Google VP Calls Out Microsoft's Cloud Software Licensing 'Tax' (theregister.com) 42
Google is very publicly adding to the chorus of complaints about Microsoft's alleged restrictive cloud software licensing policies, claiming that unless the European Union formally tackles it, the industry and customers will suffer lasting damage. From a report: Amit Zavery, vice president, general manager, and head of platform at Google Cloud, says antitrust regulators are "starting to understand the situation" and are asking questions. "Any enterprise company will be impacted negatively if things are not resolved properly," he told The Register. "I think there should be appetite [from the regulators] and I think there should be movement in that area to really put some kind of checks and balances on Microsoft's policies." One bone of contention for Google, the third-largest public cloud provider globally and in Europe, is that it simply costs more to run Microsoft software on third-party providers' clouds. This is due to extra licensing costs levied by Microsoft when you run its applications on non-Microsoft clouds, we're told. "Microsoft publicly touts that if you run their software on Azure versus other vendors like AWS and GCP, it's five times cheaper or it's more expensive to run on us 5x basically because of the tax customers have to pay to Microsoft," Zavery told us.
Antitrust (Score:2)
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That's because a gmail server doesn't exist. gmail is a service, not a product.
That's also (partially) why Microsoft is moving to a service model and trying to eliminate Exchange outright, moving as many customers to O365 as possible.
Given that Google produces a substantial amount of open source software directly, saying it doesn't run on Azure is a bit silly.
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But, for Google to sit there, then ask the EU to fuck over their competitors business model because they dont get to eat their cake and have it to
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Google doesn't have products. They have services.
Microsoft is the one selling a product. That's the key point you're missing.
This is a monopolistic practice from Microsoft, and they've been hit by courts for doing this before.
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There being alternatives is mostly irrelevant except inasmuch as they have a significant market position. A software that captures 40% of the market is not considered a monopoly, while something that has 70% of the market may be considered such. The real thing to fear is the sanction for monopolistic practices. These can range up to the breakup of the entity that is using them.
Breaking Azure out of Microsoft wouldn't be the most horrible thing that ever happened. It'd fail almost immediately, but it's
Re: Antitrust (Score:1)
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Azure does not have the market share to be considered a monopoly, The only place they do or did was the desktop operating system,
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Re: What if Micro$oft didn't have a cloud platform (Score:1)
GCP should stop acting like a prima Donna. Nobody likes them because they think they can do it all. msft knows that they need developers. They know how to tailor shit on their platform.
Google should start embracing something besides its own Ivy League collection of programmers
Cloud is PT Barnum's Dream. (Score:4, Insightful)
On prem makes this argument go away. For large enterprises especially, it is always less expensive, including the licensing and headcount to maintain it; stop giving away money.
Cloud has its place, as it is great for startups, and low end workloads.
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Re:Cloud is PT Barnum's Dream. (Score:4, Insightful)
...One has to maintain a data center...
Using square footage and equipment one already has. I can't imagine a large enterprise that isn't overflowing with servers and environmentally controlled rooms.
...with all the monitoring, high availability and redundancy management, and of course backups.
Any large enterprise already has all of this, as well as the necessary staff to maintain it.
All of this costs both money and time...
These costs are not significant for large enterprises, especially since they probably already have (or had) all this in place already.
...and more importantly distracts from the core competency of the enterprise.
This is complete and utter nonsense. There are dedicated staff to take care of this whose core competency is managing computer networks.
Cloud computing gives the illusion of cost management. It seems great in the beginning, when the sales people are trying to snare you into a trap you should know better than to believe. Once they think you're trapped, then the slow squeeze begins. Really, the logo for cloud computing should be a python -- a deadly embrace followed by a deadly squeeze.
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What you haven't accounted for is the fully loaded staff costs of the people who manage all that hardware. Yes, cloud-based doesn't eliminate those staff costs, but it does reduce them dramatically.
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What you haven't accounted for is the fully loaded staff costs of the people who manage all that hardware. Yes, cloud-based doesn't eliminate those staff costs, but it does reduce them dramatically.
It just shifts them to someone else who then charges you more because they want to make a profit.
Azure it vastly more expensive than running a data centre. We move all our customers onto it a few years back because they were hammering on the door demanding to know when they would get a cloud-based service. Now they're paying at least three times (in some cases 6 times) what we charged them back then and our headcount has actually gone up to cope with the problems caused by everything being on the cloud whic
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It just shifts them to someone else who then charges you more because they want to make a profit.
Azure it vastly more expensive than running a data centre. We move all our customers onto it a few years back
So you have customers, that you previously provided services for, but you didn't want to make a profit?
The idea of cloud services, though, is that the cloud providers can provide those services more efficiently than you can. Economies of scale, etc.. Perhaps it really doesn't work like that in your case, but in many cases, it does.
Were you running Windows or Linux servers?
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Its amazing, that isn't far off from what I have seen. We usually peg it as 5x the cost in general (with another doubling if you are using some of the services instead of just basic resources). There are some things that are better as services (ASR and TTS) probably due to all the cost being licenses I would guess they got a sweetheart deal. Sometimes it's worth it but I would be very leery of getting locked in.
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I understand where you are coming from here, and agree mostly, but there is some nuance here so I wouldn't have said "always".
If you...
- are technically savvy
- use significant resources
- have steady enough load to use resources at 1/5th your max capacity needed
It seems that you are better off doing it yourself.
However, there are some side things that can push you out there (at least in part)
- Extreme peaking requirements
- Data residency requirements in places you don't or can't have people in
- Some unique l
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If you aren't technically savvy, you are screwed either way, except maybe very basic use of google docs/office 365. From my experience, cloud service management is actually more demanding skills wise for most things.
The licenses are a matter you have to look out for, as there's generally an angle (data lock-in, only cheaper in the short term)
The peaking requirements can stand, though you may financially not be prepared for what peaking will do in a cloud model. For some it's better for the capacity to be r
Re: Cloud is PT Barnum's Dream. (Score:2)
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LOL. Maybe that is your contract. MS has two models one is better for organizations that need only a few VM's and the other is better for large enterprises: Per VM or Per Core. The suck side of it though, is the minimum license is 4 cores, in two core increments.
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My wife works in IT for a very large and highly regulated enterprise, and she decides these kinds of things. It's never either/or. You have to examine each thing you're trying to do and work out the best way to do it. A lot of there more generic corporate apps (think SAP) are almost entirely in the cloud because of the infrastructure flexibility other commenters have talked about. OTOH, they have a very hybrid approach for documentation required for regulatory compliance. The reports they have to submit eve
Re:Cloud is PT Barnum's Dream. (Score:4, Interesting)
A PHB doesn't want people smarter than him working for him - just a large budget.
"Cloud" solves both problems.
Where is Azure cheaper? (Score:1)
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Agreed, though I wager Google would gladly relent to support their workspace off-google if they got to host MS software in a competitive way to Microsoft.
So google expects what? (Score:2)
So what does Google expect here?
Microsoft should have to give Windows / MSSQL / etc away for free?
Microsoft should be subject to some price control such they can't leverage the software they have invested decades developing to under cut competitors?
I have no love for Redmond at all but they way you avoid the M$ tax is run Linux / PGSQL / MariaDB / OpenLDAP / MIT Kerberos / etc.
Google is almost always the bad actor lately. They are really just thieves for the most part. They run around sponging up everyone
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So what does Google expect here?
Microsoft should have to give Windows / MSSQL / etc away for free?
Microsoft should be subject to some price control such they can't leverage the software they have invested decades developing to under cut competitors?
It's a real monopoly. Azzure being part of Microsoft pays no licensing for office, windows or power bi. And also has inside knowledge (same kind of stuff happen with dynamics use of office/power bi). Its actually surprising they dont own more of the cloud/erp markershare already and should really be split off if we want any kind of price competition on the run. Ppl think MS prices are nice but for us third-world countries is prohibitive
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It's a real monopoly.
how is it a monopoly? sorry, i don't use the cloud myself, and i have no idea what you are doing on it, but you are responding to a post that gave you a literal list of alternatives that are free, and in some cases even arguably better. why do you insist in paying for microsoft products? what do they offer to you that is so exclusive?
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what's this about? (Score:2)
it simply costs more to run Microsoft software on third-party providers' clouds
so ... don't run microsoft software?
Also in the news (Score:2)
Pot found calling kettle black