Article Marketing / Communications 2 min read

Monday Buzz: Good News for Cloud Computing Developers

Amazon and Google ratchet up their cloud computing price cuts. Also: The man behind #FollowFriday.

Ernie Smith

March 31, 2014

Heads up: this content is over 5 years old, so some information may be out of date.

Earlier this month, it looked like Google was starting a cloud computing price war.

Now we have some extra salvos. But these cuts might be more appealing for developers and IT departments.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced it would be significantly slashing the prices  (opens in a new tab) of its cloud computing platforms—famous for running the infrastructure of services as diverse as Reddit, Pinterest, and Netflix. Some of the drops are more modest, but others represent a price decrease of as much as 65 percent.

But Amazon wasn’t even first to the market with the cloud infrastructure price cuts. On Tuesday, Google made a very similar move  (opens in a new tab), promoting the fact that the more you use its cloud platform to build out your infrastructure, the cheaper prices will be.

Speaking of small numbers and the cloud, you have to feel for Box CEO Aaron Levie, who gave up 94 percent of his stake  (opens in a new tab) in his own company on the road to winning over investors and earning an IPO. (It’s still a lot of money; it’s just not a lot of his own company.)

Thank This Guy

I am starting Follow Fridays. Every Friday, suggest a person to follow, and everyone follow him/her. Today its @fancyjeffrey  (opens in a new tab) & @w1redone  (opens in a new tab).

— Micah Baldwin (@micah) January 16, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

https://twitter.com/micah/status/449579627204206592

These days, you may take for granted the basic concept of #FollowFriday as part of your Twitter marketing strategy—or maybe you’ve moved on from it entirely! But surprisingly, there’s one guy you can thank for the tweet-culture phenomenon: His name is Micah Baldwin, and he’s the CEO of Graphicly  (opens in a new tab). Check out a little oral history of the concept  (opens in a new tab) on BetaBeat.