Rising hyperscaler cloud costs prompt companies to take action

New research from Civo finds 64 percent of users of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have seen an increase in cloud costs in the last 12 months.

This comes at a time when public cloud services are coming under scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority for their billing and pricing tactics.

The survey of over 500 tech professionals who regularly use hyperscale services finds that 69 percent of respondents have seen costs rise by up to 25 percent. What's more 42 percent of businesses using the hyperscalers say cannot easily predict their cloud bill each month and 28 percent report getting an unexpectedly large bill. 47 percent of businesses are considering moving away from the cloud and 28 percent have hired consultants to help reduce their cloud costs.

Mark Boost, CEO of Civo, says:

The cloud is broken. That is the stark truth we all, as an industry, need to face up to. The hyperscalers have not delivered on their lofty promises of low costs at scale that they set out more than a decade ago. Instead, users are left with high prices, overly complex solutions, and 'black-box' proprietary tech that make it very difficult to move anywhere else. When you are in, you are in! This situation can be hugely damaging, especially for smaller businesses, making it very difficult for them to build a bespoke, affordable approach to cloud that suits their needs.

But it doesn't have to be this way. The tech sector still has time to take a different, more responsible path. Our focus should be on fairness, transparency, and the customer’s experience at every turn -- not the shareholders' bottom line. Cloud should be about empowering IT teams to experiment and innovate using the technology, finding the services they need, and paying a fair price for them. With this new approach, the cloud can become what it always had the potential to be: an incredible engine of equity in technology, levelling the playing field and ensuring anyone can access cutting-edge tech to innovate and build a successful business. I firmly believe that the future of the tech sector must be about fairness and social responsibility, giving back to users and building a better world for future generations.

You can read more on the Civo blog.

Image credit: Tom Wang/Shutterstock