Ex-AWS Exec Kelman, Now at Oracle, Calls AWS Prices ‘Hostile’ to Customers

Ariel Kelman spent nine years as global marketing chief of Amazon Web Services, but it only took him 18 months at AWS’ smaller rival, Oracle, to publicly criticize his former employer. In an interview with The Information, Kelman blasts some much-criticized AWS practices such as the heavy fees it charges customers to move data out of one cloud to another cloud provider, also known as egress or networking bandwidth fees.

“From our perspective, [AWS’ egress fees are] a customer-hostile pricing strategy. It’s called, ‘Make it easy to get in, but we’re going to lock you in and make it really hard to get out,’” the 47-year-old Kelman said.