AWS and Apple work together to create attractive environment for developers

• Winning or keeping your developer community is critical in the cloud world
• Cloud testing using multiple native Mac instances may be a boon for developers
• But it also points at possible 5G capabilities down the line

Amazon’s cloud division has announced what’s described as ‘new virtual computing instances on the AWS cloud’ for software developers that run Apple’s MacOS operating system. The move is yet another twist and turn as the giants jockey for strategic advantage in the convergent space between cloud, telco network, enterprise and, in this case, end-user platform (Apple Mac) and developers.

“This is a big boost for enterprise developers, many of whom use Apple Macs as their platform of choice,” says Nick McQuire, Senior Vice President at CCS Insight. Nick says the move sees Amazon essentially create multiple native Mac instances - using Mac chips - on AWS infrastructure.  The instances run on ‘bare metal’ so a developer can get the full  Mac performance, rather than the lower performance expected from a virtual machine. This enables developers to test out their applications without having to build their own test infrastructure to do so. “They now have many of the benefits of building and testing those apps directly in the AWS cloud,” said Nick.

The key to winning in the cloud market is being able to attract developers to your cloud platform by having the best assortment of software tools and facilities (like the testing environment). It all helps to keep the developers on-board and happy. 

“Not only will this move help to improve the cost, security and efficiency of building applications, what is most interesting is the potential for 5G capabilities down the line as both parties have been pioneering 5G solutions to the enterprise in 2020.” 

It’s early days, but having developed the cloud testing capability on native Mac hardware, it seems unlikely that Amazon and Apple won’t take the capability further. “When you consider the direction mobile phones and applications are taking, with low latency and high throughput becoming the norm in support of technologies like VR, AR, edge computing and media streaming for example, this AWS and Apple tie-up has formidable potential,” says Nick.