No idea how my statement could come across as defensive - the intention was rather offensive. And I must say I'm quite disappointed by the response.

Sorry if I acome across like an angry nerd by now but a) that's what I am and b) do you really think this is a good forum to play the smoke & mirrors game in?

Many of us over here build systems like the ones you are selling. False claims like "rackspace is giving their storage away for free" simply don't work for us.

I feel insulted when reading bollocks like that. Why do you try to treat me like an idiot?

The rackspace storage does ofcourse not come "free". The cost was simply factored into the base-fee.

Let's compare the largest instance where we can make a match, shall we:

   Monthly fee |  Rackspace 8G Instance | EC2 "Large"
  -------------+------------------------+-----------------
  Monthly Fee  |                $345.60 |         $288.00 
  640G Disk    |                $0.00   |          $64.00
  =============^========================+================
                                $345.60 |         $352.00

Rackspace comes out ahead by a lousy $6.40 or 2%. That's your definition of free, yes?

Want me to make that comparison with a reserved instance? Ah, thanks for asking, I knew you wanted.

   Monthly fee |  Rackspace 8G Instance | "Large" reserved
  -------------+------------------------+-----------------
  Monthly Fee  |                $345.60 |         $162.00 
  640G Disk    |                $0.00   |          $64.00
  =============^========================+================
                                $345.60 |         $226.00

Oops. By the means of a simple 1 year commitment EC2 suddenly comes out ahead quite a worthwhile $119.60 or 35%.

And know what, one great thing we could use these $120 saved bucks for would be to add 1.2T more storage! How's that? And what would the price for that be at rackspace anyways? Oh sorry, I forget, 640G ought to be enough for everybody...

Well, I'll stop already, you see where it's headed. :-)

For your own good, please refrain from bending facts the way you did above when speaking to a technical audience. Unless having nerds like me pop out of the wood and redact you in public is part of your marketing strategy...