AWS CEO: 'Some businesses are trying to fight gravity'
Andy Jassy says some IT professionals are still trying to avoid migrating to the cloud
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Andy Jassy has accused some businesses of "trying to fight gravity" by refusing to move to the public cloud.
Jassy was speaking as part of AWS' online virtual summit, where he also took his customary shots at the public cloud giant's competitors.
The chief exec said that many CIOs are reluctant to start moving their organisation to the cloud because they fear it will make their position redundant.
"I think that there is still a segment of companies who are trying to fight gravity," he said. "It's a big, vast expanse so it's not surprising.
"I think there are a lot of reasons why people are resisting. Often times you're proud of the infrastructure you've built and you take the notion that if it isn't broke, why fix it.
"Sometimes people don't know what it means for their own job, and its learning new skills. I've had a number of CIOs say they know they're going to have to do a datacentre refresh and the cloud will allow them to move quickly, but that will be the next person's problem not theirs."
Jassy also accused some CIOs of being "toe-dippers" by moving a fraction of their workloads to the public cloud to appease their bosses.
He claimed this ultimately ends up costing the business more because they are paying to run two infrastructures.
Meanwhile he accused AWS' competitors of not knowing how to operate in the public cloud space because they aren't used to running "high-volume relatively low-cost operations".
"At amazon because we grew up as a retail business which is low margin; we have a lot of DNA to think about these businesses," he said.
"Most of the other providers have not grown up that way so they don't have that experience.
"There's a reason why we're the only ones that break out our earnings in the cloud computing space. It's really, really hard to run these high volume relatively low-margin businesses."
On the COVID-19 pandemic, Jassy said that AWS has committed tens of millions of dollars to help organisations fight the virus and help individuals cope with the disruption to their lives.
He claimed that "a lot of the things that are enabling us to deal with the crisis are running on AWS", citing Netflix, Disney+ and Zoom as examples.
He also highlighted the work AWS has done with the NHS over recent months.
"If you look at what we've done in the NHS in the UK, just being able to connect patients with medical practitioners and then get them the supplies and medicine they need; [it's] just a lot of things to help companies and government agencies and healthcare organisations help people," he said.