Amazon Web Services is drawing on Apple’s Mac Mini computers, featuring Intel Core i7 chips to deliver EC2 virtual-computing instances with MacOS, according to CNBC. The instances run on bare metal, and a developer will get the full power of a Mac instead of virtual machines that deliver small virtual slices of physical computers.
- EC2 Computing instances will be an alternative to Microsoft Windows and open-source Linux
- Instances of Mac Minis featuring Apple’s M1 Arm-based chips will arrive in 2021 and will provide a way to remotely use Mac-specific software such as the Xcode integrated development environment.
- Xcode developers can upload apps to Apple’s App Store or do that with existing Mac computers or rely on Mac specialists such as MacStadium.
- Developers can put early versions of their applications on the instances to run necessary tests before rolling out updates to the end-users
- No major cloud provider has brought a means to rent a remote computing infrastructure with MacOS from their clouds.
- Amazon will benefit from the first-mover advantage in attracting customers to AWS, the main source of the retailer’s operating income.
- Intuit, a major AWS customer, has already started using the new Mac instances, while Amazon’s Ring subsidiary plans to use them.
- As of last year, Apple was spending over $30 million on AWS while its iCloud services rely on AWS.
Apple and Amazon stocks are currently gaining. AAPL: NASDAQ is up 1.39% on premarket, AMZN: NASDAQ is up 0.69% on premarket
