Just yesterday, I reported that Forrester Research came the conclusion that Microsoft is the top consumer brand in the world. Read about that here: Forrester Crowns Microsoft as the Top Consumer Brand.
Today, more good news gets lobbed toward the Redmond behemoth. The latest Gartner Group Magic Quadrant report for Enterprise Application Platform as a Service (or, Enterprise aPaaS) shows Microsoft and salesforce.com floating alone in the Leaders box.
As the table suggests, Google is close to oozing into the Leader space, but is still behind in terms of completeness of vision.
Gartner cites reasons for Microsoft's success. One of the primary reasons for Microsoft's accomplishment is due to the company's "cloud first" strategy. Each part of Microsoft's products and solutions business is focused on developing cloud components first, and then shoring up the on-premise versions to match up. But, more than anything, and the key factor between Google and Microsoft, is that Microsoft is still providing on-premise solutions. Customers are wary of an all-cloud, hosted solution. Microsoft's core strength is understanding how businesses function, while Google has yet to show any support for business customers' needs and requirements. By providing capabilities to sync operations between existing environments and Windows Azure, Microsoft is steadily building trust among customers through its Hybrid Cloud crusade.
You can read the full report here: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Platform as a Service
