back to article Microsoft sharpens blade, slashes high-mem cloud prices in Amazon duel

Microsoft has opened up yet another front in its ongoing cloud price war with Amazon by cutting prices of its high-memory servers by as much as 22 percent. The price drop was announced on Friday and sees Microsoft lower the cost of its 2-core, 14GB RAM A5 server instance to $0.32 per hour for Linux, along with similar price …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah, this could get interesting..

    First of all, a price war tends to cause damage to the product IMHO, but it'll be interesting to watch this one. Microsoft has got a rather long history of predatory pricing (Internet explorer, anyone?), but this time they're up against someone who has at least a sizeable war chest. And they're Microsoft, which doesn't help either.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: Ah, this could get interesting..

      Worth mentioning that Microsoft's Azure storage performance is significantly faster than amazon too....So it's not just a price difference.

  2. W. Anderson

    critical compoent in Cloud comparisons

    One critical aspect of this Microsoft versus Amazon Cloud pricing war is that no mater the paper specifications of Microsoft's Azure Cloud as compared the Amazon's EC2 offering, the underlying technology of Windows Server from Microsoft does not and cannot compare or compete favourably in any way with Amazon's Linux platform in Reliability, Robustness/Performance, Scalability and most importantly Security.

    Two noted recent developments underscore this statement:

    One, Netflix chose FreeBSD Software and networking services, over any Microsoft offerings, for thousands of 'Appliance' Servers for streaming millions of movies to subscribers every week. Microsoft performed poorly in evaluations.

    Verisign, one of the largest Domain Certificate Authorities on the Internet, scaled up it's FreeBSD operations that added to it's Linux infrastructure. Microsoft is less than bit player there.

    There are dozens, even hundreds or thousands more stories of small to very large scale technology projects - like two mentioned here, and that include IBM, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, NASA, eBAY, all the Financial Stock Exchanges and others that rely on *NIX (Unix and/ or Linux) for their primary OS software infrastructure. Even Dell (maybe not now with MS on board) and HP are offering their own "OpenStack" based cloud Services.

    There is little or no coherent or 'truthful' discussion on Microsoft centric forums and blogs even admitting such challenges or considerations

  3. defiler

    Why the extra Windows tax?

    If i were Microsoft, I'd offer Windows at the same cost per hour as Linux. They always try to impress that the TCO is lower with Windows, so that should be reflected in this. And I'll bet they can cut themselves a cosy deal on the license cost.

    They should offer price parity to squeeze everyone else out of the market. Not that I want to see them dominate.

    1. W. Anderson

      Re: Why the extra Windows tax?

      This commenter 'defiler' "assumes" that the competitive edge Microsoft would have over Amazon is lowest price to substantially increase Cloud Services revenue. He makes no case, nor could he on the capabilities advantages of Windows Cloud Services over Linux, such as Reliability, Performance, Scalability and particularly strong Security.

      Plus, he is forgetting, or has no expert technical knowledge on other aspects of providing a robust Cloud service like the underlying Database infrastructure, proxy services and virtualization support for the many non-Microsoft front end access to Cloud Services required today like Apple and Android tablet edge products that are a nightmare for Microsoft to efficiently provide..

      In most if not all apples to apples comparisons of Microsoft Azure versus Amazon, RedHat and/or IBM Linux Cloud Services, it take two to three times more Microsoft based infrastructure in place to come anywhere near the equivalent of the Linux performance, scalability and flexibility advantage.

      these are technological considerations that 'defiler' probably has little or no expertise or professional experience with, and therefore makes very simple but uninformed comments about.

      Bottom line - lowest price on lower quality, performance and less secure solution is no bargain at all.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why the extra Windows tax?

        Hi Eadon. Nice try at altering the language but it's obvious you are the same tedious troll.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why the extra Windows tax?

        Speaking of uninformed . . . Not sure your points are even valid as customers can run linux on Azure which would be an apples to apples comparison. The fact is linux workloads would cost less on Azure and would have the "Linux performance, scalability and flexibility" you speak of.

        The "additional costs" of a windows based platform . . . if your talking about at the application level there are many other factors that enter a ROI calculation that tip the scale to windows in the enterprise space. So raw compute and infrastructure on linux may cost less but the overall cost in many enterprises is considered to be higher after considering things like corporate infrastructure, communication networks, human resources and other items.

        If you believe the "additional costs" are in the underlying cloud infrastructure your logic is even more flawed. The Azure platform is widely considered to be equal to or better than the other major commercial clouds in performance, availability and scalability. The cost of delivering the cloud services even if it was more costly on Azure, is a moot point as that does not impact the price to the end user.

        1. W. Anderson

          Re: Why the extra Windows tax?

          Who are the "widely considered" entities that say " Azure platform is widely considered to be equal to or better than the other major commercial clouds in performance, availability and scalability."

          Unfortunately most of those commenting on these forums supporting Microsoft NEVER,repeat NEVER have any supporting "facts" to offer, just "most peoplesay" , or" I love their Clouds" and other baseless, stupid assertions.

          IBM stated that Linux Cloud Services are superior to Windows, Netflix stated that FreeBSD infrastructure, used for Cloud Computing is far superior to Microsoft, with proof of implementation results, Salesforce stated that Linux Cloud technology is vastly superior to Windows cloud technology in every way.Even Dell and HP announced supporting OpenStack Cloud Services over Windows cloud Services, that is until Dell absorbed Microsoft $billions into it's private enterprise buyout.

          What is about Microsoft dupes that do not respond to "facts" or "reality"?

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