http://www.philsimonsystems.com/blog/technology/cloud-computing/amazon-doing-too-much/ Musings on technology, management, books, writing, and whatever else piques my interest. Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:18:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.philsimonsystems.com/blog/technology/cloud-computing/amazon-doing-too-much/comment-page-1/#comment-734 Paul Saunders Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:01:58 +0000 http://www.philsimonsystems.com/blog/technology/infrastructure/amazon-doing-too-much/#comment-734 Wow... I knew Amazon did a lot, but I had no idea just how diverse they have spread themselves.  Its always a trade off between <strong><em>"innovation or stagnation"</em></strong> and spreading yourself too thin.  I'm a great believer in selling your by-products which is a great alternative trend to traditional horizontal and vertical diversification.  It makes sense to me that an online retailer with massive infrastructure can go and sell some of its tech by-products which I guess have been developped for in-house consumption such as SaaS and IaaS offerings; and to offer complimentary products such as the Kindle... but real diversification from core competences is always a tough call. I guess Amazon believe they have reached sufficient critical mass and see themselves as the next Google type behemoth.  Sounds like they are trying to adopt a similar philosphy to Google in doing good and "not being evil"; but as Google found as their core team got thinner and thinner it becomes harder and harder to maintain the standards that made them great in the first place. My gut feel is that they'll do well in areas closest to their core skills and less so where they have weaker internal expertise. Always good not to have all your eggs in one basket I suppose. Good luck to them. Wow… I knew Amazon did a lot, but I had no idea just how diverse they have spread themselves.  Its always a trade off between “innovation or stagnation” and spreading yourself too thin.  I’m a great believer in selling your by-products which is a great alternative trend to traditional horizontal and vertical diversification.  It makes sense to me that an online retailer with massive infrastructure can go and sell some of its tech by-products which I guess have been developped for in-house consumption such as SaaS and IaaS offerings; and to offer complimentary products such as the Kindle… but real diversification from core competences is always a tough call.
I guess Amazon believe they have reached sufficient critical mass and see themselves as the next Google type behemoth.  Sounds like they are trying to adopt a similar philosphy to Google in doing good and “not being evil”; but as Google found as their core team got thinner and thinner it becomes harder and harder to maintain the standards that made them great in the first place.
My gut feel is that they’ll do well in areas closest to their core skills and less so where they have weaker internal expertise. Always good not to have all your eggs in one basket I suppose.
Good luck to them.

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