4 ms·

Absolutely yes.

by vb-8448 4y ago

Absolutely yes.

oblio 4y ago
So they're evil because they're offering things at low prices?
- zokier 4y ago
  Are you familiar with the concept of predatory pricing?
  - oblio 4y ago
    Yes, and dumping. However, you're making a bold assumption there. You don't know their cost structure. Their CPU time could literally be just that cheap for Graviton.
    - Kon-Peki 4y ago
      We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. Until AWS breaks out their margins between X86 and ARM (not going to happen) or total AWS margins start to go down, we don’t really publicly know if they are “dumping” or if they are just passing on the savings to the consumer. I’d bet that it’s a little of both
      - oblio 4y ago
        It could go a third way, where they use them internally, too, and they're cheaper to operate. So a certain percentage of the costs could be amortized through internal usage. Edit: > We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. Oh, and for this :-) We do know that Apple's per unit costs must be cheap, since the iPhone SE 2022 retails at $429 for an entire phone, and it comes with A15, which is quite competitive with Android flagship chipsets from 2023. Since they can squeeze in an entire phone + profits in $429, the chipset itself can't be that expensive. Yes, R&D is probably very expensive but they can spread that around to millions of units, just like Amazon :-) Of course, Apple could also be dumping chipsets, in which case, I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      - karavelov 4y ago
        The cost of the CPU is small part of a server TCO. Graviton instances could be cheaper because the platform is cheaper, uses less power and needs less cooling - I think we know from Apple Silicon that ARM chips can have these advantages. Disclaimer: I work for AWS but I don't have any internal knowledge about Graviton pricing and non-public performance data.
      - klelatti 4y ago
        > We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. We also know that Intel server CPUs aren't cheap to buy and include a significant profit margin for Intel. More to the point lots about Graviton seems to be focused on keeping the total cost of ownership down - clock speed for example to limit power consumption. Perhaps AWS is pricing aggressively to drive adoption. I'd be astonished if they are offering a service like this at scale at below their required return on capital.
      - mpweiher 4y ago
        > Apple Silicon → ARM not cheap Well, maybe not cheap, but certainly cheaper. "Apple’s move to M1 chips will save $2.5B this year, estimates IBM exec" https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/apples-move-to-m1/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/apples-move-to-m1/ Apple even passed some of those cost savings on to consumers, most of the comparable M1 models were ~ $100 cheaper than the much slower Intel models they replaced. And Apple being Apple, if they passed on that much, their total cost savings almost certainly were significantly higher.
- vb-8448 4y ago
  My point was more about `limit portability to other clouds` than the pricing issue, even if it is known that Amazon used is economic power in the past to push competitors out of the market.

Absolutely yes.

oblio 4y ago

So they're evil because they're offering things at low prices?

zokier 4y ago
Are you familiar with the concept of predatory pricing?
- oblio 4y ago
  Yes, and dumping. However, you're making a bold assumption there. You don't know their cost structure. Their CPU time could literally be just that cheap for Graviton.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. Until AWS breaks out their margins between X86 and ARM (not going to happen) or total AWS margins start to go down, we don’t really publicly know if they are “dumping” or if they are just passing on the savings to the consumer. I’d bet that it’s a little of both
    - oblio 4y ago
      It could go a third way, where they use them internally, too, and they're cheaper to operate. So a certain percentage of the costs could be amortized through internal usage. Edit: > We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. Oh, and for this :-) We do know that Apple's per unit costs must be cheap, since the iPhone SE 2022 retails at $429 for an entire phone, and it comes with A15, which is quite competitive with Android flagship chipsets from 2023. Since they can squeeze in an entire phone + profits in $429, the chipset itself can't be that expensive. Yes, R&D is probably very expensive but they can spread that around to millions of units, just like Amazon :-) Of course, Apple could also be dumping chipsets, in which case, I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - karavelov 4y ago
      The cost of the CPU is small part of a server TCO. Graviton instances could be cheaper because the platform is cheaper, uses less power and needs less cooling - I think we know from Apple Silicon that ARM chips can have these advantages. Disclaimer: I work for AWS but I don't have any internal knowledge about Graviton pricing and non-public performance data.
    - klelatti 4y ago
      > We know enough about Apple Silicon to know that high-performance ARM chips aren’t cheap to manufacture. We also know that Intel server CPUs aren't cheap to buy and include a significant profit margin for Intel. More to the point lots about Graviton seems to be focused on keeping the total cost of ownership down - clock speed for example to limit power consumption. Perhaps AWS is pricing aggressively to drive adoption. I'd be astonished if they are offering a service like this at scale at below their required return on capital.
    - mpweiher 4y ago
      > Apple Silicon → ARM not cheap Well, maybe not cheap, but certainly cheaper. "Apple’s move to M1 chips will save $2.5B this year, estimates IBM exec" https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/apples-move-to-m1/ https://9to5mac.com/2020/11/18/apples-move-to-m1/ Apple even passed some of those cost savings on to consumers, most of the comparable M1 models were ~ $100 cheaper than the much slower Intel models they replaced. And Apple being Apple, if they passed on that much, their total cost savings almost certainly were significantly higher.
vb-8448 4y ago
My point was more about `limit portability to other clouds` than the pricing issue, even if it is known that Amazon used is economic power in the past to push competitors out of the market.