

AWS Activate - yarapavan
https://aws.amazon.com/activate/

======
thejosh
So it's just the free usage tier with a forum tacked on, or if already have
funding you get free credits.

~~~
petercooper
And some support.. but yeah, it seems so.

The startups who'll get the most benefit here are the ones already getting the
most help from accelerators or funds. Just a clever and low risk marketing
experiment from AWS, IMHO.

~~~
yarapavan
\+ some technical training through labs and web-based mechanisms

\+ access to new startup forum at AWS

~~~
petercooper
Training on using _their platform_ for _their_ commercial benefit. That should
be the default anyway.

------
beaker52
Maybe this was pre-seeded by my thoughts of Amazon trying to get startups
drug-dependant on their stack but did anyone else see the penis at the
beginning of the video?

~~~
mseebach
> Amazon trying to get startups drug-dependant on their stack

That's a silly (and predictable) criticism. Of course this is Amazon getting
their product into the hands of potential large, future customer. Business
Development 101.

What isn't clear is why that should be considered a bad thing? Startups have
little money and little time. If this allows them to get a product out faster
and for less money than otherwise, why not? Every little helps. As others have
pointed out, they're not locking you in any more than any other external
provider would.

------
biot
This looks like Amazon's answer to BizSpark[0] which includes three years of
free software, etc. including $60K worth of Azure services for two years[1].

[0] [http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/](http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/)

[1]
[http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/plus/default.aspx](http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/plus/default.aspx)

------
mtalantikite
SoftLayer has been doing something like this for a while now, $1k/month of
free hosting:

[http://www.softlayer.com/partners/catalyst](http://www.softlayer.com/partners/catalyst)

------
lotsofcows
I suppose this is in response to Google pushing it's developer platform. Are
they going to match Google's free tier and tendency to drop credits on
developers at the drop of a hat?

~~~
ceejayoz
The AWS free tier is pretty generous, and I was randomly gifted a $100 credit
a few months back because _I_ accidentally bought a reserved instance in
EC2-Classic rather than EC2-VPC and had to file a ticket on it.

------
rpedela
My experience is that the free tier is pretty useless any way. If you want to
just test something, then one micro instance is fine. But if you actually want
to run a basic web app? One micro instance does not work.

The weird thing is that all the other services have decent, useful free tiers
that give you enough resources for your beta phase at least. Why is EC2 so
low? Maybe make it 750 hours total for any set of instances?

~~~
AsymetricCom
You can certainly run a basic app on a micro instance, unless it has to run in
a JVM, maybe.

~~~
rpedela
Not at reasonable performance or in high availability mode. Like I said it is
fine for testing and that is about it.

------
alecsmart1
The self-starter package is pretty much useless as it is the same as what they
have already. The portfolio package seems excellent. I understand they want
the cream of the crop, but I wish there was an option to submit your startup
for a case-by-case review. We are burning about $1k/mo on AWS and it would be
great if we could get some of this funding. It would go a real long way.

~~~
derefr
Seems like a case for an "accelerator" that only exists insofar as it vouches
for otherwise-self-sufficient startups and has access to the portfolio
package. Kind of like how CDBaby works/worked as a label on iTMS. (Or kind of
like libraries getting subscriptions to scientific journals for the benefits
of their patrons.)

------
TheRubyist
They are like Heroin Dealers, first injection is free ;) just try it.

~~~
rbanffy
It's not like you can't port it over to your own infrastructure if AWS starts
getting too costly.

~~~
berkay
Porting to your infrastructure is not a simple task if you're using AWS
services beyond EC2 (DynamoDB, SQS, etc.).

And I don't mean this as a criticism of AWS. We're happy users and have no
plans to move off. Just don't underestimate the cost of moving.

~~~
rbanffy
It _is_ expensive, but it's also possible.

------
LoneWolf
What I can't understand is if the plan is free for one year only like the free
tier or if there is another limit.

Anyone knows?

~~~
Aqua_Geek
I read it as it would last beyond one year, unlike the normal free tier, but
I’d like some clarification as well.

Edit: Re-reading it (particularly the “AWS Promotional Credit” section at the
bottom) leads me to believe that the free tier is exactly the same as the
regular free tier and it expires 12 months from sign-up.

------
smoyer
The DNS service (Route 53 -
[https://aws.amazon.com/route53/](https://aws.amazon.com/route53/)) seems to
be missing from the free tier ... other than that, it looks like everything
you need.

~~~
yarapavan
Remember that these core services are free for only 12 months. After that,
it's pay as you go at the usual rates. On the plus side, some of the other
services -- DynamoDB, Simple Workflow, Simple Queue Service, Simple
Notification Service, Amazon Elastic Transcoder, and CloudWatch -- are still
eligible for the free tier after the first year.

------
benzheren
The self-starter package looks just like the free trail package.

------
ateevchopra
How is the free tier service if i want to host a single launch page for my
startup which will take email IDs in a form and send email via the PEAR
library ?

------
WhitneyLand
Thanks? I guess...

~~~
WhitneyLand
Is anyone down voting me who doesn't work for Amazon? I really don't see how
this offer is anything to get excited about. What am I missing?

~~~
xauronx
It's a huge company acknowledging start ups and offering them some free
services. The free tier is pretty awesome as it is, and they "only" offered a
couple more free services on top of that. I don't know, I'm using AWS and I'm
not like shitting-my-pants excited but I think it's cool. I'm definitely not
going to be a snob about it even if I wasn't using them though.

/doesn't work for amazon, but also didn't/can't downvote you

------
crncosta
Looks like the page is down, isn't?

Not good for the business be off-line in the announcement day, IMHO.

~~~
thejosh
Works fine here and worked before.

