| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國際企業學研究所 === 107 === With the rise of cloud computing, many global players are rushing to enter the cloud market due to the lucrative business opportunities. However, in the development of the cloud computing industry during the past decade, the market position of the most advanced enterprises in the industry can hardly be challenged. When we curiously examined two of the major companies, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, we found that the former one specialized in storage while the latter specialized in computing. Both of them are not originally from cloud business. They have entered into the cloud computing industry with completely different industrial characteristics under different resource bases, therefore keeping the spark of competition less severe. This study attempts to clarify the key success factors and prospects of the industry through systematic analyses, and further analyze their furture competitive strategies.
To achieve the research purposes mentioned above, this study had adopted a qualitative-based industry analysis. Through the industry value chain and five-force model, we were able to recognize the key successful factors of the cloud computing industry. Then we further conducted an in-depth case analysis on AWS and Azure to outline the prospects of the overall industry. Finally, by analyzing the competitive dynamics of the two players under the structure of dynamic competitive strategy model, this study could eventually suggest strategic recommendations for the two case companies.
Based on our industry analysis, we identified three key successful factors of the cloud computing industry; they are customer base and experience, economies of scale, and the ability to maintain the fast pace of innovation of the platform. We have found that both AWS and Azure maintain respective advantages and continue to ferment these factors on their respective strategic blueprints. However, with the change of industry lanscape, both keen to develop a system-compatible integrated platform. The integrated platform was expected to break the isolation effect in the past, and promote the strategic cooperation layout for all cloud vendors. However, despite the need for some degree of cooperation, we expect that these two major players would still continue to compete against each other. We suggest that AWS not only carries out quick-paced strategic alliances, and strive for enterprise-level customers, but also considers to expand business of individual consumers. As for Microsoft Azure, it shall leverage price advantage, expand more innovative service portfolios, take advantage of the developer community to compete for enterprise customers, and create strategic alliances with AWS and anti-AWS partners. Implications of our research results and future research opportunities are also suggested.
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