Here's what I said when the rumour about Compute Engine came out: "If Google can deliver a semi-decent IaaS offering that works well with App Engine they will h

Here's what I said when the rumour about Compute Engine came out: "If Google can deliver a semi-decent IaaS offering that works well with App Engine they will have a uniquely powerful platform." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150261 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4150261) Looks like Google have done just that and IMO this now puts AWS on defence since they don't have anything comparable to App Engine. Google solved the hard problem first: creating a general purpose automatically scalable web platform. With Compute Engine instances you can now fill in the holes in App Engine--SQL databases, native binaries etc. This definitely changes the hosting game.