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AWS brings Workspaces to Australia at a premium price

Small-scale rig keeps prices high down under

Amazon Web Services has flicked the switch on its 'Workspaces' desktop-a-as-service offering in its Sydney region.

There's nothing new about the service, which as we've previously noted isn't at its best when consumed over high-latency links. AWS tells us Australian users can expect about 90 milliseconds less latency than was the case when accessing offshore bit barns, which should make the service viable for local users.

There's one small wrinkle: a price premium.

Here's global pricing for Workspaces' four tiers:

US East US West EU Sydney
Standard $35.00 $35.00 $37.00 $45.00
Standard Plus $50.00 $50.00 $52.00 $60.00
Performance $60.00 $60.00 $64.00 $75.00
Performance Plus $75.00 $75.00 $79.00 $90.00

Those prices are all in US dollars so the Sydney region isn't cheap, even taking into account the ten per cent goods and services tax payable on just about everything down under. Even once we take factor in that tax, the premium is about $US6/month for the Standard Workspace's Sydney incarnation.

Amazon's told us the price difference is down to higher costs for people, rent, connectivity and just about everything else in Australia. The comparatively small scale of the local Workspaces rig also pushes up price, but we were told AWS will as ever seek to do something about that if more users clamber aboard and help it to achieve economies of scale. ®

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