Price War: cloud storage service price effective?

Amazon, Google and Microsoft cut the price of their cloud storage service at least once a year, and every member of the trio decides not to fight the monthly cost per GB. It is unclear what role this price plays in attracting customers. The latest round of cloud storage price cuts began in December 2013 when Google developed a common version of its Google Cloud Platform with a 60% reduction in its permanent disk block storage. Amazon responded in January, cutting its elastic block storage price by 50%. A day later, Microsoft Azure decided to match the Amazon Web Services price to cover the computing, storage and bandwidth of its merchandise offerings. So far, the biggest price war victim is Nirvanix, an enterprise cloud storage vendor that has been unable to compete with its cash-rich rivals and closed its doors in September last year, despite its highly acclaimed technology. "This is a downward competition," said Ashish Nadkarni, research director at IDC Storage Systems. "It's a war on the horizon. There's no other profitable business for these companies. It's upsetting how much the cloud business is losing, but that's not a sustainable situation, and it can only go so far with price cuts. "Greg Williams, chief technology officer at law firm Hooper Lundy & Bookman, said not The price keeps him using public cloud storage; just not enough data worth the time to do, and if he does, other things to consider. "I do not think the price is a big part of the idea," Williams said. "There are many other variables, like interface, security and networking. The price is pretty reasonable, but it's a hard part of getting it to work. Already has a saturated internet connection, and if I back up the cloud and put more traffic on it, it affects users. "According to ISC's Nadkarni, it's hard to tell if competitive prices can attract more enterprise. "They're very cautious about how many new customers they get," he said. "They do not publish numbers. They do not give that figure when you attend the Amazon Analyst meeting, and Google does not talk to anyone, either. Microsoft does not provide this data either. "Nicos Vekiarides, CEO of public cloud partners at cloud gateway maker TwinStrata, said he did not quantify how much those price options can accelerate cloud storage sales. "People are accustomed to price cuts," Vekiarides said. "Of course, when Amazon announced a price cut, we would see traffic from our site going up, but the real sales were still a slow process, about thirty to sixty days." The cost per GB is just a cost that organizations need to consider when they go to the cloud. If you're storing less than 50TB of data, it's more expensive to store data in the cloud due to other factors, says Terri McClure, senior analyst at ESG. "It's not just the price per GB," she said. "It's the transaction cost per I / O. It's the hidden cost of the transaction, and the cost you pay for every Amazon visit. It's just that once you get in, you're basically out of reach. "While Amazon, Google and Microsoft are prevalent, Nirvanix's soul is a reminder that any cloud that owns your data can become airborne. "Everyone can get a cool message from here," Williams of Hooper Lundy & Bookman talks about Nirvanix. "People are getting clearer."