ClaimsSatya Nadella

“We’re number two, and in the enterprise we are – probably we’re very close to number two.”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO October 2017 Economic Club of Washington: Nadella on Hit Refresh (Economic Club of Washington) archived copy

Factual Economics and markets

Microsoft is number two, and in the enterprise it is probably very close to number two.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

Read in context as a claim that Microsoft ranked number two in public cloud (infrastructure/platform) by revenue or market share as of October 2017, and was close to number two in enterprise cloud. True: industry market-share data for 2017 (e.g. Synergy, Gartner, Canalys, IDC) rank Microsoft/Azure second behind AWS, both overall and in enterprise. Mostly true: Microsoft is clearly second overall, and its enterprise position is around second but the data are ambiguous or the margin differs a little from what is implied. Mixed: Microsoft is second on some major measures and not on others. Mostly false: Microsoft is second only on a narrow or unusual measure, or its position is overstated. False: major 2017 data rank Microsoft below second in the relevant cloud market.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 Amazon still leads cloud infrastructure market by a mile, but Alibaba edges past Google - SiliconANGLE SiliconANGLE · 27 September 2017

    “Microsoft Corp. comes in second with $1.57 billion in revenues and a 7 percent market share, while Alibaba Cloud pulled in $675 million, giving it a 3 percent share.”

  2. E2 AWS still dominates Gartner IaaS magic quadrant but Alibaba, IBM making moves CIO Dive · 16 June 2017

    “Amazon Web Services (AWS) still dominates the cloud-based infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google, according to Gartner’s new Magic Quadrant report.”

  3. E3 Survey: Large Enterprises Favor Microsoft Azure over Amazon Cloud -- Redmond Channel Partner Redmond Channel Partner (Converge 360) · 5 April 2017

    “In fact, while other reports show that AWS still has a lead in cloud market share, the top cloud vendor in this survey -- which included only organizations with at least 500 employees -- was Microsoft Azure,”

  4. E4 Survey: Large Enterprises Favor Microsoft Azure over Amazon Cloud -- Redmond Channel Partner Redmond Channel Partner (Converge 360) · 5 April 2017

    “However, when we look at larger companies, Amazon's share grows to 26-27 percent at every size, Microsoft stays in the 11-13 percent range, while Google fades along with Digital Ocean.”

Reasoning

Independent 2017 market data rank Microsoft second in cloud infrastructure behind Amazon. E1 reports Microsoft second with $1.57 billion in revenue and a 7 percent share, and E2 says Gartner's 2017 Magic Quadrant puts Azure second behind AWS. The enterprise evidence is mixed. One survey of organisations with at least 500 employees found Azure the top vendor (E3). Another survey reported in the same article found Microsoft at 11-13 percent among larger companies, against Amazon's 26-27 percent, with Google fading (E4). Microsoft is clearly second overall. The enterprise data differ: one survey puts Azure first among organisations with at least 500 employees (E3), and another puts Microsoft well behind Amazon among larger companies (E4). This ambiguity fits mostly true.

Cite this claim

Satya Nadella, “Microsoft is number two, and in the enterprise it is probably very close to number two.” (said October 2017). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_bd42dc9a745c, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_bd42dc9a745c

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Satya Nadella

  1. Mostly false Factual 4 June 2026
    “it turned out we sold a lot more subscriptions because people who never bought servers from us were buying subscriptions.”

    After moving to the cloud, Microsoft sold many more subscriptions because customers who never bought its servers bought subscriptions.

  2. Mostly true Factual 4 June 2026
    “we didn’t raise prices for a decade plus. That’s all thanks to the software efficiencies on top of hardware.”

    Microsoft did not raise M365 prices for more than a decade, thanks to software efficiencies on top of hardware.

  3. Resolved true Factual 15 November 2023
    “the majority of our business in the United States and Europe and in the rest of Asia, and so we don't see this as a major, major issue for us, quite frankly, other than any disruption to supply…”

    Nadella said that, for now, most of his company's business is in the United States, Europe and the rest of Asia, so he does not see new policies and trade restrictions as a major issue apart from any disruption to supply chains.

  4. Resolved true Factual 12 December 2022
    “Our strategic partnership will bring together the industry leadership of @LSEGplc with the trust and breadth of the Microsoft Cloud to deliver next generation services that will empower the future of…”

    Microsoft and London Stock Exchange Group have a strategic partnership combining LSEG's industry position with the Microsoft Cloud to deliver next-generation financial markets services.

  5. Resolved true Factual 24 May 2022
    “it's the biggest entertainment category that is digital category.”

    Gaming is the biggest digital entertainment category.

All of them

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