Dive Brief:

• Cloud-only services account for almost half of the more than 550 platform as a service (PaaS) offerings, according to a Gartner analysis of the PaaS landscape in 2019. 
• The vast majority (90%) of providers operate in a single segment. Although there are more than 360 vendors, none have a foothold in all segments of the market without partnerships, according to the report. 
• The global PaaS market is expected to reach $20 billion this year and pass $34 billion in 2022, with data and application platform services as the largest of the 22 segments, according to the report. Since the analysis was conducted three years ago, several new market segments were created around emerging technologies, including blockchain, AI and machine learning, and cloud robotic process automation. 

Dive Insight:

While a large array of providers is beneficial for customers from a competitive perspective, the multitude of platform offerings can make the purchasing landscape more difficult to navigate for customers. 

The report indicates that most companies use a variety of service offerings from multiple providers, yet many lack a PaaS selection strategy or have clear understanding of the market. Gartner recommended shying away from lock-in with "megaPaaS" providers in favor of alternatives with open source and multicloud roots and strong partner ecosystems. 

Working with multiple solutions providers can easily add complexity to a business' cloud environment and contribute to increasing cloud costs. Most organizations are already struggling with cloud governance and cost optimization. 

PaaS is inextricably tied up with the infrastructure and software as a service segments (IaaS, SaaS), with help support platform offerings. 

Quarterly cloud infrastructure services revenue, including PaaS, grew 48% last year, according to Synergy Research Group. Growth of market leaders, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM, continued to come at the expense of smaller providers.