AWS declares price war on Google, Microsoft, Dropbox

Amazon Web Services has moved to undercut the file storage and collaboration clouds offered by Microsoft and Google with an aggressively-priced service called Zocalo.

Zocalo, targeted at enterprise customers that might otherwise be eyeing off alternatives available from Google and Microsoft, is available to a limited group of customers in preview from today.

It offers a cloud storage service that undercuts the prices of Dropbox and Box, with enterprise-ready features more akin to Google's Drive for Work or Microsoft's OneDrive for Business.

Users can collaborate on documents, including pdf files, with version control and audit trail features included, and can access and edit documents via the browser or from native apps released for iOS and Android.

Crucially for Microsoft system administrators, AWS promises the service can integrate with Active Directory.

AWS Zocalo costs US$5 per enterprise user and per month for 200GB of storage. The company has also bundled 50 gigabyte (GB) of storage per user free of charge for customers of Amazon's remote desktop service, WorkSpaces, or 200GB at a discounted rate of $2 per user.

The first extra 1 terabyte (TB) per month will incur a cost of US$0.03 per additional GB, with various tiers on offer up to over 5000TB per month at a cost US$0.028 per additional GB.

Aggressive pricing

Google charges US$10 per user per month with unlimited storage for customers of its Drive for Work product, aimed at organisations with more than five users.

Microsoft’s cloud storage offering - OneDrive for Business, which was revamped in March this year - costs US$2.50 per user, per month for 25GB storage.

Customers with Office 365 Professional Plus or Office with Software Assurance are offered a discounted rate of US$1.50 per user, per month, and users can purchase additional storage for $US.20 per additional GB.

Microsoft last month announced it would soon roll out 1TB data quotas for OneDrive for Business subscribers.

Amazon's Zocalo service also undercuts cloud storage pioneers Dropbox and Box. 

Dropbox offers unlimited storage for enterprises with more than five users at a cost of A$17 per user per month.

Box, in comparison, offers two plans for businesses with over five users - its Business plan offers 1000 GB for US$15 per user, per month, and its Enterprise plan offers unlimited storage at a cost of and US$35 per user, per month.