"Primitives not frameworks"
This is why Amazon beat Google in the "as a Service" space. Google provided a framework with AppEngine, but customers wanted the flexibility of the primitives offered by AWS.
This is why Amazon beat Google in the "as a Service" space. Google provided a framework with AppEngine, but customers wanted the flexibility of the primitives offered by AWS.
The narrative shifted away from PaaS for a number of reasons, but the value prop is still present.
(Disclaimer: work on BigQuery, a DBaaS, which is, in my opinion, is clearly the future)
Plenty of people in the web hosting industry offered competitive x86 linux instances or dedicated servers, way prior to 2006.
I think AMZN deserves credit for delivering a price compelling option that delivered (1) elasticity (per hour billing) and (2) automation (API, available in minutes), among other things.
Offer IaaS first, the PaaS. Google had it backward.
While AWS does have a small vendor lock in too, in the end it's still recognizable , I mean it's doable for example to move an AWS architecture to open stack without a major code rewrite. If you built your web app on GAE and GWT however, your investment to move it out of Google will be much bigger.