> most of the time they are spending someone else's money, also. you should see some of the deals that have come across my desk. the 'big names' can literally c

> most of the time they are spending someone else's money, also. you should see some of the deals that have come across my desk. the 'big names' can literally charge 2-5x more than a competitive quote and get away with it, oftentimes with worse deliverables (i.e. long stretches of downtime that somehow get a pass from their customers). Even AWS can charge you big time. As I am getting more and more familiar with AWS every day, the #1 thing on my list going forward is to to sit down with your TAM and organize architecture review. There are services on AWS lacking completeness and can bite you in the end if you go straight with it without knowing what you are getting into. Disclaimer: I like AWS pretty well.