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.
At some point the phrase "tech company" becomes completely meaningless. Microsoft is a software compoany, Google a search engine/ad buisness, and Amazon are a retailer. Although there are areas of overlap they are effecitvely in completely different markets. The tendancy to treat them as competitors just because they are identified as large tech companies seems short sighted. It was idiotic for Microsoft to invest so much money in Bing; they might as well have started selling condos or opened a sandwich shop.
Amazon cloud computing was originally so brilliant because they sold computing like a retail product (easy billing, no annoying sales or contracts). MS make money selling server software to people who don't want to buy computing as a retail product. They are actually different markets and are both sustainable.
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.
"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?
> 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).
> 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.
"> 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.
"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.