Gartner: Microsoft One of Just Two Market Leaders in Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS)

The air is pretty thin when it comes to Enterprise Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) providers, finds Gartner. Only Microsoft and Salesforce rated Leader status in Gartner's aPaaS Magic Quadrant, released last week. The two companies were the only two leaders in 2015 as well, and Microsoft's position in the quadrant is unchanged (see graphic). But, Salesforce has since lost ground in Completeness of Vision, ceding market leadership in that criterion Microsoft. Salesforce still leads the pack in Ability to Execute.

We know platform as a service (PaaS) well, being application infrastructure functionality enriched with cloud characteristics and offered as a service. That's Gartner's definition, and by their definition, aPaaS goes several steps further by supporting application development, deployment and execution in the cloud; encapsulating resources such as infrastructure; and including services such as those for data management and user interfaces. Gartner further distinguishes aPaaS offerings as supporting the enterprise style of applications and application projects (e.g., with high availability; disaster recovery; external service access; security; and technical support). Pretty lofty for a single offering.

This marks Microsoft's third year as a leader in the aPaaS Magic Quadrant, and sixth Magic Quadrant recognition for enterprise cloud workflows, claims Nicole Herskowitz, Microsoft's director of product marketing for its cloud platform, on the company's Azure blog. The other five leader recognitions are for:

1. Operational Database Management Systems
2. Data Warehouse and Data Management Solutions for Analytics
3. Cloud Infrastructure as a Service
4. Cloud Storage Services
5. Server Virtualization

Gartner identifies ...