I work for GigaOm Research part time and have had a chance to meet Paul Miller another researcher who covers the Cloud and is based out of the UK. Paul and I have discussed the similarities and differences between the US and European Cloud market. Many of the insights Paul has shared is available to those of you who subscribe to GigaOm Research. Here is a link to Paul’s report published yesterday.

Sector RoadMap: the European cloud infrastructure market

by Paul Miller
Mar. 26, 2014
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1Executive Summary

Companies looking to adopt public cloud infrastructure for use in Europe must navigate a complex set of choices in selecting the best service for their needs. The scale, price, and continuing innovation of U.S.-based market leaders such as Amazon, Rackspace, and Microsoft are compelling but undermined to a degree by data protection concerns and last year’s revelations of National Security Agency (NSA) snooping. Less-visible European providers may offer the perception of greater security, a network of data centers more closely aligned to the distribution of customers across the continent, and a support operation better suited to European cultural and linguistic diversity.

This Sector RoadMap^TM identifies and categorizes the principal disruption vectors at play in this market segment and profiles a set of the significant solution providers in the space.

Amongst the companies surveyed, those with a strong multi-site European presence found themselves at an immediate advantage. Security and data territoriality remain significant concerns, particularly in Europe, but each of the providers discussed here has a credible position with respect to securing customer data inside the European Economic Area. The clearest point of differentiation for many customers lies in the strength of the partner ecosystem and the extent of interoperability with other systems. Current global market leader Amazon Web Services dominates in both of these vectors for now.