up super high barriers.
In the two quarter of last year, Baidu intelligent cloud began to provide Geely Automobile AI solution based on private cloud to help cloud computing revenue achieve a year-on-year growth rate of 71%. In the second quarter, the company successively won the bid for automatic driving and vehicle road coordination projects in Shaoxing, Cangzhou, Yangquan and other places, with a single order amount of about 150 million yuan, which effectively promoted the development of big data industry in relevant regions.
IDC released the "2020 Annual Research Report on China's AI cloud services market" report, Baidu Intelligent Cloud first took the lead in the industry to create AI original cloud computing architecture, becoming "natural fit for running AI cloud". In 2020, the platform ranked first in the AI public cloud service market as a whole, and its AI application was full blossom, and realized the landing of many industries.
/ 03 / what is the new story of "four clouds" behind the architecture upgrade?
In the world of cloud computing, there is no behind closed doors, nor is there a corner of peace. Although the four giants have established ultra-high moats in their respective fields, the focus of industry competition has shifted from infrastructure construction to application layer, and continues to penetrate into more subdivided industries. For giants, on the one hand, they need to constantly evolve horizontally on the basis of self barriers and enter each other's territory; On the other hand, it has also started a large-scale restructuring and told a new business story.
In September 2020, Alibaba integrated the nailing team into Alibaba cloud, and the "cloud nailing in one" strategy was officially implemented. Among them, Alibaba cloud acts as "hydropower coal" to build the infrastructure base of cloud computing for enterprises; Nailing is similar to the "windows" operating system, which helps enterprises develop and use different applications. In essence, "cloud nail integration" is a one-stop service that provides deep integration of "IAAs (Infrastructure Service), PAAS (platform service) and SaaS (software service)".
It is conceivable that with the end of the "road building and bridge building" stage of the cloud market, SaaS service layer will become the most competitive field in the future. The implementation of the "cloud nailing in one" strategy is Alibaba cloud's "card battle" to get the enterprise market in advance.
In September 2018, Tencent established the cloud and smart industry group (CSIG) to fully embrace the industrial Internet; In May last year, CSIG announced a new round of architecture upgrading, and proposed three strategies: rooted in the industry, deeply ploughing the region and strengthening business collaboration: rooted in the industry and building a combat force that knows the industry best; Deep ploughing area to promote digital sinking; Improve operation efficiency by "strengthening the healthy operation of the overall platform and strengthening business collaboration".
It is not difficult to see that this strategic upgrade, Tencent wants to continue to deepen into the field of industrial Internet and provide industry solutions that better meet the needs of digitization. To this end, Tang Daosheng, senior executive vice president of Tencent and CEO of cloud and smart industry business group, put forward the methodology of building a four in one of user, technology, security and ecological engine, introducing user understanding and cutting-edge digital technology into the industry, shaping the security base of the industrial Internet era and continuously promoting the ecological opening of the industrial Internet.
In April last year, Huawei cloud also made a large-scale architecture adjustment. Cloud & AI BG, established at the end of 2018, was revoked. Huawei cloud no longer has to shoulder the revenue index and returns to bu (business line). Cloud & AI BG mainly includes cloud Bu, computing product line (server, etc.), data storage and machine vision product line. It was established as the fourth largest BG (business group) of Huawei in early 2020.
Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei, once said: Huawei cloud is not the leading edge of traditional hardware equipment. We must build the ability to sell cloud services and support the operation, operation and maintenance ability to provide cloud services to customers. Obviously, Huawei wants to realize the light loading of cloud business through organizational structure adjustment. After that, the cloud business has become an independent business line, no longer bundled with servers, storage and other hardware, and realized the change of thinking from selling hardware to selling services.
In 2020, Baidu Intelligent Cloud established "cloud based, artificial intelligence as the starting point, focusing on important track" cloud intelligence integration strategy. Last July, the platform also announced the comprehensive upgrading of strategy, architecture, products and ecology, and launched "cloud intelligence integration 2.0", forming a new system with cloud as the base, deep learning platform "flying oar" as the core and ecology as the wing.
For the new strategy, Wang Haifeng, baidu CTO, explained, "the 'cloud' integrating cloud and intelligence provides a safe, stable and flexible digital base for digital transformation, and the 'intelligent engine' provides leading innovative technologies and platforms for intelligent upgrading." To sum up, it is through the output of intelligent technology and practical experience to empower enterprises.
On the whole, the big four continue to try and make mistakes and move forward bravely on the road of cloud computing. All of them want to take dividends in the digital transformation and upgrading of Chinese enterprises and accumulate strength for the full outbreak of industrial Internet in the future. With the acceleration of the digital process, cloud computing, as a potential incremental market, will be more competitive in the future.
