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Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

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Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#81

Post by Lewisham »

sdaityari wrote: post #72
mani04 wrote: post #18

How about Google App Engine for startups? They give a free tier, which I presume is free for life as long as the web application stays within quota. Ofcourse there is lock-in, there is no free lunch anywhere! But it should be ok for startups with no capital, who just want to figure out their business model. Once the idea is validated, they can always learn from the experience, and rewrite the application if platform…

One thing that Azure and EC2 gives that Google App Engine does not is root access to VMs. Modifying my models with respect to the App Engine doesn't really seem like a good idea. Maybe I am too lazy to do that, but I just don't want to leave something that gives me a whole new machine on the cloud!

While you can't get root on App Engine, you can get root on a Google Compute Engine instance, and you can use Cloud SQL for a standard data backend. You don't have to use a keystore deal like the old days anymore (pre-2011).

Disclaimer: I'm a dev on Cloud SQL.

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#82

Post by JOnAgain »

rwg wrote: post #19
goldenkey wrote: post #3

You got a bill because you went over the free tier. I've had the same thing and talked to Amazon and they wiped the bill and credited me with $200 worth of credit for the inconvenience and misunderstanding. Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual…

Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. BizSpark giving away three years of $150/mo Azure credit is shady, but Amazon giving away one year of the free tier is not shady? That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual Studio, other MS software, so when you are profitable, you pay them through…

There are 2 classes of services on AWS: infrastructure and platform. It's important not to confuse them. Infrastructure includes EC2, S3, ELB, and things of that nature. Platform includes Beanstalk, Dynamo, EMR, and things of that nature.

In general, Amazon's infrastructure offerings are explicitly trying to be commodity, and compete as such. E.g. lower cost, minimal lock in. If you configure servers using chef or other configuration system, and if you wrap all your service calls, it's not challenging to move between vendors on the infrastructure level. Check out fog which helps you do just this: https://github.com/fog/fog

Amazon's platform offerings are pretty explicitly trying to build lock in -- explicit in that they're often free (Beanstalk) and really just trying to sell more infrastructure.

Microsoft, and specifically Windows, pursue a platform strategy. Them offering Linux is actually very novel for them, but it's still called WINDOWS Azure, and the word "Windows" has traditionally been synonymous with platform lock in. You write a program for Windows, it runs only on Windows, and you have to pay for Windows.

I'm excited for MS to get fully into the infrastructure business, but I see their offerings as reactionary to Amazon. Big corporate, windows-based companies are needing to do things in the cloud, and have been going to Amazon. I see Microsoft as trying to offer services to prevent them from leaving by letting them buy what they need from MS.

It's hard for me to imagine good reasons to actually start on Azure, though. They're not a price leader (dropping prices always seems reactionary to AWS price drops), they have limited selection of services (vs. AWS), limited people using them (weaker community support), and always seem clueless about the internet (SSL cert outage, anyone?). Unless you're a Windows only developer and can't work on Linux, I really don't know why I would choose them.

PS. Amazon has a startup program you can get in to. When we started on AWS, they gave us $10K in free services. I know $1K is pretty standard, but if you can get validation (investor? incubator?), they'll go higher.

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#83

Post by Patrick_Devine »

I have no idea how well Azure stacks up to AWS, however, when I read Shaumik's post I couldn't help but think it was some kind of guerrilla marketing tactic conceived by a faceless shill in the inner bowels of Microsoft's marketing department.

The What are you waiting for? Sign up for BizSpark already! comment really set my bullshit detector off. Shaumik, did you really take the time to go figure out the URL to their signup page to put in your blog post? Are they paying you for this stuff?

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#84

Post by ApacheEcho »

goldenkey wrote: post #3

You got a bill because you went over the free tier. I've had the same thing and talked to Amazon and they wiped the bill and credited me with $200 worth of credit for the inconvenience and misunderstanding. Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual…

People discrediting what they don't understand. The anti-microsoft sentiment is getting old. Grow up.

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#86

Post by _delirium »

darklegend wrote: post #71

We had a conversation with our BizSpark manager and you can also apply for BizSpark plus. This needs an additional review of your Startup, but if you succeed you get 10.000$ (or 15.000$ - not sure anymore) in Azure credits every month. Quite nice to get some traction at the beginning :-)

According to this page it's $5.000/mo for the first 12 months: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/plus/default.aspx

Also the front page says only startups who are members of designated startup-accelerator programs can apply, though it's entirely possible that could be waived by your BizSpark manager.

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#87

Post by soDotNet »

goldenkey wrote: post #3

You got a bill because you went over the free tier. I've had the same thing and talked to Amazon and they wiped the bill and credited me with $200 worth of credit for the inconvenience and misunderstanding. Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual…

"That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual Studio, other MS software, so when you are profitable, you pay them through the nose, because you are locked into proprietary anti-open-source bait."

Really? The author didn't use any of MS technology. What are you raging about?

"You weren't diligent, and didn't even reach out to Amazon. Instead you went with a shitty competitor and we're supposed to applaud that? What's the moral here?"

Like begging Amazon to wipe their bill because they are start up? MS gave them 3 years of hosting from the get go without begging. Again, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU RAGING ABOUT?

This here is why Hacker News is going down the toilet. Raging against something simply because hey it's Microsoft.

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#88

Post by soDotNet »

quink wrote: post #24
rwg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. BizSpark giving away three years of $150/mo Azure credit is shady, but Amazon giving away one year of the free tier is not shady? That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual Studio, other MS software, so when you are profitable, you pay them through…

Embrace, extend, extinguish. Justified or not, Microsoft's history makes it hard for me to trust them. AWS have wiped over $2000 in excess charges incurred by one of our instances' data transfer - we set up an alert after that - they've been awesome to us and we trust them and are now spending more and more every month.

Embrace, extend, extinguish. Justified or not, Microsoft's history makes it hard for me to trust them.

then don't use it. what the fuck does it got to do with embrace, extend, extinguish. Is Microsoft not allowed to offer something similar to what AWS offer?

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#89

Post by jaegerpicker »

harel wrote: post #76
goldenkey wrote: post #3

You got a bill because you went over the free tier. I've had the same thing and talked to Amazon and they wiped the bill and credited me with $200 worth of credit for the inconvenience and misunderstanding. Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual…

I had a similar incident where my free tier went over some restriction and charged me. Amazon wiped it out after one single email from me. And I got some free credits. Amazon's support is second to none, in any area. I have no experience with azure to make a comment but anything that uses microsoft tech is just not going to work for me, free or paid.

It's not Microsoft tech though. I run two python/django apps and a node.js app, back by a mongodb and two riak db's. They are running on CentOS5 and Ubuntu 13.04. How is any of that MS tech?

Re: Why I love the Microsoft BizSpark Programme

#90

Post by jaegerpicker »

shivaas wrote: post #4
goldenkey wrote: post #3

You got a bill because you went over the free tier. I've had the same thing and talked to Amazon and they wiped the bill and credited me with $200 worth of credit for the inconvenience and misunderstanding. Amazon wins, hands down. You get great Linux support and aren't locked into Microsoft's shady tactics of giving away free stuff to only screw you later. That's what Bizspark effectively does, gives you free Visual…

Spot on assessment. Ironically, the blog post felt like a MSFT sponsored post...

What? The comment has blatant falsehoods in it. Microsoft made some serious mistakes in the past but Azure really is a different product than they have ever offered. I don't care if people like it or not but at least be honest about it.
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