Earlier this month, Amazon Web Services kicked off the New Year by announcing a 5% price cut to select instances running Linux.
Not to be outdone, Microsoft has also recently announced a 10-17% price drop for its Azure Dv2 Virtual Machines.
This back-and-forth may seem exhausting to spectators, but cloud customers have seen legitimate benefits from the rivalry over the last two years.
No, this isn’t the first time these providers have reduced prices for cloud services.
In fact, this marks the 51st time for Amazon and Microsoft has stated their “longstanding commitment to making [their] prices comparable on commodity services like compute, storage, and bandwidth relative to Amazon Web Services.”
Currently, the entry-level pricing for cloud computing is 66% lower than it was a couple of years ago and due to extreme competition, getting even lower.
Fortunately, the chess match between these two technology giants has proven itself extremely beneficial to its customers.
Since cloud migration is easier than ever, providers are forced to consistently keep their customers satisfied and coming back for more. If one doesn’t fulfill your needs, the other will most certainly find a way to do so.
Therefore, along with price reductions, Microsoft and AWS are constantly innovating and adding new products to stay competitive.
For example, Microsoft noted in its latest announcement the benefits of their per-minute pricing as opposed to Amazon’s per-hour pricing. With Azure, “you only pay for the compute that you use.”
Yet, AWS continues to lead the pack in IaaS and PaaS solutions, with Microsoft following closely behind.
As for which is a better value? It’s hard to say.
Tariff Consultancy’s report claims Amazon as the winner when it comes to pairing low cost with innovation.
They believe that “the market share and computing power of AWS gives the company a considerable advantage in providing economies of scale which are passed on to the user.”
However, Microsoft’s continual competition may change that.
No matter which cloud-computing service you choose, it’s imperative to stay updated on the features that make your business run smoothly.
So if you’re having trouble choosing a side, we offer both Azure and AWS courses to give you a comprehensive knowledge of cloud development.
See for yourself!