Main Competitors of Microsoft Inc.Â
Microsoft is one of the most powerful brands in the technology industry. Apart from production and sales of Windows Operating System, Microsoft is also known as one of the biggest cloud players and for its Microsoft office software. Since the technology industry is marked by intense competition, the brand has got some formidable competitors in the market. Most of them are big names that are either in personal computing or in cloud technology. However, while the growing demand for could technology has kept adding to the existing competition, on the other hand it has kept Microsoft soaring. Otherwise the computing industry had taken a hit with the rise of mobile computing. Microsoft has a large product portfolio that caters to both individual users and enterprises. Apart from its hardware and software offerings, the brand has acquired Linked In. Founded in 1975, Microsoft is operational across more than 190 countries. Microsoft has a long list of competitors several of which are major names in the technology industry that compete with the brand across cloud services, computing services, search advertising, CRM and several other areas.
Microsoft Important Stats 2017:
Revenue: 89.95 Billion Dollars
Net Income: 21.20 Billion Dollars
Number of employees: 124000
Total Assets: 241 Billions
APPLE:
The most formidable competitor for technology giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon is a leading name in the technology industry. The brand is ruling the business world even after the passing away of Steve Jobs. With market value around 800 Billion dollars, Apple is at the top in the Forbes list of most valuable brands for 2017, followed by Google. The maker of Mac and iPhone is known for its premium pricing strategy and uniqueness of its products. However, the computing industry has met some large challenges especially since the rise of mobile computing. Apple’s iPhone however, has remained popular and that has helped Apple make up for the lost sales of Mac. Apple’s MacOS and Microsoft’s Windows are competing products. However, Windows has grabbed a larger market share because of its affordability.
GOOGLE:
The owner of the largest search engine on the planet is also known for its Android Mobile operating system which is used on a very large number of cellphones and mobile devices. Google’s search engine holds the largest market share followed by Microsoft’s Bing. Apart from that Google is also a competitor in cloud based services. Google’s hosted messaging and a large range of productivity suite also compete with Apple products. Apart from these, Microsoft Azure faces competition from Google. Another area where these two brands compete is search advertising.
AMAZON:
Amazon is also a leading brand in the tech industry and apart from being the leading retailer, it is also known for its Amazon web services. Microsoft’s Azure is competing with AWS. Actually, these two are engaged in a very tough combat.
ALIBABA:
Alibaba apart from being an e-retailer also provides cloud based services. The brand is growing the ambit and efficiency of its cloud services which has brought it into the position of a tough contender for both Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. In the field of e-retail too, Alibaba’s influence has kept rising.Â
IBM:
IBM is another major competitor of Microsoft. The brand competes with Microsoft in various areas including server products and enterprise wide computing solutions. Apart from these, IBM’s products compete with Microsoft Azure and other products made for software developers as well as Microsoft Office.
SALESFORCE:
Another major brand that has continued to grow as a challenger for Microsoft and its cloud based services is salesforce.com Microsoft’s Dynamics competes with notes CRM offerings by salesforce. Infant salesforce offerings are the primary challenger for Microsoft Dynamics.
These are some of the major competitors of Microsoft. Apart from these, there are other competitors too that compete with the technology giant in several areas from search advertising to office software and enterprise wide computing solutions. Some of them are Facebook, Adobe, CISCO, Oracle and SAP. All of these compete with Microsoft Office products whereas some other competitors of Microsoft Dynamics include Infor, The Sage Group and Net Suite.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2017/10/20/amazon-or-ibm-whos-the-king-of-cloud-revenue/#84b918b1691e
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2017/11/07/the-top-5-cloud-computing-vendors-1-microsoft-2-amazon-3-ibm-4-salesforce-5-sap/#73c7b5716f2e
https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar17/index.html