Healthcare firm complains of Amazon AWS nickel-and-dime pricing

Amazon is the leader by far in the IT cloud service sector, with Microsoft the second place challenger.

The companies have been engaging in a price war, with Amazon particularly making a big deal of their low pricing.

Now online publication Computing reports that the initial low price may simply be a case of bait and switch, with one AWS client complaining of “RyanAir pricing”, referring to the low-cost carrier’s tendency to add unexpected charges for what is usually expected as part of the package, such as carry on luggage or food.

“There is a tendency – certainly Amazon are worse than Microsoft – of a sort of Ryanair pricing of services, so there’s a price for removing a bit from here to here, and there’s a price for moving it back again…” the UK-based healthcare provider said in Computing Research survey.

Despite the unpredictable costs, cloud services are still “easier, more flexible and certainly agile”, and offers “way lower” costs than running one’s own in-house platforms and infrastructure, the same provider said, which suggests that the cloud remains the future, despite the challenges business face, possibly giving Microsoft a good entry point for offering a friendlier and more open service.