https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/17/amazon_annual_shareholder_letter_aws/ [user] [user] Sign in / up The Register(r) -- Biting the hand that feeds IT [magn] [burg] [burg] Topics Security Security All SecurityCyber-crimePatchesResearchCSO (X) Off-Prem Off-Prem All Off-PremEdge + IoTChannelPaaS + IaaSSaaS (X) On-Prem On-Prem All On-PremSystemsStorageNetworksHPCPersonal Tech (X) Software Software All SoftwareAI + MLApplicationsDatabasesDevOpsOSesVirtualization (X) Offbeat Offbeat All OffbeatDebatesColumnistsScienceGeek's GuideBOFHLegalBootnotesSite NewsAbout Us (X) Special Features Special Features Spotlight on Databases Defense Tech Week Energy Efficient Datacenters Vendor Voice Vendor Voice Vendor Voice All Vendor VoiceAmazon Web Services (AWS) Business TransformationDDN ElasticGoogle Cloud for Startups (X) Resources Resources Whitepapers Webinars Newsletters [front] Off-Prem 11 comment bubble on white Amazon CEO says AWS staff now spending 'much of their time' optimizing customers' clouds 11 comment bubble on white Annual shareholder letter warns of 'softening' growth for cloud biz, likely lift-off for Kuiper satellite broadband icon Simon Sharwood Mon 17 Apr 2023 // 06:27 UTC # Amazon Web Services sales and support teams are currently "spending much of their time helping customers optimize their AWS spend so they can better weather this uncertain economy." So said Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy in his annual letter to shareholders published last week." "In AWS, like all our businesses, we're not trying to optimize for any one quarter or year," the CEO explained. Instead, all of Amazon is "trying to build customer relationships (and a business) that outlast all of us; and as a result, our AWS sales and support teams are spending much of their time helping customers optimize their AWS spend so they can better weather this uncertain economy." [front] "Many of these AWS customers tell us that they're not cost-cutting as much as cost-optimizing so they can take their resources and apply them to emerging and inventive new customer experiences they're planning," he added. "Customers have appreciated this customer-focused, long-term approach, and we think it'll bode well for both customers and AWS." [front] [front] "While these short-term headwinds soften our growth rate, we like a lot of the fundamentals that we're seeing in AWS," Jassy added. Those fundamentals include "robust" pipelines for new customers and active migrations. chips fries AWS wants to cook its datacenter chips with vegetable oil READ MORE "Many companies use discontinuous periods like this to step back and determine what they strategically want to change, and we find an increasing number of enterprises opting out of managing their own infrastructure, and preferring to move to AWS to enjoy the agility, innovation, cost-efficiency, and security benefit," he wrote. That list does not include cost savings, a factor that has seen SaaS outfit 37Signals quit the cloud and software vendor Ahrefs estimate that operating its own hardware in a colo datacenter saves it $400 million. When The Register speaks to vendors of on-prem hardware, we hear similar messages about customers quitting the cloud to save money. One analyst of our acquaintance, however, likened such reports to accounts of migration from California to other US states with higher growth rates: plenty leave and complain loudly on their way out, but plenty more arrive. [front] Back to Jassy's letter, which also mentions AWS's intention to develop more custom silicon. "We're not close to being done innovating here, and this long-term investment should prove fruitful for both customers and AWS," he wrote, referring to the Inferentia silicon aimed at machine learning workloads. The CEO also talked up the improved price/performance of the Graviton CPU, although cloudy analyst Corey Quinn disputed that claim, tweeting "r Graviton2 --> Graviton3 instance equivalents are over 6% *more* expensive like-for-like." Jassy also observed that AWS's run revenue rate is now $85 billion a year and grew 29 per cent year on year from $62 billion in 2022. That makes AWS bigger than Cisco, Lenovo, HPE, Oracle, and SAP. Of Dell's $102 billion FY 2023 revenue, $89.4 billion was won from businesses - AWS is just $4 billion behind that sum now and closing fast. Microsoft's "more personal computing" business earned almost $60 billion of the company's $198 billion FY 22 revenue; leaving its business-derived revenue a few years of growth ahead of AWS's. [front] Yet as Jassy observed, "with about 90% of Global IT spending still on-premises and yet to migrate to the cloud" AWS still has plenty of upside. His letter argues that other Amazon businesses are earlier in their development than AWS, so while the economic climate will be reflected in some wobbles that make investors feel jittery, Amazon is investing in new businesses that will fuel future growth. Exhibit A for the prospects of that plan is AWS itself, which Amazon funded extensively during the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. * Just because on-prem is cheaper doesn't make the cloud a money pit * AWS debuts generative AI stuff so smart you might give it your money twice * AWS security exec: You don't want to win this database popularity contest * Amazon lays off another 9,000, because why not? Jassy argued that Amazon's "Kuiper" satellite broadband service is now at the same stage as AWS during that downturn. "It's capital intensive at the start, but has a large prospective consumer, enterprise, and government customer base, significant revenue and operating profit potential, and relatively few companies with the technical and inventive aptitude, as well as the investment hypothesis to go after it," he wrote. "We're preparing to launch two prototype satellites to test the entire end-to-end communications network this year, and plan to be in beta with commercial customers in 2024," he added. "The customer reaction to what we've shared thus far about Kuiper has been very positive, and we believe Kuiper represents a very large potential opportunity for Amazon." (r) Get our Tech Resources # Share Similar topics * Amazon * AWS * Broadband More like these x Similar topics * Amazon * AWS * Broadband * Cloud Computing * Satellite Narrower topics * AWS Graviton * Azure * Cloud native * Comcast * Content delivery network * Digital Ocean * Ebook * EC2 * Edge Computing * Google Cloud Platform * G Suite * Hybrid Cloud * IaaS * iCloud * Kindle * Kubernetes * Paas * Private Cloud * Public Cloud * S3 * Serverless * Virtualization * vSphere Broader topics * Jeff Bezos * Network * Space Similar topics # Share 11 comment bubble on white COMMENTS Similar topics * Amazon * AWS * Broadband More like these x Similar topics * Amazon * AWS * Broadband * Cloud Computing * Satellite Narrower topics * AWS Graviton * Azure * Cloud native * Comcast * Content delivery network * Digital Ocean * Ebook * EC2 * Edge Computing * Google Cloud Platform * G Suite * Hybrid Cloud * IaaS * iCloud * Kindle * Kubernetes * Paas * Private Cloud * Public Cloud * S3 * Serverless * Virtualization * vSphere Broader topics * Jeff Bezos * Network * Space TIP US OFF Send us news --------------------------------------------------------------------- Other stories you might like AWS debuts generative AI stuff so smart you might give it your money twice Updated Bedrock offers APIs for multiple models, plus EC2 instances for home-grown LLMs AI + ML14 Apr 2023 | 2 Amazon: Diamonds are a quantum network's best friend While we're just here for De Beers Networks6 Apr 2023 | 8 SpaceX tries to de-orbit Amazon's request for a satellite broadband shortcut Stop the presses: Billionaires think sharing is a great idea, until a rival billionaire wants to share Off-Prem22 Mar 2023 | 31 DDoS DNS attacks are old-school, unsophisticated ... and they're back So why would you handle them on your own? Sponsored Feature [front] In wars of the future, national security won't end at space Efforts under way to keep satellites and other craft safe from military threats Defense Tech Week6 Apr 2023 | 4 UK govt wants standalone 5G by 2030 but won't shell out to help hit target Instead tech department working on 'range of measures' to foster investment Networks12 Apr 2023 | 90 Ofcom tempted to bring in competition watchdog to sniff the UK cloud market As much as 80% in the hands of three companies - you can guess which PaaS + IaaS5 Apr 2023 | 8 AlienFox malware caught in the cloud hen house Malicious toolkit targets misconfigured hosts in AWS and Office 365 Security30 Mar 2023 | Linux kernel logic allowed Spectre attack on 'major cloud provider' Kernel 6.2 ditched a useful defense against ghostly chip design flaw Security14 Apr 2023 | 18 OVH punts hybrid water and immersion cooling for high performance systems Air by itself just doesn't cut it anymore Energy Efficient Datacenters13 Apr 2023 | 10 Starlink opens final frontier for radio astronomers Opinion Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Science11 Apr 2023 | 33 Microsoft switches gears, keeps Exchange Online's CARs around until Sept 2024 At least Redmond listens to some customers SaaS10 Apr 2023 | 1 The Register icon Biting the hand that feeds IT About Us* * Contact us * Advertise with us * Who we are Our Websites* * The Next Platform * DevClass * Blocks and Files Your Privacy* * Cookies Policy * Privacy Policy * T's & C's * Do not sell my personal information Situation Publishing Copyright. All rights reserved (c) 1998-2023 no-js