back to article Amazon bankrolling industry lobbying against Microsoft Azure should surprise no one

Amazon has reportedly been financing trade groups to discourage the award of large government cloud contracts to Microsoft Azure. According to Bloomberg, efforts to complain about Microsoft's cloud being anticompetitive – ostensibly by groups like the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE), the Coalition for …

  1. deadlockvictim

    Hmmm

    AWS» These collectives argue Microsoft unfairly locks customers into Azure, or makes it difficult or too expensive to run its software in rival clouds – such as Amazon Web Services, or AWS

    Is Amazon correct here?

    Or is it simply that AWS wants to unfairly lock in these companies instead?

    Is AWS actually more agreeable / more transparent with costs/services for the expanded world of database work than Azure?

    That this field is so complex, I expect that the answer is, 'it depends...'.

    1. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Re: Hmmm

      Amazon (and others) seem exercised that Microsoft's iron grip on the desktop/Office market gives it a leg up in the cloud market. It's also true that Microsoft has been very reluctant to see virtual desktops outside of its own cloud and has only relatively recently allowed a number of Office 365 apps to run on Amazon Workspaces.

      My personal view is that there is only a limited remaining time in which Windows and Office are independent products and that they will simply be folded into Azure - and at that point Amazon will be able to complain about vendor lock-in exactly as much as Microsoft could complain that the Amazon retail store doesn't run on Azure. In other words, crying "competition" is a lever that's becoming rapidly shorter - at least until such time as there's serious talk about unbundling cloud services, when you'll really hear the providers starting to scream.

      AWS has roughly 30% of the cloud computing market (depending on who you believe) and Microsoft around 20%. Microsoft's share will almost certainly grow, but a lot of that will simply be the displacement of traditional, on-premises business into the cloud. I can't honestly see customers heavily invested in Microsoft solutions decamping to AWS in large numbers. However, execs get their jobs by beating their chests, so that's what they'll continue to do.

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        "It's also true that Microsoft has been very reluctant to see virtual desktops outside of its own cloud"

        Not sure how they have got away with this so far - can't even run it on-prem unless using Azure Stack HCI (currently in preview until early next year). Yes, the broker is an Azure service but there's no reason that couldn't be incorportated into the AVD hosts - or added as a Windows Server role, or a separate virtual appliance.

  2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz

    Ha ha

    Still remember Microsoft resellers telling customers of our Linux version that they would be sued cos Linux was stolen from Sco

  3. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Unhappy

    To be fair to Amazon

    They're only copying a page from the Microsoft play book here...

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: To be fair to Amazon

      Also, and this comes from working having to implement people's shite in all sorts of cloud environments, most of the time Azure is the better option. AWS probably still wins on storage but however you look at it, all the cloud providers are in a feature race, adding all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff in that most people will never, ever use in the "Features War".

      I would rather the concentrated on doing what they currently do better and not keep deprecating things unnecessarily.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: most of the time Azure is the better option

        You really think that the cloud provider with the most unplanned outages, highest amount of major configuration fuck-ups and the longest track record of the worst security nightmares (such as OMIGOD, a mind-blowing display of incompetence and ignorance) is a better option?

        Sounds more like a case of the Stockholm syndrome to me.

        1. druck Silver badge

          Re: most of the time Azure is the better option

          Whoever downvoted the above, really does have their head in the clouds...

          ...and Microsoft's hand up their arse.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pox on both their houses

    hard to cheer on any of the fuckers.

    Hope they both burn to the ground like a tesla

    1. Snowy Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: pox on both their houses

      Maybe they can take each other our so an independent can win some of these contracts, the problem with that is it hard to be a small cloud provider.

  5. david 12 Silver badge

    Think of the children ...

    First heard the term "astroturfing" in conjunction with the "adult bookshop" industry. Nobody wants an "adult" shop in their suburb / shopping centre. Especially operators of existing sex shops don't want any more sex shops.

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