Google’s Cloud Computing Service Gets a Price Cut, is Now Free to Students


In a move that reflects a growing sense of competitiveness among the biggest cloud computing providers, Google has yet again cut the price for its cloud computing service for both businesses and students.

According to a TechRepublic article, Google’s plan is to make its Google Compute Engine a more affordable, appealing option than competitors like Amazon’s Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure.

Beginning immediately, Google is cutting the price of Google Compute Engine by 10% across the board, making the cost of hosting on its standard package, with virtual cores and 60 GB of memory, just $1.008 per hour.

Businesses and organizations have increasingly become drawn to storing their data on the cloud because cloud computing boasts a wider variety of data serving options with less upfront cost and higher network security.

In addition to cutting its cost for Google Compute Engine customers, Google is now also giving free cloud storage space to students via Google Apps for Education, an extension of Google Drive for Work. Colleges and universities that use Apps for Education will be able to offer unlimited file storage on Drive for Education to their students, TechRepublic reported.

But will Google’s price drops be enough to keep potential customers interested?

One ComputerWorld article is making the case that enterprises and businesses are looking more for security and reliability from their cloud service provider, rather than simply a low price tag.

“I don’t think this is a large enough price cut to move a lot of enterprise computing into the cloud,” Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, told ComputerWorld. “When it comes to public clouds, there are factors that are more important to enterprises than capacity price. Security, reliability, performance and quality of service demanded by a particular workload are often the most important factors for enterprise customers looking to move an application to a cloud.”

So while Google’s price cut may make it a more attractive option for businesses and organizations, it’s unclear if they will take the plunge and choose Google as their cloud service provider — or go to a different provider that promises higher security features.

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