4 ms·

If AWS was split off it would be kind of funny if Microsoft or Google immediately purchased it outright.

by qbasic_forever 4y ago

room271 4y ago
There is no chance the competition authorities would allow that.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Microsoft has embedded itself deeply into the democratic party through huge PAC donations over decades. If anyone has sway with the democratic appointed FTC, it would be them. Acquiring AWS would absolutely be the kind of emergency/pull out every stop to make it happen event worth tapping every connection (and then some) to make happen. Overnight they would go from scrappy second place to the dominant provider of all cloud computing on the planet. Far more dumb mergers were greenlit in the past like AOL/Time Warner.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Aside from a general lack of understanding of PAC funding, I take it you're unfamiliar with the work of Lina Khan who's the chair of this FTC? https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/23/report-ftc-chair-lina-khan-advancing-investigation-aws/ https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/23/report-ftc-chair-lina-kh... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/technology/lina-khan-ftc-microsoft-activision.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/technology/lina-khan-ftc-...
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
      https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?toprecipcycle=2020&contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=d000000115&topnumcycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?topr... In the 2020 presidential election year Microsoft donated over 21 million dollars, almost all to democrats and the Biden campaign. They were the 26th largest donor, period. Biden appointed Lina Khan, she owes her job to him (and he can choose not to appoint her again!). Biden owes a substantial amount of his presidential campaign funding to Microsoft... not hard to connect the dots here. Go back decades--Hillary Clinton, Obama, Gore, etc. and Microsoft was always been donating enormous amounts of money to democratic candidates.
      - mikeyouse 4y ago
        Again, you should really read up on what a PAC is before you form your conspiracy theories. Those are donations from Microsoft employees - not from the company, hence the big bold warning label: "NOTE: Organizations themselves cannot contribute to candidates and party committees."
      - rnk 4y ago
        Wow, the 26th largest donor, that sounds like a threat to democracy. Microsoft also gives money to republicans. How about an actual threat, the Koch family (one of the infamous brothers died), who by themselves have a budget about the same size as the entire us republican party, and have taken it upon themselves to select the next republican presidential candidate - and they will back that up with enormous spending. Regardless of your views on the political parties specific choices, it's a bad idea for a private group to control (or credibly attempt to control) who can run for president - this is fundamentally different than microsoft's donations (even if I don't like that corporations are putting money into politics). Koch have had a lot of success in setting the previous few decade's political framework about how the us looked at international trade, along with influencing the libertarian party (David Koch was the Libertarian VP candidate in 1980, but had enormous impact on that movement over time).
- runamok 4y ago
  See ticketmaster and live nation or T-Mobile and sprint. The anti-monopoly folks seem asleep at the wheel to me.
  - atdrummond 4y ago
    T-mobile and Sprint has been a win for consumers - as much as I wish we had dozens of carriers instead of 3. Sprint was a zombie corporation and T-mobile was well run but lacked the spectrum to compete. One of the few times merger logic worked out even better than the ibankers promoted.
cperciva 4y ago
Google would need to pay Google's entire market cap to buy AWS. Not happening!
- tester756 4y ago
  What? what are the numbers?
  - cperciva 4y ago
    Google's market cap is $1.33T. Amazon's market cap is $1.04T, of which most (possibly more than all considering that retail is operating at a loss) is the value of AWS. Buyouts of public companies routinely come in at 20-30% above the current stock price.
    - tester756 4y ago
      >of which most (possibly more than all considering that retail is operating at a loss) is the value of AWS I don't feel like you can draw conclusions like that, or you can? idk

If AWS was split off it would be kind of funny if Microsoft or Google immediately purchased it outright.

room271 4y ago

There is no chance the competition authorities would allow that.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
Microsoft has embedded itself deeply into the democratic party through huge PAC donations over decades. If anyone has sway with the democratic appointed FTC, it would be them. Acquiring AWS would absolutely be the kind of emergency/pull out every stop to make it happen event worth tapping every connection (and then some) to make happen. Overnight they would go from scrappy second place to the dominant provider of all cloud computing on the planet. Far more dumb mergers were greenlit in the past like AOL/Time Warner.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Aside from a general lack of understanding of PAC funding, I take it you're unfamiliar with the work of Lina Khan who's the chair of this FTC? https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/23/report-ftc-chair-lina-khan-advancing-investigation-aws/ https://siliconangle.com/2021/12/23/report-ftc-chair-lina-kh... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/technology/lina-khan-ftc-microsoft-activision.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/technology/lina-khan-ftc-...
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?toprecipcycle=2020&contribcycle=2022&lobcycle=2022&outspendcycle=2022&id=d000000115&topnumcycle=2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-corp/summary?topr... In the 2020 presidential election year Microsoft donated over 21 million dollars, almost all to democrats and the Biden campaign. They were the 26th largest donor, period. Biden appointed Lina Khan, she owes her job to him (and he can choose not to appoint her again!). Biden owes a substantial amount of his presidential campaign funding to Microsoft... not hard to connect the dots here. Go back decades--Hillary Clinton, Obama, Gore, etc. and Microsoft was always been donating enormous amounts of money to democratic candidates.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      Again, you should really read up on what a PAC is before you form your conspiracy theories. Those are donations from Microsoft employees - not from the company, hence the big bold warning label: "NOTE: Organizations themselves cannot contribute to candidates and party committees."
    - rnk 4y ago
      Wow, the 26th largest donor, that sounds like a threat to democracy. Microsoft also gives money to republicans. How about an actual threat, the Koch family (one of the infamous brothers died), who by themselves have a budget about the same size as the entire us republican party, and have taken it upon themselves to select the next republican presidential candidate - and they will back that up with enormous spending. Regardless of your views on the political parties specific choices, it's a bad idea for a private group to control (or credibly attempt to control) who can run for president - this is fundamentally different than microsoft's donations (even if I don't like that corporations are putting money into politics). Koch have had a lot of success in setting the previous few decade's political framework about how the us looked at international trade, along with influencing the libertarian party (David Koch was the Libertarian VP candidate in 1980, but had enormous impact on that movement over time).
runamok 4y ago
See ticketmaster and live nation or T-Mobile and sprint. The anti-monopoly folks seem asleep at the wheel to me.
- atdrummond 4y ago
  T-mobile and Sprint has been a win for consumers - as much as I wish we had dozens of carriers instead of 3. Sprint was a zombie corporation and T-mobile was well run but lacked the spectrum to compete. One of the few times merger logic worked out even better than the ibankers promoted.

cperciva 4y ago

Google would need to pay Google's entire market cap to buy AWS. Not happening!

tester756 4y ago
What? what are the numbers?
- cperciva 4y ago
  Google's market cap is $1.33T. Amazon's market cap is $1.04T, of which most (possibly more than all considering that retail is operating at a loss) is the value of AWS. Buyouts of public companies routinely come in at 20-30% above the current stock price.
  - tester756 4y ago
    >of which most (possibly more than all considering that retail is operating at a loss) is the value of AWS I don't feel like you can draw conclusions like that, or you can? idk