Amazon follows Microsoft's Azure lead; makes AWS inbound data transfer free

Amazon is taking a page out of Microsoft's book and is making inbound data transfer free for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering, as of tomorrow, July 1.

Microsoft announced just over a week ago all inbound data transfers for both peak and off-peak times being will be free with Windows Azure starting July 1.

Amazon also announced today a price cut for out-bound data transfer, as well as cuts in its CloudFront Content Delivery (CDN) pricing.

On the Amazon Web Services blog, Amazon officials discussed the potential impact of the soon-to-be-available in-bound transfer terms.

"There is no charge for inbound data transfer across all services in the US and Europe. That means, you can upload petabytes of data without having to pay for inbound data transfer fees. On outbound transfer, you will save up to 68% depending on volume usage.  For example, if you were transferring 10 TB in and 10 TB out a month, you will save 52% with the new pricing. If you were transferring 500 TB in and 500 TB out a month, you will save 68% on transfer with the new pricing."

Here's Amazon's updated pricing chart, reflecting today's cuts.

When Microsoft made its inbound data announcement earlier this month, several readers asked whether Microsoft might be making outbound data price cuts with Azure, as well. So far, the Softies haven't said this will be the case.