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The folks talking about the JEDI/WaPo issues are missing the bigger concern, which is other retailers pushing down to their SaaS partners a hard message to get

The folks talking about the JEDI/WaPo issues are missing the bigger concern, which is other retailers pushing down to their SaaS partners a hard message to get off of AWS. I've heard of multiple contracts that came with a clause of "If you're on AWS, we will only renew this if you're off in 2 years". That's a real problem for AWS, especially when Google and Azure are starting to really push into the space more, and AWS's legacy code/patterns/UX are starting to show their age a bit more.

ses1984 7y ago
Why would a saas partner care so much if you're on aws?
- noirbot 7y ago
  It's not the SaaS partner caring, it's Kroger going "We'll buy your SaaS product, but you better be off AWS in 2 years or we go somewhere else". I've heard first-hand of multiple contracts like this.
- unexpected 7y ago
  he's saying "other retailers pushing down to their partners". Other retailers (Target/Wal Mart/etc) won't work with companies that use AWS.
- falcolas 7y ago
  Here's a for-instance: Walmart cares because they don't want to give money to Amazon. They also don't trust everyone at AWS to keep their hands off Walmart's data if its stored in AWS. Now, we can argue encryption and principles of least access until we're blue in the face, but when it comes down to it, Walmart execs simply don't want their data on AWS if there are alternatives. And ultimately, that's all that matters.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. I don't see it as so much AWS/Google Cloud/Azure is bad, but, did you build something which is impossible to decouple from. That is an upstream cost risk. If a customer can seamlessly move between their own datacenters, AWS, Google, Azure, and so on, that is a good thing.
    - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
      > AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. That is true of every cloud, certainly of Azure and GCP. Building a "cloud independent" infrastructure is certainly possible, but it puts you at a huge disadvantage - you can't take advantage of any of the value-added services of the cloud provider.
      - bryanlarsen 7y ago
        >> lock in > certainly of Azure and GCP. Google's Kubernetes strategy means that this is currently not quite true of Google. Google must have decided that they were better off getting a large share of a smaller pie by creating an open sourcing Kubernetes. This seems quite likely to me: if Kubernetes "wins" then the profit margins will shrink due to competition but Google will be in a good position to become the premier Kubernetes hosting provider. And if Kubernetes wins, it'll be much harder for Google to lock in customers. For now and the foreseeable future both our and Google's incentives are aligned vis-a-vis open source Kubernetes. If K8S wins divergence will probably happen, but until then we'll enjoy the benefits.
        hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
        This is no different from AWS, which fully supports Kubernetes (e.g. EKS). You can just as easily do a Kube deployment on either AWS or GCP that makes no use of cloud-specific services, but just like AWS, GCP has a ton of great services that are extremely useful but will tie you in to GCP.
  - tbrock 7y ago
    That seems so incredibly unreasonable. It would ruin AWS overnight if it was discovered that they tampered with client data. Even Microsoft lets its employees use Macs if they want. Use the best tool for the job. How does anyone even find a service where it (or its providers) in some way shape or form don’t run on AWS?
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      You don't have to look at specific data. You could glean a lot simply from the fluctuation of the aws bill of a competitor. Oh look, the AWS usage went down by 10% after we launched 1 day shipping. Or look, some competitor's Black Friday usage didn't spike as much as it did last year, etc.
  - cordite 7y ago
    That sounds silly considering Walmart ships some "prime free shipping" stuff. In particular when I order some poster frames, it comes from FedEx ground in a Walmart branded shipping box.
dogman144 7y ago
seen this as well 1st hand. Grocery stores don't want to partner with a POS company that's AWS hosted and paying a competitor (Amazon)
noneeeed 7y ago
While I'm not sure how big a force this will be, it's definitely an issue for SaaS products targetting enterprise customers. I've seen this come up first hand. Hard to know how big an effect it will be though.
erichurkman 7y ago
This trend is not just in retailers. I have clients asking us who _our_ vendors are, and if _they_ are on AWS, and trying to push us to vendors not using AWS.
- thewhitetulip 7y ago
  But I don't understand why they'd care. I can run websites on any cloud.
  - Analemma_ 7y ago
    Because Amazon uses the profits from AWS to keep running their retail business at a loss and suffocate all competition in that space. It's not hard to understand why retail companies don't want to spend cash on their own destruction.
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      Probably logistics companies, electronics, companies, and quite a few other industries that Amazon is trying to compete with.
  - nolok 7y ago
    Because if you can run websites on any cloud, then they don't want you to run them on the one that funds their rival's expansion.
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  This is true for every major cloud provider. Certain industries are unwilling to use certain clouds because it is funding their competitors.
gravypod 7y ago
If you have proof of this contact a lawyer. I am not a lawyer but I think this is illegal.
- sct202 7y ago
  Why would it be illegal if a customer requests you use a specific vendor?
  - gravypod 7y ago
    I am not a lawyer but this is a summary of what it sounds like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
    - castis 7y ago
      Asking someone to move platforms over the course of 2 years as a contractual agreement is not the same as having someone breach an already-existing contract with AWS.
- noirbot 7y ago
  I can tell you that multiple lawyers looked over this contract and found no problems with it.
dehrmann 7y ago
I get the concern, but Amazon is very aware that they can't do anything non-competitive with AWS to help its other business. Netflix (who undoubtedly has a long-term contract) still hosts there. The home field advantages companies have been getting away with lately tend to be tighter integrations (think Chromecast, Android, and Chrome). The only company that would pull something as bad as what's being feared is Oracle.
- noirbot 7y ago
  The "non-competitive" thing they're doing with AWS is using it as a profit center so they can do anti-competitive things with all of their other businesses. If they weren't making so much money on AWS, they wouldn't be able to squeeze Netflix or other retailers as effectively. It's not to say it's entirely rational to boycott AWS like this, but I can understand the origin of it, and it's not like you can easily say no to a Walmart if you're some SaaS startup and they're offering you a massive contract if you can get off of AWS.
- benologist 7y ago
  Amazon has made it their business to clone 10,000s of items and software's just as easy to copy, they have already cloned multiple open source products and even commercial stuff they saw hosted on AWS. The only thing stopping them from routinely cloning stuff they see on AWS is nothing. They are accused of using vendor sales data to decide which products to clone, well that front-row seat watching you scale infers revenue too. Whenever Bezos wants Amazon will assign thousands of developers to cherry-picking SaaS and software to clone. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partner_products/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partn...
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    Do you think they were able to clone it because it was hosted on AWS?
    - benologist 7y ago
      They were able to clone it because copying is easier than having the idea and building something for the first time and verifying that anyone wants it. Hosting is analogous to the sales data, it helps prioritize who you should clone first. Cloning is just practice for many developers. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=show%20hn%20clone&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
JohnFen 7y ago
> other retailers pushing down to their SaaS partners a hard message to get off of AWS. Is this true? That gives me a warm feeling of hope.

ses1984 7y ago

Why would a saas partner care so much if you're on aws?

noirbot 7y ago
It's not the SaaS partner caring, it's Kroger going "We'll buy your SaaS product, but you better be off AWS in 2 years or we go somewhere else". I've heard first-hand of multiple contracts like this.
unexpected 7y ago
he's saying "other retailers pushing down to their partners". Other retailers (Target/Wal Mart/etc) won't work with companies that use AWS.
falcolas 7y ago
Here's a for-instance: Walmart cares because they don't want to give money to Amazon. They also don't trust everyone at AWS to keep their hands off Walmart's data if its stored in AWS. Now, we can argue encryption and principles of least access until we're blue in the face, but when it comes down to it, Walmart execs simply don't want their data on AWS if there are alternatives. And ultimately, that's all that matters.
- AJ007 7y ago
  There are reasonable concerns about AWS from non-retail too. AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. I don't see it as so much AWS/Google Cloud/Azure is bad, but, did you build something which is impossible to decouple from. That is an upstream cost risk. If a customer can seamlessly move between their own datacenters, AWS, Google, Azure, and so on, that is a good thing.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    > AWS is using proprietary cloud services to lock in customers. Future increases in AWS's prices will be passed down to the end users. That is true of every cloud, certainly of Azure and GCP. Building a "cloud independent" infrastructure is certainly possible, but it puts you at a huge disadvantage - you can't take advantage of any of the value-added services of the cloud provider.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      >> lock in > certainly of Azure and GCP. Google's Kubernetes strategy means that this is currently not quite true of Google. Google must have decided that they were better off getting a large share of a smaller pie by creating an open sourcing Kubernetes. This seems quite likely to me: if Kubernetes "wins" then the profit margins will shrink due to competition but Google will be in a good position to become the premier Kubernetes hosting provider. And if Kubernetes wins, it'll be much harder for Google to lock in customers. For now and the foreseeable future both our and Google's incentives are aligned vis-a-vis open source Kubernetes. If K8S wins divergence will probably happen, but until then we'll enjoy the benefits.
      - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
        This is no different from AWS, which fully supports Kubernetes (e.g. EKS). You can just as easily do a Kube deployment on either AWS or GCP that makes no use of cloud-specific services, but just like AWS, GCP has a ton of great services that are extremely useful but will tie you in to GCP.
- tbrock 7y ago
  That seems so incredibly unreasonable. It would ruin AWS overnight if it was discovered that they tampered with client data. Even Microsoft lets its employees use Macs if they want. Use the best tool for the job. How does anyone even find a service where it (or its providers) in some way shape or form don’t run on AWS?
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    You don't have to look at specific data. You could glean a lot simply from the fluctuation of the aws bill of a competitor. Oh look, the AWS usage went down by 10% after we launched 1 day shipping. Or look, some competitor's Black Friday usage didn't spike as much as it did last year, etc.
- cordite 7y ago
  That sounds silly considering Walmart ships some "prime free shipping" stuff. In particular when I order some poster frames, it comes from FedEx ground in a Walmart branded shipping box.

dogman144 7y ago

seen this as well 1st hand. Grocery stores don't want to partner with a POS company that's AWS hosted and paying a competitor (Amazon)

noneeeed 7y ago

While I'm not sure how big a force this will be, it's definitely an issue for SaaS products targetting enterprise customers. I've seen this come up first hand. Hard to know how big an effect it will be though.

erichurkman 7y ago

This trend is not just in retailers. I have clients asking us who _our_ vendors are, and if _they_ are on AWS, and trying to push us to vendors not using AWS.

thewhitetulip 7y ago
But I don't understand why they'd care. I can run websites on any cloud.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Because Amazon uses the profits from AWS to keep running their retail business at a loss and suffocate all competition in that space. It's not hard to understand why retail companies don't want to spend cash on their own destruction.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Probably logistics companies, electronics, companies, and quite a few other industries that Amazon is trying to compete with.
- nolok 7y ago
  Because if you can run websites on any cloud, then they don't want you to run them on the one that funds their rival's expansion.
solidasparagus 7y ago
This is true for every major cloud provider. Certain industries are unwilling to use certain clouds because it is funding their competitors.

gravypod 7y ago

If you have proof of this contact a lawyer. I am not a lawyer but I think this is illegal.

sct202 7y ago
Why would it be illegal if a customer requests you use a specific vendor?
- gravypod 7y ago
  I am not a lawyer but this is a summary of what it sounds like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
  - castis 7y ago
    Asking someone to move platforms over the course of 2 years as a contractual agreement is not the same as having someone breach an already-existing contract with AWS.
noirbot 7y ago
I can tell you that multiple lawyers looked over this contract and found no problems with it.

dehrmann 7y ago

I get the concern, but Amazon is very aware that they can't do anything non-competitive with AWS to help its other business. Netflix (who undoubtedly has a long-term contract) still hosts there. The home field advantages companies have been getting away with lately tend to be tighter integrations (think Chromecast, Android, and Chrome). The only company that would pull something as bad as what's being feared is Oracle.

noirbot 7y ago
The "non-competitive" thing they're doing with AWS is using it as a profit center so they can do anti-competitive things with all of their other businesses. If they weren't making so much money on AWS, they wouldn't be able to squeeze Netflix or other retailers as effectively. It's not to say it's entirely rational to boycott AWS like this, but I can understand the origin of it, and it's not like you can easily say no to a Walmart if you're some SaaS startup and they're offering you a massive contract if you can get off of AWS.
benologist 7y ago
Amazon has made it their business to clone 10,000s of items and software's just as easy to copy, they have already cloned multiple open source products and even commercial stuff they saw hosted on AWS. The only thing stopping them from routinely cloning stuff they see on AWS is nothing. They are accused of using vendor sales data to decide which products to clone, well that front-row seat watching you scale infers revenue too. Whenever Bezos wants Amazon will assign thousands of developers to cherry-picking SaaS and software to clone. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partner_products/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/08/amazon_copies_partn...
- StreamBright 7y ago
  Do you think they were able to clone it because it was hosted on AWS?
  - benologist 7y ago
    They were able to clone it because copying is easier than having the idea and building something for the first time and verifying that anyone wants it. Hosting is analogous to the sales data, it helps prioritize who you should clone first. Cloning is just practice for many developers. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=show%20hn%20clone&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

JohnFen 7y ago

> other retailers pushing down to their SaaS partners a hard message to get off of AWS. Is this true? That gives me a warm feeling of hope.