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Thank you for the response. The part I don't under is what is different about Azure and AWS in this case? Is Azure providing discounting pricing on Windows Ser

• Neywiny 1y ago
  That's the extent of my understanding of the article but keep in mind Microsoft, maker and direct distributor of Windows Server, also fully owns and operates Azure. So, I believe it's the first option, it's a direct discount. They could even give it away for free. Or pay you to use it. It's their product, they can charge whatever they want. AWS is Amazon (Web Services) and is a competitor to Azure. Microsoft has no incentive to have people who pay Amazon for servers instead of Microsoft to get cheaper software. Your second option is actually a continuation in a way of the first. Likely the marketers did the math on what they need to charge to keep Server afloat. Then, when Azure came in, they did more math to work out the minimum amount they could tolerate where the hosting fees can make up the difference. It's actually a very smart move and makes perfect sense. Like cheap printers expensive ink. Make the upfront (OS license) low, recurring (server hosting) high. Seen across all industries since the dawn of time. My guess is that people aren't willingly choosing to run Windows and complaining it's expensive on AWS, but rather are needing to support software that can only run in Windows Server (I think outlook exchange servers are like this?), and feel like they'd rather be on AWS instead of Azure if not for the cost.