Executive Summary

Key Takeaways

Global cloud platforms have evolved from infrastructure provisioning to integrated portfolios that operate applications and data across markets. Enterprises need operators whose regional services, capacity and operating arrangements meet workload requirements. AI workloads, sovereignty controls and cross-region dependencies make deployment topology central to evaluating performance, resilience and cost.

Software Provider Summary
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Global Cloud Platforms evaluates nine software providers offering products that support cloud infrastructure, application platforms, data services and AI workloads. The research ranked the top three overall as Microsoft, AWS and Google. Providers were classified using weighted performance in Product Experience and Customer Experience for ISG quadrant placement. Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google and Microsoft were rated Exemplary, with Oracle rated Innovative. IBM was rated a provider of Assurance, and Baidu Cloud, Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud were rated as providers of Merit.

Product Experience Insights
Product Experience, representing 80% of the evaluation, focuses on Capability (50%) and Platform (30%), including adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Microsoft, AWS and Google were designated Product Experience Leaders in an evaluation emphasizing cross-region resilience, global account governance, global service availability and global network backbone capabilities. Leaders demonstrated enterprise-grade platform capabilities supporting varied business and IT roles and operating contexts.

Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience, representing 20% of the evaluation, focuses on validation and TCO/ROI. IBM, Alibaba Cloud and Microsoft were the Leaders in this category, best communicating commitment and dedication to customer needs. Lower-performing providers did not share sufficient information to demonstrate customer success or articulate commitment to customer experience.

Strategic Recommendations
Enterprises should evaluate operators against representative workloads, regional service availability and capacity requirements, including accelerators for AI. Buyers should validate sovereignty controls and recovery performance through proofs of concept. Assessments should cover data portability and total operating costs before making long-term commitments.

The Findings

The software providers and products evaluated in this research offer product and customer experiences, but not every feature is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to support the relevant business processes and use cases. Moreover, having too many product capabilities may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities is important and meets your enterprise’s requirements.

An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these relationships and prioritize customer outcomes in line with TCO and ROI expectations.ISG_BG_Global_Cloud_Platforms_Overall_2026 It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is evident throughout the provider’s website, the buying process and the customer journey.

Overall Scoring of Software Providers Across Categories

The research finds Microsoft atop the list, followed by AWS and Google. Providers that place in the top three of a category earn the designation of Leader. Microsoft has done so in five categories, AWS and Google in three and Alibaba Cloud and IBM in two categories. 

About the authors

Jeff Orr

Jeff Orr

Jeff leads the firm’s overall research and advisory for CIO and technology leader practice focused on digital modernization and transformation for IT to be successful across an organization. Jeff’s coverage spans cloud computing, digital security, generative AI and technologies for intelligent automation. Jeff previously led Ventana Research’s products organization and market research that enables comprehensive educational insights for our community of over 100k professionals. Prior to joining Ventana Research, he served as editor in chief and thought leader for Cyber Security Hub. Jeff spent a decade as a Research Director at ABI Research, and two decades as a technology, product and marketing leader. Jeff attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. He is also an Oregon State University Certified Master Gardener.
David Menninger

David Menninger

David is responsible for the overall research direction of data, information and analytics technologies at Ventana Research covering major areas including Analytics, Big Data, Business Intelligence and Information Management along with the additional specific research categories including Information Applications, IT Performance Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence and IoT, and Data Science. David is also responsible for examining the role of cloud computing, collaboration and mobile technologies as they affect these areas. David brings to Ventana Research over twenty-five years of experience, through which he has marketed and brought to market some of the leading edge technologies for helping organizations analyze data to support a range of action-taking and decision-making processes. Prior to joining Ventana Research, David was the Head of Business Development & Strategy at Pivotal a division of EMC, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Vertica Systems, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Oracle, Applix, InforSense and IRI Software. David earned his MS in Business from Bentley University and a BS in Economics from University of Pennsylvania.