

Amazon Moves to Extend Cloud-Computing Dominance - selmnoo
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/business/amazon-moves-to-extend-cloud-computing-dominance.html

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ghshephard
Some parts of this article feel like the author doesn't have much experience
in the field of cloud services. For example:

"What makes Amazon unique in the fight to own the computing cloud is what it’s
not — a traditional tech company with a long history of providing products and
services to business customers. Finding a way to deliver services over the
Internet that behave like databases and other traditional software products
will be critical to keeping its lead because older tech companies like
Microsoft are already capable of doing it. "

I understand what the author was trying to get at - IBM/Microsoft/Oracle have
20+ years of providing Business Services, (Well, IBM is closer to 100) - And
Amazon has only been providing cloud services for about 10 years - but what an
incredible 10 years! Most people would suggest that Amazon is the market
leader in providing these types of services to business, and that
IBM/Microsoft are playing catch up.

A good counterexample is Salesforce - they've only been around for 15 years,
but nobody would suggest they aren't a dominant player in their industry.

The reality is - when it comes to new and disruptive technologies, the
innovator quite often becomes the dominant and trusted player _much_ faster
than in traditional (non disruptive) industries.

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gldalmaso
AWS's service offerings have an uncanny evolution pace. They have repeatedly
delivered new features that I felt like were obviously missing within weeks of
me noticing then.

It will be hard for Google and Microsoft to keep up given AWS head start. But
the competition will make up for a healthier ecosystem which is very welcome.

~~~
ghshephard
"It will be hard for Google and Microsoft to keep up given AWS head start."

I too, am impressed with Amazon's velocity - but, I'm curious - once Amazon
lays out the product roadmap - storage, message queues, DNS, archiving, etc...
what's to prevent Google/IBM/Microsoft from just cloning those services?

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toomuchtodo
> what's to prevent Google/IBM/Microsoft from just cloning those services?

Nothing. That's the best part about commodities. Their price gets driven down
by competition (note what S3 and EC2 pricing started at, and what it is now).

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SixSigma
> Amazon, has returned less in profits in its 17-year life as a public company
> than cloud competitors ... earn in a single quarter. If Wall Street grows
> tired of Amazon’s continued losses, it could also pinch A.W.S.

The share price two years ago was 250. Today 320. Ok the peak was 408 but that
is still pretty good.

Over the 17 years it has gone from 1 to 320.

I'm still calling Hold / Buy

~~~
ghshephard
"> Amazon, has returned less in profits in its 17-year life as a public
company than cloud competitors ... earn in a single quarter."

Another way of writing this is, "Amazon has focussed on continual growth over
the last 17 years, and had demonstrated that is willing to put all of it's
assets, revenue, and cash to chasing that growth. It's public cloud
competitors, hamstrung by the expectations of wall-street, are unable to
provide that same level of focus, and must instead return profits to
shareholders in the form of share buybacks, and dividends - restrictions that
Amazon has so far been able to avoid."

Amazon is a ruthless, relentless company. They certainly aren't taking those
profits and sending them to their employees/executives in the form of perks
and boondoggles. Everything they do is to pursue growth, at any costs.

~~~
SixSigma
Or, as Peter Drucker noted : "the only valid purpose of a firm is to create a
customer"

