---
title: "IBM in the Amazon Cloud: on pricing and billing innovation"
date: 2009-05-08T15:23:16Z
modified: 2009-05-08T15:23:16Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/ibm-in-the-amazon-cloud-on-pricing-and-billing-innovation/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 2008
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2009-05-08T15:23:16Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

Not so long ago I wrote a post extolling the [simplicity and capability of Amazon’s Cloud](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2009/03/18/amazon-web-services-an-instance-of-weakness-as-strength/) offerings. But the real key is simple pricing.

No surprises there: RedMonk has been pushing IBM to offer simple On Demand pricing since, well, since IBM was spending tens of millions of dollars to market the notion of On Demand service delivery, but failing to deliver on the concept over the time frame.

Well, with Amazon Web Services all that is changing. My favourite quote from IBM Impact show in Las Vegas this week came from Amazon’s resident enterprise expect, Jamie Kinney. Clearly Jamie knows enterprisey – he has worked at Oracle, after all.. twice. So what did he say?

> “IBM has been very innovative on pricing.”

Excuse me for falling about laughing. Except…

The truth is IBM couldn’t hope to offer Cloud test and development, let alone production workloads, without working out its pricing strategies. That’s right folks – for all the talk of production workloads IBM has not made it easier for third parties to get involved until quite recently.

DB2 development per cent per hour. Blammo!

WebSphere per cent per hour! Kabbam!

Rational per cent per hour. Biff!

IBM is fixing the one thing it really needed to get its head around to do well in the cloud- simple pricing models, without needing to call a third party expert to unravel them. Forget technology – the cloud is about [simple pricing and billing](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2008/03/13/15-ways-to-tell-its-not-cloud-computing/).

Why do ISVs want to run on salesforce.com? Billing.

What did Azure early adopters say they wanted from Microsoft. Billing.

Why is the Apple AppStore kicking ass? Simple pricing and billing.

So now Amazon says IBM is being innovative, I think we can safely say things are going to get a lot more interesting from here on in. Its not about the technology, people.

IBM is a client.