Cloud computing confronts critical crossroads

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Frederic Paul.

It’s been an amazingly busy period for the cloud computing industry. A multitude of powerful forces – both positive and negative – are simultaneously buffeting the industry, and their combined effects could dramatically affect the landscape for both consumer and enterprise users of cloud computing services. Let’s start at the beginning.

Cloud Cost Cuts

Late last month, Google sparked a cloud price war when it revamped its enterprise cloud services – including significant price cuts across its storage, compute and BigQuery analysis services. The cuts were designed to boost demand… and put new pressure on Amazon Web Services’ market-leading position…

AWS immediately shot back with its own price cuts, though they still leave Amazon far more expensive than Google in most cases. Price cuts are a good thing, of course, and the lower cloud computing prices go – and the lower customers expect them to go — the more likely enterprises will be to rely on the cloud and avoid building their own data centers…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/85286

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