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Amazon, Microsoft Cut Cloud Storage Prices
February 6, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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Last April, Microsoft agreed that it would match Amazon’s Web Services’ (AWS’) prices for compute, storage and bandwidth.
So when Amazon announced last Thursday that it would cut its S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Elastic Block Store (EBS) prices by up to 22%, Microsoft followed suit the very next day.
“We are matching AWS’ lowest prices (US East Region) for S3 and EBS, reducing prices by up to 20% and making the lower prices available in all regions worldwide,” Microsoft posted in its official blog.
For Microsoft’s “Locally Redundant Disks/Page Blobs Storage,” the company is reducing prices by up to 28%. It is also reducing the price of Azure Storage service by 50%.
Amazon’s new prices take effect Feb. 1. Microsoft’s price cuts begin March 13.
“We’re also making the new prices effective worldwide, which means that Azure storage will be less expensive than AWS in many regions,” Microsoft said.
Amazon said it dropped its prices for its S3 storage by 22% and its EBS standard volume storage and I/O operations by up to 50%.
IBM Moves Into Oracle And HP Turf
Big Blue wants to take on competitors such as Oracle and Hewlett Packard by offering a cheap and cheerful Power Systems server and storage product range.
Rod Adkins, a Senior Vice President in IBM’s Systems & Technology Group said the company was was rolling out new servers based on its Power architecture with the Power Express 710 starting at $5,947. He said that the 710 is competitively priced to commodity hardware from Oracle and HP.
Adkins added that IBM is expanding its Power and Storage Systems business into SMB and growth markets. The product launches on Tuesday. IBM said it will start delivering by February 20.