More and more companies are moving their information assets to the cloud. This, in turn, has led to intense competition among cloud service providers, including technology giants Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft and others. In the most recent turn in this race, there's news that Google is cutting its cloud computing service prices.
According to a piece by Urs Hölzle, a senior vice president with Google, on the company's Developers Blog, the price for cloud storage will be cut by roughly 68 percent and computer engine services by 32 percent.
Market cloud pricing, according to Mr. Hölzle, is too high. "Over the past five years," he wrote, "hardware costs improved by 20-30 percent annually but public cloud prices fell at just eight percent per year."
Last year, Microsoft cut prices for hosting and processing online data in an attempt to cut into Amazon's market share lead. Amazon Web Services, according to a TechRepublic report, had the most frequent and deepest price cuts in 2013.
According to Reuters, Cisco Systems announced earlier this week that it plans to spend $1 billion over the next two years to build a cloud services business of its own.
- Google Cloud Platform Live: Blending laaS and PaaS, Moore's Law for the cloud - Google Developers Blog
- Google slashes cloud computing prices in rivalry with Amazon - Reuters/Chicago Tribune
- Cisco joins cloud computing race with $1 billion plan - Reuters
- Amazon Web Services lead the war on cloud price reductions - TechRepublic