Discord in the Clouds
July 24, 2014
As a business strategy, Amazon Web Service’s total cost of ownership (TCO) calculator is a smart device. However, competitor VMware strives to poke holes in the calculator’s conclusions about the cost of its wares. The Register brings the challenge to our attention in, “VMware: Amazon’s Cloud Calculator a Load of Flatulant FUD.” (For those unfamiliar with the term, FUD stands for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt.”) VMware contends that, despite Amazon’s claims that it compares apples to apples, the calculator begins with “biased assumptions” about VMware’s offerings. Writer Jack Clark explains:
“Amazon’s calculator makes some strange assumptions, such as reckoning that a customer has no existing on-premises investment, chooses rather high server prices, and assumes that all IT shops are refreshing their hardware every three years, VMware says in its blog post. It also compares VMware’s feature-packed ‘VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus’ software against its infrastructure, which VMware feels is unfair as the tech has some features that Amazon lacks, so the cost comparison is not accurate. Naturally, VMware has tried to right these apparent wrongs and has performed its own cost calculation.”
And, naturally, VMware’s calculations shows their system as cheaper than Amazon’s—a good reminder to rely on third-party reviews for this sort of thing. VMware’s calculations reportedly factor in discounts from heavy cloud usage and the advantages of its Operations Management optimization package. Founded in 1998 and gone public in 2008, VMware is based in Palo Alto, California, and maintains offices around the world. They also happen to be hiring.
Cynthia Murrell, July 24, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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