
Microsoft sees lower margins from cloud computing - timr
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5541QU20090605
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mlinsey
I think this is well-understood by all the players in this space. The problem
with utility computing is that, well it's a _utility_. Ideally, the market
becomes completely fungible, with the only differences being price and
reliability.

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wmf
There is a legitimate question about whether packaged software (e.g. Exchange)
or SaaS (e.g. hosted Exchange) has higher margins, though. Getting customers
to pay every month forever certainly sounds appealing.

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arohner
Just about everything has lower margins than the Windows/Office monopoly...

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tybris
It's easy enough to realise that you're always selling less (computing power)
than you pay for. The margins are inevitably small, but there are other
reasons to get in the business. For Amazon.com the main reason was probably to
build such a huge economy of scale that they don't need to buy extra capacity
in Q4.

