Amazon just announced EC2, their rent-a-datacenter plan. You build a custom virtual machine using their tools, and upload it to them. Then you can turn on that virtual machine anytime you want for a whopping ten cents per hour.
It gets even better – if you have scalability needs, like if your site suddenly becomes hugely popular, then you can turn on more machines. You just get billed ten cents per hour per machine.
There’s other costs for storage and bandwidth, but the bottom line is that the cost for a startup ebusiness just got dirt cheap. Implement your idea in a virtual machine, and you’ll be able to handle obscene growth without forking over huge money right away. You don’t have to have a lot of money tied up in a datacenter, don’t have to hire a huge infrastructure staff, etc.
This makes it even easier for your average geek to build a business without the overhead involved with finding and funding staff. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. And it works on a Mac. Gotta love that.
