

Ask HN:  What about a Google buy out of Amazon? - epynonymous

After the Motorola Mobility buy out, who's next?  Amazon is rumored to be working on an android based kindle, has extensive cloud and web presence, has inroads into online music, books, groceries, etc.  Do you think this is a good combination?
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polyfractal
Not in my opinion.

Google is just continuing their moat/scorched earth strategy. Google's bread
and butter is advertising, everything else is just a moat to protect that.
Search, Chrome, Android - they all help Google's advertising bottom line. If
Amazon built an Android-based Kindle, Google would be tickled pink.

Motorola Mobility was a strategic buy. Predominantly, patent protection
against Apple and Microsoft. But secondarily it helps them secure a permanent
Android vendor. Buying Amazon doesn't really further their goals or business
model. Amazon is a distribution juggernaut that is orthogonal to Google in
just about every way (except AWS)

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runjake
I'm not sure your stance is accurate. Google does allow OEMs to use Android in
ways I can't see where it clearly benefits Google's bottom line.

Seems there's been quite a few Android devices that have shipped with much of
the Google services stripped out, and replaced with Bing/other vendor apps.
This was going on at Verizon Wireless, at least for a while, and is again
occurring with a recently announced Android tablet.

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polyfractal
Ahh, I was not aware of that. I assumed OEMs built on top of Android (and
google functionality), rather than ripping internals out.

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runjake
It depends on what you define as "on top", but no, stuff like HTC's Sense and
Motorola's BLUR make relatively low-level changes/replacements to what is
generally considered Android. It's rather sad.

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damoncali
Amazon has a $90B market cap. Google's is $173B. Google can't afford it
without taking on LOTS of debt, which ain't going to happen (note that neither
company currently has any significant debt).

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byoung2
I'm not sure Google can afford Amazon, and even if they could, would the SEC
allow it? I think regulatory problem areas would include letting a dominant
force in online search also control much of the infrastructure of web hosting
(AWS), or the clear leader in online advertising also be the biggest player
that sells you merchandise, or the largest digitizer of books control both the
sale and delivery of books.

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byoung2
_Do you think this is a good combination?_

I think an acquisition of AWS by itself would be a strategic move for Google.
I could see some interesting mashups of Google products and AWS. One that
comes to mind is an S3-backed version of Google Docs, or using EC2 to do
advanced analysis on data in Google Spreadsheets.

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untog
Google already has an extremely sizable cloud and web presence, I doubt they'd
be interested in buying AWS.

Fun fact: The Barnes and Noble Nook is Android-based. So Amazon would almost
be behind the curve if they went for an Android-powered eReader.

