Web and Application Hosting 2015

Transcription

1 MARKET FORECAST Web and Application Hosting 2015 SEP 2015 Liam Eagle, Senior Analyst, Service Providers Web and application hosting, a mature IT market, is facing changes to the variety of services on offer, and the variety of customer requirements those services address. A stratification of both services and customers has resulted in workloads moving from traditional shared, virtualized and dedicated infrastructure products to increasingly specialized infrastructure and application environments, including IaaS and SaaS. Many of the service providers seeing the most success from these product categories and customer segments are newer entrants to the market Research, LLC

2 ABOUT 451 RESEARCH 451 Research is a preeminent information technology research and advisory company. With a core focus on technology innovation and market disruption, we provide essential insight for leaders of the digital economy. More than 100 analysts and consultants deliver that insight via syndicated research, advisory services and live events to over 1,000 client organizations in North America, Europe and around the world. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York, 451 Research is a division of The 451 Group Research, LLC and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication, in whole or in part, in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The terms of use regarding distribution, both internally and externally, shall be governed by the terms laid out in your Service Agreement with 451 Research and/or its Affiliates. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. 451 Research disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although 451 Research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, 451 Research does not provide legal advice or services and their research should not be construed or used as such. 451 Research shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO LONDON BOSTON 20 West 37th Street 3rd Floor New York, NY P F Geary Street 9th Floor San Francisco, CA P F Gower Street London, UK WC1E 6HH P +44 (0) F +44 (0) Liberty Square, 5th Floor Boston, MA P F ABOUT THE AUTHOR LIAM EAGLE SENIOR ANALYST, SERVICE PROVIDERS Liam Eagle covers the Service Provider space for 451 Research, focusing on web and application hosting, managed hosting and cloud infrastructure. His research focuses in part on the adaptation of traditional hosting technologies and models to accommodate emerging needs. These include web presence SaaS, the focus on web professionals and the channel market for cloud infrastructure. Liam has closely covered the hosting market for more than 10 years, giving him a front-row seat for many of the transformative trends that shaped the business, including the emergence of virtualization and cloud technologies, and the development of the hosting market s partner ecosystem. II

3 Key Findings Web and application hosting is a mature market, and one that deals in a fairly commoditized set of basic infrastructure building blocks. The market continues to grow. However, the rate of growth is slowing, a trend we expect to continue as workloads, as well as some products, move out of the category. Estimated CAGR for Web and application hosting is 9.4% through North America remains the largest market for hosting and cloud (59% share of revenue in 2015), followed by EMEA (27% in 2015). While both of these larger markets continue to grow (12% and 14% CAGR through 2019, respectively), their overall share of the hosting market is shrinking. The smaller APAC and Latin American markets (11% and 3% share, respectively) are growing at considerably higher rates (29% and 30% CAGR through 2019, respectively). These trends are being reflected within the largest Web and application hosting providers, which are increasingly targeting expansion into emerging markets. Best execution venue trends continue to see workloads (including developer and small business workloads) moving away from the traditional hosting resources toward more specialized IaaS and SaaS environments. This has contributed to the slowing growth in Web and application hosting, but also opportunities for incumbent providers to address those emerging use cases. Managed services are becoming an increasingly modular component of infrastructure services, and are being increasingly applied by service providers across a wider range of infrastructure and application environments. Web hosts are launching managed services designed around specific applications (particularly Word- Press) and third-party services (such as Office 365), as well as public cloud infrastructure. In the face of market and customer segmentation, hosts in the Web and application market are seeing success by targeting specific customer types, and building products around relevant business outcomes (an e-commerce transaction or a service call), rather than the infrastructure building blocks. M&A activity in the space continues. However, the traditional focus on acquiring for scale has shifted to include an emphasis on acquiring for specialization in particular user groups or technologies, hosting-adjacent technologies and presence in specific geographic markets. III

4 Introduction EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report continues our coverage of the Web and application hosting market, the portion of the IT services market focused on Web workloads and applications. A large portion of the market for these services is small businesses. Web and application hosting is a subset within 451 Research s Service Providers coverage channel, which includes managed hosting, IaaS, and other managed infrastructure and application services. It provides a market overview updated from past iterations, including Web and Application Hosting - Fall Web and application hosting, a mature IT market, is facing changes to the variety of services on offer and the variety of customer requirements those services address. A stratification of both services and customers has resulted in workloads moving from traditional shared, virtualized and dedicated infrastructure products to increasingly specialized infrastructure and application environments, including IaaS and SaaS. Many of the service providers seeing the most success from these product categories and customer segments are newer entrants to the market. The Web and application hosting market is largely served by incumbent providers from small, regional players to large, international companies. While emerging, specialist service providers represent additional competition for these incumbents, the new service categories also represent further new opportunities for the existing service providers. This report provides, in part, a look at the opportunities for established service providers in addressing the new customer categories and lines of business that are emerging as a consequence of this stratification. An annual installment in an ongoing series, this report highlights key market conditions and trends influencing the Web and application hosting segment worldwide. It evaluates the market from a strategic perspective and points to current and long-term trends and opportunities, in some cases highlighting how individual service providers are shaping those trends. It updates market data with projections through 2019, profiles certain major market players and shares information on marketing, as well as mergers and acquisitions. This report focuses on Web and application hosting to the exclusion of certain other product types (pure IaaS, some types of SaaS, datacenter operation); however, the lines between these services, and the service providers that deliver them, continue to blur as Web hosting product sets evolve into managed and cloud-based infrastructure and application services. METHODOLOGY Market data appearing in this report was assembled through 451 Research s proprietary Market Monitor database, which tracks hundreds of companies in colocation, hosting, content delivery networks and cloud infrastructure services. It includes information on revenue by quarter and product mix, as well as information on server counts, domains, interconnection counts and other data. The database content was collected through a variety of techniques, including interviews, briefings, public disclosures, derivations based on user counts and average revenue per user (ARPU) and other methods. 451 Research uses earnings announcements and disclosures where available to populate revenue figures for companies discussed within this report. For 2015 and beyond, and for private companies that do not release revenue numbers, 451 Research uses a mixture of publicly available information, in-depth interviews with industry participants and estimates of revenue based on industry averages, customer count and our analysis of the company s competitive position in the market. When revenue was not specifically limited to 451 Research s definition of hosting services, proportional service was assumed according to discussions with service providers. Our overall market sizing figures represent 451 Research estimates for the global hosting market as a whole, and include companies specifically named on our leaderboard, as well as companies that are not. This report draws on several proprietary services operated by 451 Research, including the M&A KnowledgeBase and Market Monitor services, which provide data on M&A transactions, and market sizing and company leaderboards, respectively. IV

5 WEB AND APPLICATION HOSTING 2015 Reports such as this one represent a holistic perspective on key emerging markets in the enterprise IT space. These markets evolve quickly, though, so 451 Research offers additional services that provide critical marketplace updates. These updated reports and perspectives are presented on a daily basis via the company s core intelligence service, 451 Research Market Insight. Forward-looking M&A analysis and perspectives on strategic acquisitions and the liquidity environment for technology companies are also updated regularly via Market Insight, which is backed by the industry-leading 451 Research M&A KnowledgeBase. Emerging technologies and markets are also covered in additional 451 Research channels, including Datacenter Technologies; Storage; Systems and Software Infrastructure; Networking; Information Security; Data Platforms & Analytics; Development, DevOps & IT Ops; Business Applications; Service Providers; Cloud & IT Service Markets; European Services; Multi-Tenant Datacenters; Enterprise Mobility; and Mobile Telecom. This report was written by Liam Eagle, Senior Analyst, Service Providers. Please direct all questions to [email protected]. Note: Illustrative examples of specific service providers are offered throughout this report. They are included to provide real-world context to services and trends being discussed. The companies mentioned are not necessarily businesses we consider winners or leaders in the space, nor are these lists exhaustive. In most cases, there are other examples of these services and trends. For more information about 451 Research, please go to the company s website: V

6 Table of Contents 1 MARKET OVERVIEW 1 EVOLVING 451 RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICE PROVIDER TAXONOMY AND MARKET SIZING Figure 1: Segments Covered in This Report MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE MARKET SIZING AND SECTOR BREAKDOWN Figure 2: Global Web and Application Hosting Revenue Figure 3: Global Market Segmentation MARKET LEADERS AND SELECTED COMPANY PROFILES Figure 4: Global Web and Application Hosting Largest 10 Providers INTERNATIONAL HOSTING MARKET TRENDS Figure 5: Total Hosting Revenue by Region PERSPECTIVES AND ANALYSIS 8 KEY MARKET TRENDS Figure 6: Web and Application Hosting Market Stratification TRENDS IN CUSTOMER STRATEGY Figure 7: Strategies for Attracting the Late Majority Figure 8: Strategies for Serving Web Professionals TRENDS IN PRODUCT STRATEGY Figure 9: Web Presence Builder Channel Strategy Figure 10: Evolving Managed Services Strategies Figure 11: Managed WordPress Hosting Strategy Figure 12: Connected Web and Application Hosting Services Figure 13: Application Bundling Strategies Figure 14: New TLD Strategy VI

7 WEB AND APPLICATION HOSTING FINANCE AND M&A 19 THE CHANGING SHAPE OF HOSTING M&A Figure 15: Selected Web and Application Hosting Market M&A Activity Figure 16: Web and Application Hosting Market Financing RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 22 RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSIONS APPENDIX 24 TAXONOMY/GLOSSARY INDEX OF COMPANIES 28 VII