Amazon Web Services has a dominant position in the Cloud which leads people to think they are invincible and will win. But, there are weaknesses in AWS and for those who are fierce competitors, they are taking advantage of those weaknesses. There are some services when you push them hard, they break. Some things don’t scale like the way you thought they would.

When you have Microsoft, Google, IBM, and a whole range of other technology companies competing against you it is hard to sustain a dominant position.

Gigaom’s Barb Darrow posts on Microsoft, Google, and IBM vs. Amazon in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. You ever wonder what is so magical about the Gartner Quadrants?

Microsoft ranks #2, albeit a distant #2 to AWS

Gartner cited Microsoft’s “brand, existing customer relationships, history of running global-class consumer Internet properties, deep investments in engineering and aggressive road map.” Microsoft is second when it comes to IaaS market share, “albeit a distant second” to Amazon, they wrote. Microsoft is pushing Azure not only to dyed-in-the-wool Windows and .NET shops but as a development platform for mobile apps — not traditionally a strong suit for the company.

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Google does well on debut; IBM makes strides

Other highlights: Google gets props for its new public cloud, which became broadly available in March, so Google didn’t even show up last year. IBM Softlayer also showed huge improvement compared to Softlayer-less IBM, which was a laggard in last year’s report.

Also showing strong vision and ability to execute (but below AWS and Microsoft in both categories) were CenturyLink (now with Tier 3 aboard); CSC, which ranked second after AWS last year; and Verizon Terremark, which is building an ambitious public cloud from scratch.