As the tech titans prepare to square off in the great battle for cloud computing, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill says only two firms are likely to emerge as front-runners. “This is really a two-horse race, it’s Amazon and Microsoft, ” he told CNBC’s ” Squawk on the Street ” on Wednesday. “The rest of the industry is looking in on those two.” Amazon maintains a commanding lead in cloud, pioneering the space more than a decade ago . However, Thill believes Microsoft can take market share from the e-commerce giant. This will also help Microsoft’s artificial intelligence outlook, since firms have to move to the cloud to get ready for AI demands, the analyst said. “Microsoft just has so many sources of revenue that’s surrounding this AI story. … Amazon’s got a subset of that business,” Thill noted. “We think Amazon’s got a lot to prove on AI.” Big Tech was in focus Wednesday after Microsoft posted better-than-expected quarterly results that sent the stock up more than 2% . Google parent Alphabet, meanwhile, posted disappointing third-quarter cloud revenue and shares fell 9%. Amazon is slated to report earnings Thursday.
