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Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

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Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#161

Post by ThePhysicist »

d33 wrote: post #149
ThePhysicist wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We host a lot of our infrastructure on Hetzner Cloud and are very happy, but to be fair it's a long long shot away from what AWS offers. You basically only have compute, storage and networking, only three datacenters and two regions to choose from and no managed services at all. You also can't do advanced networking like announcing your own IP addresses (Hetzner only allows that in colocation). You also only have a f…

> RAM maxing out at 32 GB This part is just not accurate. I'm running their dedicated server with 256 GiB RAM right now.

Me and the parent commenter are talking about the Hetzner cloud offering, where the largest instances have 32 GB of RAM (https://www.hetzner.de/cloud). Sure you can get a dedicated server there with much more RAM and you can host your own hardware in their colocation facilities, but that has nothing to do with cloud computing in the common understanding of the term.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#162

Post by [deleted] »

d33 wrote: post #149
ThePhysicist wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We host a lot of our infrastructure on Hetzner Cloud and are very happy, but to be fair it's a long long shot away from what AWS offers. You basically only have compute, storage and networking, only three datacenters and two regions to choose from and no managed services at all. You also can't do advanced networking like announcing your own IP addresses (Hetzner only allows that in colocation). You also only have a f…

> RAM maxing out at 32 GB This part is just not accurate. I'm running their dedicated server with 256 GiB RAM right now.

[deleted]

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#163

Post by bildung »

wolfgke wrote: post #108
dna_polymerase wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, their store managers do inventory manually, which means they have to order items they run low on, no tech insight. Their attempt at setting up SAP failed after burning 500 million on it. Delivery robots, Amazon-style prototypes for cashier-less systems, heck, even Instacart like delivery are nowhere to be found. If Amazon decided to enter the German supermarket landscape, Lidl (also, Aldi and others) woul…

> If Amazon decided to enter the German supermarket landscape, Lidl (also, Aldi and others) would be in serious trouble. I doubt that since I think that Amazon's vision is very different from what many German customers want. Here is a (German) text of a German blogger who went to Amazon Books in the Empire State Building. His experience was not positive: > https://www.danisch.de/blog/2019/06/18/ein-seltsamer-einkauf.…

That wouldn't even be legal in Germany (and I guess the EU), pricing has to be clearly labelled, and additionally has to have a price per common unit if the package has a different size (e.g. a 3.5l bottle of detergent would show €/litre).

I wonder why they don't just use e-ink price labels? These are common around here for a decade or so.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#164

Post by Chiron1991 »

d33 wrote: post #149
ThePhysicist wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We host a lot of our infrastructure on Hetzner Cloud and are very happy, but to be fair it's a long long shot away from what AWS offers. You basically only have compute, storage and networking, only three datacenters and two regions to choose from and no managed services at all. You also can't do advanced networking like announcing your own IP addresses (Hetzner only allows that in colocation). You also only have a f…

> RAM maxing out at 32 GB This part is just not accurate. I'm running their dedicated server with 256 GiB RAM right now.

He's taling about the cloud servers, they are indeed capped at 32GB. You're talking root servers. https://www.hetzner.com/cloud

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#165

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

Torwald wrote: post #156
lowdose wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the typical innovators problem you describe and that is pretty international. I do think you have a point about culture and in Europe in general software engineering is not seen as such a value adding activity as in the US. Salaries are less than $100k even in senior positions and I think because of this more talent has moved to the cutting edge technology companies in the US than Europe wants to admit.

This is much bigger than your comment makes it out to be. There used to be a real IT industry in Ger. We had Siemens-Nixdorf as a very decent global player. We had Commodore producing their PCs in Braunschweig. Now all that's left is the relative newcomer SAP.

The tech industry you are referring to(SiemensNixdorf/Commodore) was mostly consumer hardware and has along with the likes of Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson long moved to Asia or disappeared all together as margins are thin in that business and cost of labor is too high in Germany.

Consumer focused software is where the big money is now an that is unfortunately a huge vacuum in the German tech sector.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#166

Post by occamrazor »

paganel wrote: post #134
benjohnson1707 wrote: post #96

Former Schwarz employee here: The company made SO much money in the past 4 decades with big box / discount retailing, you won't believe it. Salaries are off the charts (it would make senior software engineers in SV look pale). Hubris is as well. The only thing that drives reasoning are statements like 'we're not just some random company, we're Schwarz Group'. It's the poster child Corp described by Andy Gorves statem…

> Salaries are off the charts Just to add another data point, Lidl is also the retailer that pays the best market salaries in the Eastern-European country where I live in (they actually included that in several of their hiring ads), and I'm talking about shop people like cashiers and the people that put things on the shelves. > They are getting into the car sales and recycle business as well. In here they've also ope…

I guess you mean the 2nd person form (du or ihr fir singular or plural) instead of the 3rd person plural (Sie), which is the courtesy form fir singular and plural.

Yes, in German it’s a big deal, roughly the same as saying “Hey dude” instead of “Good morning Mr Smith”.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#167

Post by dede4metal »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #153
asjw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Salaries are off the charts Are they? I received few offers from them and their salaries where in par with what I earn in Italy (around 100k) which is very good for Europe but not as much as SV

Just out of curiosity what do you do that earns you 100k in Italy if I may ask? Most Italians I met working in Austria and Germany left Italy because of low salaries and they're not making anything close to 100k here either. I've even met Italians who moved to Eastern Europe for higher tech salaries than back home so something doesn't add up.

To earn that in Italy in IT I only know a partner at Deloitte. Everyone else is well below that.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#168

Post by andarleen »

paganel wrote: post #134
benjohnson1707 wrote: post #96

Former Schwarz employee here: The company made SO much money in the past 4 decades with big box / discount retailing, you won't believe it. Salaries are off the charts (it would make senior software engineers in SV look pale). Hubris is as well. The only thing that drives reasoning are statements like 'we're not just some random company, we're Schwarz Group'. It's the poster child Corp described by Andy Gorves statem…

> Salaries are off the charts Just to add another data point, Lidl is also the retailer that pays the best market salaries in the Eastern-European country where I live in (they actually included that in several of their hiring ads), and I'm talking about shop people like cashiers and the people that put things on the shelves. > They are getting into the car sales and recycle business as well. In here they've also ope…

I hear a lot of horror stories about German management working at Cluj Napoca’s tech companies, and beyond. If left unchecked they will continue doing so.

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#169

Post by chx »

benjohnson1707 wrote: post #96

Former Schwarz employee here: The company made SO much money in the past 4 decades with big box / discount retailing, you won't believe it. Salaries are off the charts (it would make senior software engineers in SV look pale). Hubris is as well. The only thing that drives reasoning are statements like 'we're not just some random company, we're Schwarz Group'. It's the poster child Corp described by Andy Gorves statem…

> Stratechery posting about why Google failed with GCP

I believe you meant https://stratechery.com/2019/the-value-chain-constraint/

Re: Lidl to Launch Rival to AWS

#170

Post by Certhas »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #93
barbecue_sauce wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only been to Lidls in the US, but their stores seem pretty streamlined to me.

In Germany, their store managers do inventory manually, which means they have to order items they run low on, no tech insight. Their attempt at setting up SAP failed after burning 500 million on it. Delivery robots, Amazon-style prototypes for cashier-less systems, heck, even Instacart like delivery are nowhere to be found. If Amazon decided to enter the German supermarket landscape, Lidl (also, Aldi and others) woul…

Look at the evidence. Lidl (and ALDI) are exapnding all over the world. Meanwhile Walmart decided to pull out of Germany because the competition was to tough.

ALDI and Lidl are world class at selling a limited selection of medium quality goods to a massive audience at extremely cheap prices.

It's unclear how any of the technologies you mentioned would improve that core competence. It's also unclear that any of them could threaten that core business. Maybe we will all get our groceries delivered by drones in twenty years, but it's not obvious that that is true. And it's not obvious that being a follower on this, rather than a leader is inefficient for LIDL.

I could turn it around and say that in the US there seems to be a penchant for high-tech solutions "just because" rather than thinking about whether they make sense. One example: In Germany we don't have any voting machines, never was even seriously discussed. Every ballot needs to be counted by hand. Yet final counts are available on the night (with further verification done later). Some analysis based on experiences in the Netherlands also suggests that it's cheaper to do it that way.

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