Amazon won't spin off AWS. That's hurting AWS
forrestbrazeal.com
forrestbrazeal.com
Now, we can argue encryption and principles of least access until we're blue in the face, but when it comes down to it, Walmart execs simply don't want their data on AWS if there are alternatives. And ultimately, that's all that matters.
I don't see it as so much AWS/Google Cloud/Azure is bad, but, did you build something which is impossible to decouple from. That is an upstream cost risk. If a customer can seamlessly move between their own datacenters, AWS, Google, Azure, and so on, that is a good thing.
That is true of every cloud, certainly of Azure and GCP.
Building a "cloud independent" infrastructure is certainly possible, but it puts you at a huge disadvantage - you can't take advantage of any of the value-added services of the cloud provider.
> certainly of Azure and GCP.
Google's Kubernetes strategy means that this is currently not quite true of Google. Google must have decided that they were better off getting a large share of a smaller pie by creating an open sourcing Kubernetes. This seems quite likely to me: if Kubernetes "wins" then the profit margins will shrink due to competition but Google will be in a good position to become the premier Kubernetes hosting provider. And if Kubernetes wins, it'll be much harder for Google to lock in customers. For now and the foreseeable future both our and Google's incentives are aligned vis-a-vis open source Kubernetes. If K8S wins divergence will probably happen, but until then we'll enjoy the benefits.
Google is still a distant 3rd but without the Kubernetes strategy I think they'd be much worse off...
Use higher-level services (or even long-tail features of low-level services) that are differentiated between cloud providers from k8s, you are locked in.
Make k8s auth work cleanly with cloud auth, you're locked in.
Rely on a cloud provider service to manage master and/or worker nodes, you're locked in.
You can avoid lock-in by manually running a k8s cluster while using only the lowest-level services that every cloud providers offers (VM, block store, NFS, load balancer, maybe one or two others), but most people don't actually want to do this.
We'll never get to zero, and I'm sure that Google & Microsoft will eventually put more emphasis on complementary products that increase lock-in. But right now it's trending in the right direction.
11 years in, AWS has never raised prices for any service AFAIK despite holding a near monopoly on public cloud for quite some time.
Also, Amazon's "everything store" mentality pushes it up against industries that have never considered themselves retail before, expanding the definition of "retail" to the breaking point in some cases. A lot of companies have been surprised when Amazon expanded into an area they didn't expect, and given time a lot more companies might because there hasn't yet seemed to be a stop to Amazon's "everything store" expansion.
Even Microsoft lets its employees use Macs if they want. Use the best tool for the job.
How does anyone even find a service where it (or its providers) in some way shape or form don’t run on AWS?
The home field advantages companies have been getting away with lately tend to be tighter integrations (think Chromecast, Android, and Chrome). The only company that would pull something as bad as what's being feared is Oracle.
It's not to say it's entirely rational to boycott AWS like this, but I can understand the origin of it, and it's not like you can easily say no to a Walmart if you're some SaaS startup and they're offering you a massive contract if you can get off of AWS.
The only thing stopping them from routinely cloning stuff they see on AWS is nothing. They are accused of using vendor sales data to decide which products to clone, well that front-row seat watching you scale infers revenue too. Whenever Bezos wants Amazon will assign thousands of developers to cherry-picking SaaS and software to clone.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partn...
Cloning is just practice for many developers.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
The reality is, in 2 years, there's a non-trivial likelihood that organizations like that may not be giving out those kinds of contracts at all. Too critical. Too much value add going forward. To own that infrastructure will confer too much competitive advantage for, say, Target to allow Walmart to build that out unchallenged. If you're in the business of serving large retailers services like this, you should probably be wargaming out some possible pivots before the market for those services begins to shrink.
But there's a silver lining to those changes for everyone else, it's entirely possible that these retailers may go into providing those services that are going to start being on the critical path so to speak. Think Walmart and Target building out AWS competitors, or package delivery services, etc etc.
But wmt seems to have mostly woken up and correctly organized their power structure to empower the e-commerce arm. They even brought in an outsider (founder of jet.com).
Is this true? That gives me a warm feeling of hope.
But that's their whole 'competitive disadvantage'. WaPo and amazon are already separate. The fact that AWS would be separate on paper has very little gravity also.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612335/amazon-is-the-invi...
Also, even in case of a spin-off, I don't really understand why would Jeff Bezos get out of the picture, either — wouldn't he remain the primary shareholder?
Pretty much all of the arguments in the whole article are both invalid and unsound.
The protesters stood up one at a time during the keynote, yelled "Cut ties with ICE", and were escorted out. Then a couple minutes later the next one would start. I don't know whether they were engineers or not, but there was quite a bit of awkward clapping for them, and it cast a shadow over the rest of the event. I spent about half the event googling for what they were talking about, then for AWS alternatives to what I'm using and making plans, and I doubt I was the only one. It was extremely effective.
And why is this bad, exactly?
The fewer orgs use and depend exclusively on AWS, the better we'll all be as an industry.
The whole idea that we'd take years of FLOSS work and stuck it into the black-box cloud which we can't control, is pretty absurd if you think about it.
Here's a good article on the issues:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
You're hiring a new software engineer. You've got one candidate who's a bonafide genius, but young and can't communicate very well. You've got another candidate who seems to be within 80% of the skill level of the former, but came recommended by a trusted third party and can clearly communicate with the team. Which do you pick?
Donald Trump doesn't like the Washington Post so it lost a contract and protestors interrupted a talk about AWS facial recognition.
How will this be solved by spinning it off? The first is that he thinks a different CEO would be better and the second isn't going to change because AWS is a huge cloud company and people aren't stupid that they won't realise the name has changed.
And it's known as Amazon Web services even if they rebranded to just AWS.
It would be a stupid move to change such a strong brand name to something else.
The fact that Amazon is also a retail shopping site / now owns whole foods causes a lot of high end/large retail giants to NOT use AWS and actively have in their contracts that they will not do business with a company if AWS is their cloud provider.
There are exceptions, like if you stand up infrastructure specifically for the retail client that's against using AWS in another cloud instance (And I'm sure there are other exceptions out there).
But this is something that negatively impacts Amazon / AWS. I think ultimately though that's a business decision that they are welcome to make for themselves and I don't think really impacts the end AWS user.
On another note, look how Apple both competes with Samsung and use Samsung parts for iPhones.
The industry is all about co- optition
Netflix also don't really have an option, outside of building their own cloud, since Microsoft and Google also have video streaming. It's a little different if you're a Sears or Walmart, and you're not directly competing with the other providers.
Same with Apple and Samsung. Sometimes you're stuck buying from competition because they're the only people making the thing you need. It doesn't mean you're happy about it or wouldn't jump ship if possible.
https://www.se-radio.net/2014/12/episode-216-adrian-cockcrof...
Just noting what I've seen from projects that I've actively worked on first hand.
(Also Walmart and Target are far from the only ones that do this, just using them as examples.)
The rest of the points are much more solid if you can make it past that first flawed one.
If you're building out a new company right now and get to pick your cloud provider, how confident are you that in 5 years, Amazon won't be selling a competing product to yours? And if you're starting from nothing, why not just use GCP or Azure and avoid that risk?
This isn't even Amazon's problem, I'm not sure what anyone is meant to do about the President of the USA being a petulant child, other than just take their lumps.
Whole article is a bit odd tbh, doesn't seem like AWS is really struggling.