Even Bob Barker Can't Figure out Cloud Pricing
After decades of the Price is Right, Bob Barker knows a thing or two about what things cost. But even he would be flummoxed when it comes to many cloud services. It seems that cloud providers purposely obscure their prices. Perhaps like good real estate brokers, they hope to sell for whatever the market will bear.
Author David Davis learned this firsthand trying to get some simple pricing for putting 10 virtual machines in the cloud. One vendor even wanted him to sign an NDA before they'd spill the beans.
Instead of listing prices, vendors ask that you contact sales. Then the fun begins with call after call. Like with Amway, the real deal doesn't become clear until the very end.
Fortunately as I reported last week, Davis has at least a partial answer in the form of some free tools that price out Amazon and Vsphere instances in the cloud.
Do you have these pricing problems? Yes's and no's equally welcome at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
Posted by Doug Barney on 03/27/2012 at 2:41 PM