Google, Amazon, Microsoft Go East For Network Gear

theodp writes "Wired's Cade Metz has the scoop on the move away from U.S. network equipment stalwarts, calling it of the best-kept secrets in Silicon Valley. 'Cloud computing is an arms race,' writes Metz. 'The biggest web companies on earth are competing to see who can deliver their services to the most people in the shortest amount of time at the lowest cost. And the cheapest arms come straight from Asia.' Or, as Joyent's Howard Wu puts it, 'It's kind of like buying couches. If you buy one, you go to a retail store. If you buy 10,000 couches, you go straight to the factory.'"

Comments

Re:I'll Never Buy 10,000 Switches

[rgbrenner]

Buy Huawei? How does that work exactly?

1) Foreign companies cannot own more than 49% of a Chinese company. All of those American companies in China? They own 49% of those facilities.. a Chinese 'partner' is required to operate in China.

2) Huawei is a government controlled corporation.

3) Huawei had 28 billion USD in revenue in 2010. Which means (by revenue) it is larger than Facebook, Google, and Amazon. It is 2/3rd the size of Cisco (and has 2x the number of employees). It is 40% the size of Microsoft.

No foreign company is buying Huawei anytime soon.

Re:10,000 couches

[mspohr]

I think you missed my point.
Try reading this Wikipedia section slowly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand#Abusing_Smith.E2.80.99s_statement_of_an_invisible_hand

Smiths invisible hand has been appropriated by others (abused) and expanded (to your meaning above). My point was that his original description and meaning has been lost.