Cloud absolute effect `Amazon tyranny`¡¦Sponsor excessive reaction to partners
Lee Gyung Tak | kt87@ | 2017-11-01 10:35:26

A representative of AWS Korea is giving a keynote speech at 'AWS Summit Seoul 2017' held at COEX, Samsung-dong, Seoul on April 19. Photo by AWS Korea


It is pointed out that Amazon is demanding excessive sponsorship costs for its domestic partners at its hosted event as a weapon of dominance in the cloud market.

According to the industry on October 31, Amazon Web Services Korea (AWS) held partnership sponsorship costs up to 25% this year, holding `2018 Seoul Summit` at COEX, Seoul, Korea for two days from April 18 ~ 19.

The Seoul Summit is held every year since 2015 to address AWS`s strategy, technology and issues across the cloud computing ecosystem. As interest in the cloud grows, AWS expects visitors to be as high as 1437 in 2015, 4147 in 2016, and 7628 in 2017 and close to 10,000 next year. It is second only to the AWS Summit in Asia Pacific next year, after Sydney (12,000), exceeding ASEAN (Singapore, 4,500) and Mumbai (4,000).

AWS`s major domestic partners will sponsor and participate in the event. This year, a total of 30 companies including Intel, Megazone, Besin Global, GS Neotek & Nongshim NDS £¿ Kolon Benite £¿ Unity £¿ SK Infosec £¿ Anap £¿ KINX £¿ Korea CA £¿ Penta Security Inc. participated. However, these partners have to pay a sponsorship fee for the summit participation, and the partners say that AWS is burdened by the fact that it is raising prices every year.

A partner company representative said, "AWS has raised the cost every year and announced the amount that we have raised so much in the next year." There is no good event related to the cloud in Korea, and many partners are participating. "He said.

This year`s entry fee is divided into USD 40,000 (Platinum), USD 30,000 (Gold), USD 20,000 (Silver) and USD 7000 (Bronze) depending on the sponsor rating. AWS is close to USD 600,000 (USD 678 million) for last year`s domestic partners. The number of presentations, the number of presentation sessions, and the booth size will vary based on the cost.

However, next year, `Participation Cost (Image)` will increase to 50,000 (Platinum), 35,000 (Gold), 20,000 (Silver) and 10,000 (Bronze) USD 3,000). In the case of the Platinum rating, it is 25% higher.

"It`s no surprise that other AWS companies are saying that AWS is more expensive than common sense," he said. "We have no obligation to compulsorily participate in it, but we complain that AWS is in the process of reading the cloud ecosystem.

Other Korean cloud and IT conference sponsors cost less or less. The cost of participating in `Tech Summit Seoul (formerly Cloud Road Show)` held in Korea this April by Microsoft Korea (MS Korea) is USD 5,000 without grade. It is one tenth of the AWS Platinum rating. Besides, the cost of participating in cloud events such as KT & Tmax and InnoGrid including the `Oracle Cloud World Seoul` conference is also much lower than that of AWS. The government sponsored "Cloud Expo Korea" does not have a sponsor fee. The Developer Conference, hosted by Naver and Nexon, also invites speakers from various domestic companies to host sessions, but does not require any additional costs.

Even though AWS has a high reputation in the cloud market, it has been revealed that partner companies are seeking to get marketing results by participating in the event. In fact, the number of partners confirmed to participate in the 2018 AWS Seoul Summit reached 60 companies, nearly double this year.

"According to internal research, AWS has 60% to 70% of our domestic market share, nearly double our global market share," said a cloud service company official. "As AWS`s influence is absolute and it would not be calculated, "he said.

By Lee Gyung Tak kt87@


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