Microsoft calls out Amazon's humble hybrid cloud

Microsoft's cut Azure prices again, while also making it plain that it thinks Amazon Web Services (AWS) is weak in the hybrid cloud.

After explaining the price cuts, Nicole Herskowitz, Microsoft's director for cloud platform product marketing writes that “Prices aside, customers are using Azure … for its hybrid capabilities that enable existing on-premises environments to seamlessly bridge with the public cloud.” Herskowitz goes on to declare hybrid cloud “a reality for the vast majority of organizations.”

Microsoft's decision to point this out is significant because while AWS can integrate with lots of third party management tools and even offers its own plugin for System Center, the cloud colossus generally prefers pure-play cloud. Microsoft of course has millions upon millions of Windows Server users, a great many of whom must surely be considering the cloud for something.

Redmond's building all sorts of services that Windows Server users will enjoy, like disaster recovery. AWS? Not so much: it focuses on infrastructure. And Microsoft's trying to undercut it there with these new price reductions.

This time around prices for its “Dv2” class virtual machines have been trimmed by between ten per cent and 17 per cent.

For users seeking a good hybrid cloud experience, those cuts may or not be a primary consideration. Ease of use across on-premises and vaporised resources may well be. Having said that, one control freak to rule them all, everywhere, is VMware's cloud strategy. And it's not working very well. ®