Today Google released their new App Engine. This is seen as a direct competetor of Amazon Web Services (AWS). The service started applications for accounts for developers tonight at 9:30. Some of the features of the service are:

• Comes with a SDK! - start developing even if you dont have an account yet!
• Develop applications in Python - now you know why Google is hiring so many devs with python exp ;)
• Free 500 MB of data and upto 5 million page views a month!
• Integration with other google services so authentication etc need not be developed if not so important(instead use google’s account or sth.)

But there are a few limitations too…

• A limit of 1000 results per query(do we need more then that anyway?)
• Only three applications in the preview period.
• Just python is supported for now
• Only 10000 accounts to be given initially! (Yes I got one already :)

It can certainly be called as a competitor to AWS but is yet to get all the features and take a full form… More updates on techcrunch

I look forward to do somehting with it soon… after 14th that is :)