AWS gives startups a boost with new cloud packages

Man walking up staircase to the sky

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a package of measures to help startups take advantage of the cloud to help boost their business growth.

Dubbed AWS Activate, the offering consists of a structured package of resources for startups, which includes, training, developer support, a special start-up community forum and special third-party offers, the company said.

There are two options available for the service. The Self Starter package is available for any startup to apply for and includes access to the AWS Free Usage Tier, one month of Developer-level AWS Support, web-based training and one self-paced lab, access to the AWS Startup Forum, and offers on products from third-party companies, such as Opscode and SOASTA.

The Portfolio package is only available to startups in selected accelerator, incubator, venture capital seed funds, or entrepreneur organisations. These include techstars, SVAngel, seedcamp and First Round Capital, among others.

It also offers AWS Credits that are redeemable against services including Amazon EC2, CloudFront, DynamoDB, Redshift and Glacier, as well as business-level AWS Support for up to one year, web-based and instructor-led training, access to the Startup Forum and offers on products from third-party companies.

AWS is a big advocate of using cloud-based resources to help businesses of all sizes scale and grow, rather than tie up their money in costly on-premise hardware deployments.

Adam Selipsky, vice president of AWS, said: “Many of the world’s most successful startups already build their businesses on the AWS cloud.

“Based on feedback from VCs, startups and entrepreneurs, we developed AWS Activate to help even more startup organisations get going quickly by leveraging AWS to help build their business. We’re happy to offer this to startups of all kinds from around the world today."

Jane McCallion
Deputy Editor

Jane McCallion is ITPro's deputy editor, specializing in cloud computing, cyber security, data centers and enterprise IT infrastructure. Before becoming Deputy Editor, she held the role of Features Editor, managing a pool of freelance and internal writers, while continuing to specialise in enterprise IT infrastructure, and business strategy.

Prior to joining ITPro, Jane was a freelance business journalist writing as both Jane McCallion and Jane Bordenave for titles such as European CEO, World Finance, and Business Excellence Magazine.