Why Amazon Owns The Internet

If Apple gives up its position of industry leadership in 2012 the only company capable of assuming that role is Amazon.com. What other company is there?  In the PC space giants like HP and Dell are good followers, not leaders. Intel doesn’t even see itself in such a leadership role. Microsoft is having trouble just holding onto what it has already while Google is a herd of cats. Oracle is too enterprise-centric and everyone else is too small. That leaves Amazon.

True, Amazon lacks Apple’s design sense, but Amazon has shown through its many Kindle models an ability and willingness to learn. This is a big deal. Most companies (heck, most people) don’t really learn anything unless they are in trouble. One company can copy another, sure, but fully adopting another company’s philosophy almost never happens except in desperation, which is usually too late. Amazon is different. They are willing to do the work to get things right. Today’s Kindle Fire is far from perfect but tomorrow’s Kindle Fire will be much, much better. It took Microsoft ages to get to Windows Phone 7. Amazon can do it quicker.

Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos is the only person that can take Steve Jobs' role. Being led by a brilliant inspired founder is essential as Jobs showed through his return to Apple. Presently Bezos is the only CEO of the companies mentioned here who has the scale of Steve Jobs. Bezos is willing to make big bets on new markets. Beyond Jobs even, he’s willing to accept financial losses as a cost of making those bets. With another decade or more available to him as CEO, absent some horrible accident, Bezos is unstoppable. This is the part that many people don’t understand: Amazon can scale its business to a level far beyond anything Apple could ever have imagined.

Steve Jobs had extraordinary success at Apple, growing the company more than 300 times in market cap, but how much more can Apple grow?  Apple as envisioned by Jobs could grow to be the biggest computer company, the biggest consumer electronics company, the biggest music company, the biggest telephone company, and the biggest TV company. That’s big, but it’s an imaginable number — a number with very real limits. But Amazon competes with all those same companies and Walmart. I don't think Apple would never sell cars, for example (I may be wrong here, chack the Mini Scooter E Concept on my post below "My Favorite Tech Products of 2011"). Can you see Amazon selling cars?  I can.

Amazon is willing to do the hard work and make the big bets to assume Apple’s leadership positions in computers, music, video, and consumer electronics. Then they’ll translate that into every other customer-facing industry as well as the Cloud. Amazon.com will be the world’s first $1 trillion company — may be not in 2012, but eventually.

Comments

[spinoza2]

The Kindle Fire and the iPad are reflections of their potential markets in the US: The Fire is designed entirely around consumption, much like television, and is priced and intended as an inexpensive commodity item for the broad masses who passively digest media. The iPad, on the other hand, is more a powerful personal computer that acts as a platform for creativity and personal production. The iPad is designed for people who are active and engaged in life, who work, who are educated, and who are creative.

[jessica darko]

Bezos is all hype, no substance. Amazon commoditizes, it doesn't innovate. Apple innovates. People always claimed Apple was all marketing, but Bezos is the master snowballer. I'm amazed that reporters give them so much credit. Anyone who has worked at Amazon knows that the company culture is that of a retailer, not a tech company, and innovation is not rewarded nearly as much as ass licking.

[Daniel Larsson]

@jessica darko Rarely do I see anyone be so wrong. Amazon has more innovation under it's belt since inception then Apple has had since their. Steve Jobs said it himself -- he wasn't an inventor, he was a tweaker! Apple barely 'invented' anything themselves. Just took existing products, thought of ways to make them more user friendly and launched them as their own.

I am so tired of all the fanboys/fangirls wrongfully believing that Apple somehow 'invented' all sorts of things. Yeah. They invented themselves into 'almost bankruptcy' a few times and got bailed out by non other then Microsoft..

[Jason Joel Thompson]

@spinoza2 I love this narrative you've created for yourself. I can see you now, skipping through a sunny field, rainbows and puppies dancing at your feet, head held high, iPad held higher, free from the doldrums of life, vigorous, engaged, a robust, truly living being--your personal identity actualized by a pretty piece of consumer electronics. I am inspired.

[oomu]

@daniel larsson

Here are my 2 cents:

Apple invented a lot of things, mostly all high function in a graphical interface (drag'n drop, rules for menu, and so on) You could also speak about quickdraw, quicktime, newton and other stuff. In the 90s, the company was badly managed but not in bankruptcy (and never "a few times"). they still have billions in bank and are not even close to obsolescence.

Microsoft-Apple deal was two fold: Apple gained back Office, a necessity to sell computers, and Microsoft closed all their legal disputes with Apple.

Amazon is a good company. They made a lot in distribution and packaging to improve and innovate. For now, the "Kindle Fire" is walking in the steps of Apple.

[oomu]

My 2 cents (part 2):

As a matter of fact, Amazon and Apple are very similar. They are both focused on their core competences and their business. And the same country makes all their products (China).

The Kindle Fire is the repackaged Rim Playbook (it's a "grey" device sellers can re-made, by a Chinese company)

The "darker aspect" is ours: to strive upon the self-exploitation of Chinese people by Chinese people.

[FGFM]

@oomu

Indeed the darker aspects are all of our responsibility. Although, I would argue that using slave labor to make a product cheap so that it can be more widely distributed (Amazon) is a lot better than using slave labor to ensure huge profit margins (Apple).

Apple could easily afford to shave 25-30% off of their prices, or even better, pay their workers properly and ensure a safe working environment.

Our economic system is indeed bad (for most), and better alternatives exist, but Apple is definitely the "dark side" of this comparison and it appears that not even you deny that.