back to article AWS works on 'urgent' deals for UK customers as £ dips against $

Amazon Web Services has claimed it is trying to shield cloudy customers in the UK from the plunge in value of sterling against the US dollar following June’s vote to leave the EU. The titan told us it is looking at re-architecting bulk-saving programmes and grant programmes to tempt startups, SMBs and other businesses away …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    It's not hard

    "Amazon’s prices are billed in dollars and converted to pounds"

    Well here is a shockingly easy answer. Bill in local currency.

    Ahhh, but tax avoidance. That won't work so easy with that will it?

    1. JBFUK

      Re: It's not hard

      Couldn't agree more.

  2. tgm

    ...rather than simply paying as you go

    The problem with Amazon constantly lowering their prices, is that ironically, it leads to people being less likely to commit long term. One two occasions now I've purchased reserved instances for 36 month terms, only to hear of a price cut two weeks later!

    I know that logic suggests that buying 12 month leases or even paying as you go (even factoring in future price cuts) is still more expensive that a 36 month term, it's really frustrating to hear that if I'd have waited two weeks, I'd have got a better deal!

    1. IsJustabloke
      Megaphone

      Re: ...rather than simply paying as you go

      That applys to everything in the world of IT... if I buy widget "x" today I *know* it'll be cheaper in a couple of weeks time

      It was ever thus.

      1. goldcd

        Aside from the currency tanking..

        I was just about to by myself a new shiny GPU - then the prices all went up by ~£50 across the board.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Pound in Your Pocket ...

    is worth less today that it was before the vote ... that is long and the short of it. On the other hand is you were holding dollars or euros you are quids in. It is a significant transfer of wealth to those with large holdings not in pounds. Those without two farthings or two cents to their name are screwed either way the FX rate moves. Putting the poor back into poor old Great Britain.

    1. pdh

      Re: The Pound in Your Pocket ...

      > Those without two farthings or two cents to their name are screwed either way

      But those who have debts that are denominated in pounds are winners, are they not? They owe less in real terms than they did three weeks ago.

      1. paulf
        Headmaster

        Re: The Pound in Your Pocket ...

        @pdh "But those who have debts that are denominated in pounds are winners, are they not? They owe less in real terms than they did three weeks ago."

        Nominally their debts are unchanged, excepting any payments made in the last 3 weeks, because £1 = £1!

        The only people with debts in pounds who will benefit from the falling pound are those who are repaying those debts with incomes in a currency that has strengthened compared to Sterling (e.g. US$).

  4. Aitor 1

    They just won't try to contact us

    We have to strike a 10.000 pound deal with a cloud provider, and we can't even get them on the phone.

    They don't appaer to be interested, so they have discarded themselves as providers.

    I know it is not a big amount of money, but it should be enough for someone to just call us.

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: They just won't try to contact us

      Unusual, normally you can't get the buggers to stop calling.

  5. toplard

    Irrational fear of the timid enterprise. So they may be getting less for their pound. What about the foreign traders in our goods? They must now be getting more. Supply and demand will now make the stuff we sell to them more attractive - all else being equal nothing will change. Curious how so few recognise this knowledge a small child could understand?

    1. MonkeyCee

      Balance of trade

      "What about the foreign traders in our goods? They must now be getting more. Supply and demand will now make the stuff we sell to them more attractive"

      Like any economics that a child could understand, it's not actually true. Or to be fair, the usual answer is "it's complicated" :)

      The UK is a net importer of goods and services, so things are not equal. Currently imports are declining slightly, but exports have declined even more so.

      All the bumf about how this helps exporters, and will somehow increase UK manufacturing ignores reality. The UK doesn't have lower wages or higher productivity than it's direct competitors (other technologically advanced nations) and is in no way able to compete with more developing economies.

      Much of the UKs manufacturing base is highly taxpayer subsidised, to the point where it'd actually be cheaper to import finished goods and just pay the workers directly.

      Another issue is if you're planning on buying from a regular supplier, you want to avoid volatility in pricing. Since there clearly isn't a plan for brexit, why risk buying from a UK based business when an EU or US based one will likely be more consistent. At *best* the UK business will be like an EU one, but depending on how negotiations go there may be tariffs or restrictions that come into place.

      What worries me is that this is all from a non-binding referendum, without any clarity as to what exactly "leave the EU" entails, and the exact details of single market access for goods and services is possibly going to make this worse.

      The free movement of people is slightly less relevant from a financial perspective, since lessening EU immigration will result in increased migration from the rest of the world, so labor markets will be similar.

      Best of all the UK gets an unelected PM. Which should at least lose the cons the next election, if the party survives that long.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Balance of trade

        Being an unelected PM didn't lose John Major the 1992 election.

        What is a more important factor in the next election is the opposition presenting an electable candidate, because they haven't got a great track record for that. The current one, who is clinging on to his dream of a place in history by his fingernails, is the modern day Michael Foot. I mean that bad, he is sub-Kinnock.

      2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Balance of trade

        If the vote had been a list of approaches (remain, Norway-style deal, complete withdrawal reliant on WTO rules, etc..), remain would have won, hands down. Now we have a slender majority for leave, but no clear majority for any type of relationship with the EU. This is going to be fun.

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Balance of trade

        "Best of all the UK gets an unelected PM."

        Tosh! I didn't vote for Cameron. I couldn't, even if I wanted too. I don't live in his constituency of Witney. *All* PMs are "unelected" as far as 99% of the UK is concerned because that's how our system works. The party leader usually becomes the PM, but that's not a given in law. The PM doesn't even have to be an MP.

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