Comments on: Does Amazon minus Amazon Web Services make sense?

By: dotpeople

dotpeople — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 02:15:02 +0000

I don’t think the people who think there may be a spin-off pay very close attention to the overall character of Amazon. Financial analysts like to put things into neat little buckets like quarterly earnings estimates, analyze a very focused business that is as easy as possible for them to understand. Such impulses are fine, but they ignore the Bezos message: he really doesn’t care to make things easier for analysts and Bezos perceives his focus on low margin business, and his long timeline for achieving profitability as competitive advantage. And there’s some good sense in what Bezos argues: a long timeline makes problems that seem impossible to solve possible. At re:invent he framed the question of how to solve the problem of world hunger in both a ten and one hundred year term, and in the hundred year term, somehow the mind unlocks and can begin to engage in how to solve the problem. In a ten year timeline, the mind cannot engage. Similarly, Amazon as a whole business has much to gain from AWS as AWS disrupts existing datacenter technology, will likely disrupt enterprise hardware vendors and reshape that industry around the kinds of inputs Amazon.com needs to keep growing its vast ecommerce business. And even if this were not the plan, by keep the numbers murkiy, Amazon can lure other firms into the Cloud business, or at least significantly obscure the AWS business strategy for a while longer. If analysts are already aggravated, while investors in Amazon understand they are in for the long haul, Amazon has already created enough value to reward those patient enough to listen and let the business grow according to plan. By growing a low margin business that makes money on value Bezos creates a very dry, hot valley for any firms that seek to catch up with AWS.

By: paullangdon

paullangdon — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:15:55 +0000

There may be secrets on the balance sheet, but I can tell you that what AWS offers is nothing short of remarkable, and I bet that 80% of that “other” category is AWS.

By: Vinod Shintre

Vinod Shintre — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:38:55 +0000

branding is very important & i think AWS jells well with crowd. Don’t think Jeff will take the risk & other complexities involved. Milk the cow while its a cow ;-)

By: Statspotting

Statspotting — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 04:09:24 +0000

Just curious, why this AWS spinoff thing is gathering steam right now ?

By: Tom Krazit

Tom Krazit — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 01:06:19 +0000

Thanks, this is fixed.

By: simonmunro

simonmunro — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:37:09 +0000

Gigaom editorial standards slippage “delivering huge volume of low-volume goods”

By: larryw

larryw — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:57:39 +0000

So, if Amazon sells AWS, does that mean they’d need to start paying hosting fees for the infrastructure needed to run amazon.com? Yeah, that’s going to happen…

By: uǝǝpɐʎnɓ sıuǝp

uǝǝpɐʎnɓ sıuǝp — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:39:46 +0000

I doubt they Amazon will spin off AWS. By hiding the revenue stream under ‘other’ if gives them a competitive advantage.. It is also tightly coupled to the ‘Kindle’ platform..

By: Madlyb

Madlyb — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:40:51 +0000

As far as I am concerned, all the folks in the peanut gallery should find something else to occupy their time because Amazon has done more to gain and retain my business than every other retailer on the planet…combined…and it was sheer genius to monetize the massive infrastructure needed to accomplish that task.

As to Fernon…well…he shorted Amazon…kind of shows the level of his expertise.

By: scott herson

scott herson — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:05:03 +0000

I suggest its a good idea, otherwise, people will always remember what you really are – a book seller.