Google slashes prices for cloud platform, throws down gauntlet to Amazon

You need a PhD to work out the best option, says Google SVP

Google has cut prices for its cloudy infrastructure across the board, aiming to “blend IaaS and PaaS” as well as change the outlook of the cloud pricing wars.

The Mountain View giant is reducing the price of its IaaS offering Compute Engine by a third (32%) ‘across all sizes, regions and classes’, ‘significant reductions in database operations and front-end compute instances’ for the PaaS product App Engine, a two thirds (68%) drop in Cloud Storage pricing as well as an 85% reduction in Google BigQuery on-demand.

Google also announced Sustained-Use Discounts to provide better savings for regular users. Those who use a virtual machine for over a quarter of a month get an automatic discount, while an additional 30% cut is added for those who use a VM for the entire month.

In a blog post Google …