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Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

chargedretail.co.uk

21–30 of 516 posts

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#21
If Hetzner ( Also from Germany ) cant / isn't competing with AWS, why does Lidl thinks they can?

It then also mention Delivery in UK, and ecommerce projects. Which makes me doubt if the publication knows what AWS really is.

The whole piece ( If you can even call it a piece ) is very poor reporting, to the point I am thinking of should I be flagging this.

Edit: Please Read Comment by Cu3PO42 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23151233.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#22

This seems sufficiently unlikely that I wonder if something has been lost in translation. My guess would be that Lidl does expect to do something innovative in e-commerce (around, say, augmented reality) and is planning to offer that as a service to other retailers, hence the comparison with Amazon's strategy. I can't believe that Lidl is planning to compete with S3 or EC2.

It's Lidl's parent company that's launching the service, after buying a cloud provider. The headline is just stupid. It's equivalent to an article titled "Whole Foods runs AWS".

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#23
post #13

I doubt the headline properly captures their intent, the article itself is very light on details, but this quote might shine some light at it: "Lidl’s parent company Schwarz Group is taking on Amazon by launching its own cloud computing service for third party retailers." My guess would be that they are not aiming to compete with AWS per se, rather to offer infrastructure and services for online stores, which could p…

I would think so, too. Considering that Lidl is the biggest discounter with around 11,000 branches worldwide, it might make sense for them to ditch AWS and set up their own, independent infrastructure.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#24
post #16

I'm currently getting a 500 on the link. Here's [1] an alternative source, originally in German but put through Google Translate. There's three things to note there: it's not Lidl itself, but the parent company doing this, and the plans were announced late last year. Also they're building out the infrastructure for internal use first and are not necessarily looking to offer a cloud to customers, though they may work…

If this is the case it would make more sense. Just a note your link is still pointing to the same source.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#25

I'm really confused why they think european data protection laws are likely to be a big barrier. I think Amazon is well poised to let you choose regions for things, and unless LIDL knows something we don't, will probably be able to adapt to almost any new regulations as well or as fast as Lidl could. I also wonder why I would trust LIDL to execute on a vital part of infrastructure for us, when they can't manage an SA…

American companies so far have been really bad at actually complying with regulations like the GDPR - many do on the surface level, but if you're a European company that wants to do things right and not take risks on the interpretation of things like "consent", suddenly your pool of potential third-party data processors drops significantly. There's a serious cultural issue there.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#26
post #10

I've come across a bunch of startups in SV with the premise of competing with AWS. Pretty big mountain to climb.

The resources Schwarz group has are quite large. Also, EU has zeigeist that they need their own massive cloud providers. So think it as a new flavour of Boeing vs Airbus, if you will. Hopefully with not so many state subsidies.

How large are their resources? Keep in mind we are talking about clod computing here where the big 3 themselves should be doing 60-70 billion dollars in sales yearly, so large has to be relative to the Industry.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#27

Ignorant American here who has never heard of Lidl/Schwarz Group before. Is there anything in their history that would show that they know how to do compute? Is their infrastructure right now really solid/better than AWS?

European (BE) here, no. They are just know for being cheap stores and have time to time crazy promo on an limited article. You can't even rly do all of your groceries there. Unless you only eat frozen chickens, chips, soda and vegetable cans.

Their website is slow af btw (4s to display a detail page).

So if they want to do an AWS like. They'll need to invest. Its not like Amazon : hey we've a bunch of unused servers why we don't rent them?

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#28
post #5

In Sweden Lidl is know for being suspiciously cheap, they're even playing on it in their ads here. They had a marketing stunt where a chef started a luxury pop-up restaurant and the payoff was that it was all Lidl ingredients. "You can cook good food EVEN though you're using Lidl stuff" I'm not 100% sure that's what I want of a cloud provider.

They own most of the brands. The production facilities are in Eastern Europe (mostly Poland) so they take advantage of cheap labor and huge volumes.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#29
post #16

I'm currently getting a 500 on the link. Here's [1] an alternative source, originally in German but put through Google Translate. There's three things to note there: it's not Lidl itself, but the parent company doing this, and the plans were announced late last year. Also they're building out the infrastructure for internal use first and are not necessarily looking to offer a cloud to customers, though they may work…

here is an archive http://archive.is/yICx0

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#30
post #5

In Sweden Lidl is know for being suspiciously cheap, they're even playing on it in their ads here. They had a marketing stunt where a chef started a luxury pop-up restaurant and the payoff was that it was all Lidl ingredients. "You can cook good food EVEN though you're using Lidl stuff" I'm not 100% sure that's what I want of a cloud provider.

Suspiciously cheap? I love to shop at Lidl because they're great value for money. Quite often the quality is better than more expensive supermarkets but at a much lower price. Also by and large they're very consistent.

They fulfill the adage that "you don't need a lot of choices, just one good choice."

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