With the news that Microsoft Azure is raising its European rates, notionally because of rising prices caused by dollar appreciation, hosting giant Interoute is pushing users to switch to companies offering betters deals.
“Because we have two sides of the business – data centres and hosting, the costs of all the plumbing are more or less taken care of, “ says Matthew Finnie (above), CTO of Interoute, “We can leverage that efficiency.” European business has seen costs rise with the dollar, he admits, but it all balances – in the 2008-2009 period the dollar was weak, and nothing much happened.
He says the market is actually a lot less price sensitive and this is a good thing. “there are some headline price changes, but the market sets the price. “The news that Microsoft is raising prices of Azure in Europe from 1st August is surprising given the substantial demand from businesses here for cloud services. These businesses should be aware that US providers are not the only port of call here and these price rises make a stronger case for working with local European partners with a global reach – particularly as businesses look to optimise their engagement with the market and suppliers.”
In some ways, the transition to network provision and network services is a change in thinking, and one that should be largely unaffected by price movements.