Amazon, Microsoft offer little relief to small cloud clients

While Amazon Web Services, or AWS, and Microsoft are restructuring some large contracts on a case-by-case basis, according to people familiar with the decisions, smaller companies aren’t receiving the same flexibility. Half a dozen startup executives said recent appeals to these cloud companies have gone unanswered. — Bloomberg

By mid-March, John Lyotier’s travel software business Left Technologies Inc was cratering with the spread of the pandemic. Seeking to cut costs, he reached out to his office landlord, who offered rent relief. Then he contacted Amazon.com Inc, asking to “explore creative financing opportunities” for his monthly cloud-computing bill.

The response was succinct. “‘Nope, that’s the way it is’,” Lyotier recalled.