> In addition, there are lots of companies and individuals that have all their data local, for a variety of reasons (often security) and primarily use desktop applications to work with that data. The "vast majority" may never care, but the compliment is still a very sizable market.
Is it still?
From what I saw personally, Azure is eating through this market. They give enough of the right guarantees that mutlinational corporations are fine with processing all their (and their customers') data in it, and from some quick research I've been involved in, it's the one (and AFAIK the only one) big cloud provider you can use in EU with sensitive data in a compliant way, up to and including medical data.
Beyond that, what's really left that most business users wouldn't just prefer to stuff into Azure and stop worrying about handling it?
Is it still?
From what I saw personally, Azure is eating through this market. They give enough of the right guarantees that mutlinational corporations are fine with processing all their (and their customers') data in it, and from some quick research I've been involved in, it's the one (and AFAIK the only one) big cloud provider you can use in EU with sensitive data in a compliant way, up to and including medical data.
Beyond that, what's really left that most business users wouldn't just prefer to stuff into Azure and stop worrying about handling it?