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Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

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Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#121
post #13

Yet another example of competition working out well for the consumer. Innovation, price drops, etc. Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream...

It is called Eastern Europe - 100Mb/s for 20 euro a month with static IP and no traffic limits. Also we have right now large fiber to the home deployments.

100 mbps for 20 euros? That's quite a lot, for 28 euros I get 300 mbps outside of my country and gigabit inside.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is called Eastern Europe - 100Mb/s for 20 euro a month with static IP and no traffic limits. Also we have right now large fiber to the home deployments.

100 mbps for 20 euros? That's quite a lot, for 28 euros I get 300 mbps outside of my country and gigabit inside.

Country or ISP network?

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#123
post #94
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really ? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831435.aspx Virtual PC supports live migration. Seems like an easy way to do maintenance on the hosts. Does azure use live migration ?

I don't think Azure has a live migration. In fact, out of Google Cloud Platform, AWS and Azure only GCP has live migration of the running VMs.

It's worth noting that regardless of the fact that the underlying platform supports live migration, providing it as a service is requires an additional effort.

If users will favour GCE because of reduced downtime support due to the live migration support (or simply favour GCE because of they perceive it as a more advanced platform), then other providers will follow.

Right now it seems that it's all a price war, not yet a feature war. But prices can go down only to a point, then feature war will start showing it's effects, and it will be interesting.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#124
This is a great strategy by Microsoft and it's part of "1st Mobile & 1st Cloud" strategy which is being adopted by Microsoft New CEO. As Nokia X came into market where user will get 7 GB of free cloud & this will increased upto 10 GB if user allow camera access to the cloud. Cut-throat competition is about to begin in cloud market, each and every player are ready to compete with attractive offering.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#125
post #27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream... Yes, in most European countries. :)

Well that's disappointing then. I wasn't particularly impressed with the service I got at my various hosts' homes in the UK. Is it really the case that the last mile physical infrastructure is considered common there so any provider can use it?

The UK isn't really a "European" country in this regard; it still prefers inefficient private quasi-monopolies to properly functioning state services.

The UK "last mile" infrastructure is unbundled so you can get your DSL service through a wide variety of providers - but actual line speed upgrades and faults are still at the mercy of BT incompetence, and everyone has to pay them £15/month for "line rental" even if you don't want POTS.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#126

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't drastically reduce the price of their Windows instances. Microsoft is matching all of AWS prices, which means the Windows servers are more expensive than the Linux servers. Why not set your Windows server prices as the same as your Linux servers since you don't have to pay the licensing to yourself. This would make azure the easy choice for those running Windows servers. Maybe…

They do have to pay licensing, its money that goes from one business unit to another within the Microsoft Corp, thus to not destroy the Azure budget, they pass the license costs to you instead of eating it.

It's not as if one business unit can't give a "90% discount" to the other if the grand common leadership thinks it's a good idea... now, that would be anticompetitive to all other hosting providers, but it would makes sense as a tactic in the "great war against *nix" that they are 100% loosing on the server side :)

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#127
post #13

Yet another example of competition working out well for the consumer. Innovation, price drops, etc. Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream...

It is called Eastern Europe - 100Mb/s for 20 euro a month with static IP and no traffic limits. Also we have right now large fiber to the home deployments.

I would call it Central Europe, but yeah. Fiber to home 6 years ago, now it's 250Mbit for 15EUR. And it's not sole company either. The cities I live(d) in (in Czech Republic/Slovakia) have multiple ISPs offering 100+Mbit services. Coverage is great as well (in cities).

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#128
post #125
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's disappointing then. I wasn't particularly impressed with the service I got at my various hosts' homes in the UK. Is it really the case that the last mile physical infrastructure is considered common there so any provider can use it?

The UK isn't really a "European" country in this regard; it still prefers inefficient private quasi-monopolies to properly functioning state services. The UK "last mile" infrastructure is unbundled so you can get your DSL service through a wide variety of providers - but actual line speed upgrades and faults are still at the mercy of BT incompetence, and everyone has to pay them £15/month for "line rental" even if yo…

"properly functioning state services"

You obviously aren't old enough to remember when BT was part of the state owned post office. It wasn't great.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#129
post #13

Yet another example of competition working out well for the consumer. Innovation, price drops, etc. Can you imagine a world where consumer broadband had the same level of competition? Sigh...a nerd can dream...

It is called Eastern Europe - 100Mb/s for 20 euro a month with static IP and no traffic limits. Also we have right now large fiber to the home deployments.

100 Mbps? Try 1 Gbit/s for 15 euro.

Re: Microsoft Azure: Cutting prices on compute and storage

#130
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets even better than that if you're in an approved accelerator / incubator: you get $60,000 USD in hosting credits, at a rate of $5,000 a month. We're entirely hosted on Azure using their Linux VMs and have had a great experience with them so far.

Hmm, that doesn't really seem fair on those of us not going down that route

I think the reasoning is that if you convince an accelerator/incubator to accept you your product has a higher chance of succeeding. This will mean that the chance of you still existing (and starting to pay) after 3 years should be significantly higher.
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