[Soliloquy]

Originally Posted by domesticzookeeper

and their web services owns a 34% of all cloud space (three times more than the next largest provider, Microsoft, which owns 11%). Amazon retail services barely operate in the black, and frequently operate at a LOSS, because their web services can carry the company while their low retail prices can influence the competition in the long run

Mentioning Microsoft as a minor player in cloud services shows how quickly the modern economy changes.

Twenty years ago, there was no talk of the cloud. Microsoft was huge, you couldn't do business without doing business with Microsoft. Apple was a very minor player and only in small business. Apple never got in to servers and databases on a large scale.

Now, Microsoft is fading. Maybe they'll find a new niche. But huge corporations, including the one my dh works for, are dropping Microsoft. They've realized how much money they can save by not paying Microsoft's high license fees. They're going with Linux based companies.

All it took was for a few bright entrepreneurs to notice a few cracks in Microsoft's tank and find a better way.

At the last Red Hat convention, Microsoft had a table. !!!! They paid money to rent space at the big convention of a company that was once a little upstart, a gnat in their eye.

Amazon will meet their Red Hat one day. I'm not worried about they market share today. It will change.