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Seems like Warren believes a big reason IBM hasn't done well is because of AWS: "What they [IBM] have run into is some pretty tough competitors. And What I wo

Seems like Warren believes a big reason IBM hasn't done well is because of AWS: "What they [IBM] have run into is some pretty tough competitors. And What I would say is Amazon, which, I've never seen a guy succeed in two businesses simultaneously that are really divergent in terms of customers and operations [Retail and AWS]"... he then praises Jeff Bezos even more. Question/quote starting at around 11:00 http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000616150 http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000616150

nickpsecurity 9y ago
He's wrong this time. The similarities were more important than differences. Amazon was a logistics company great at moving lots of stuff on the cheap. That made them a retail powerhouse. Then the did the same for server hardware, networks, and VM's. They already had a lot of that, too, from being big eCommerce site.
- cylinder 9y ago
  How is Amazon a logistics company? They use the major carriers like everyone else. Their distribution centers are nothing amazing, and only now are starting to be automated. They're only just starting to run their own last-mile delivery and I can tell you from experience they're pretty awful at it. They run the logistics trope as a pitch for Wall Street. They are regular e-commerce, with massive scale on the back of being able to raise a lot of money and poor labor practices.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    They're so awful at all of it that they got it done better than the competition consistently for a decade. Maybe you underestimate how awful the competition is. I've seen a lot of logistics and warehouse firms. They're consistently full of bullshit and inefficiencies. The latter come from politics or avoiding sensible investments. Amazon could apply their same principles of cost-effective retail, logistics and software to IT to come up with a cloud. It's not a huge leap or anything. Just requires different talent hired to focus on the concept with same principles. It helps that the competition that did pay on demand for enterprises kept prices up and tech proprietary as much as possible. Not too unlike some of Amazon's retail competition in brick and mortar.
- arthurcolle 9y ago
  There exist a ton of old economy businesses built on terrible legacy systems, so just being an eCommerce company doesn't necessarily mean that they would have robust enough systems architecture to be able to open it up and sell it as a service to the world.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    No, the specific tech was developed by specialists. Being a logistics and eCommerce company helped them avoid common mistakes in that area. Specifically, they kept it accessible and cheap with easier scaling. They also eliminated most of the capital investments most IT shops would rather not make. Similar to the backbone of a logistics or eCommerce company like all the warehouses and such.
- tuna-piano 9y ago
  I'd suggest that a big reason for the success of AWS is not the efficiency of their data center operations, but the quality of their software. AWS is a software company that happens to sell cloud software. The pricing of their core services is not necessarily lower than the IBM/Google/Microsoft equivalents. People choose AWS because of the breadth and depth of the ecosystem compared to Google/IBM/Microsoft. The old quote "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" had some truth to it, as IBM was the safe default choice. In the cloud, the truth seems to be "Nobody ever got fired for choosing AWS". AWS is the safe default choice... you'd really need a good reason to go with IBM in the cloud.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    That sounds true today. Didnt ot originally just have one or two services?

nickpsecurity 9y ago

He's wrong this time. The similarities were more important than differences. Amazon was a logistics company great at moving lots of stuff on the cheap. That made them a retail powerhouse. Then the did the same for server hardware, networks, and VM's. They already had a lot of that, too, from being big eCommerce site.

cylinder 9y ago
How is Amazon a logistics company? They use the major carriers like everyone else. Their distribution centers are nothing amazing, and only now are starting to be automated. They're only just starting to run their own last-mile delivery and I can tell you from experience they're pretty awful at it. They run the logistics trope as a pitch for Wall Street. They are regular e-commerce, with massive scale on the back of being able to raise a lot of money and poor labor practices.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  They're so awful at all of it that they got it done better than the competition consistently for a decade. Maybe you underestimate how awful the competition is. I've seen a lot of logistics and warehouse firms. They're consistently full of bullshit and inefficiencies. The latter come from politics or avoiding sensible investments. Amazon could apply their same principles of cost-effective retail, logistics and software to IT to come up with a cloud. It's not a huge leap or anything. Just requires different talent hired to focus on the concept with same principles. It helps that the competition that did pay on demand for enterprises kept prices up and tech proprietary as much as possible. Not too unlike some of Amazon's retail competition in brick and mortar.
arthurcolle 9y ago
There exist a ton of old economy businesses built on terrible legacy systems, so just being an eCommerce company doesn't necessarily mean that they would have robust enough systems architecture to be able to open it up and sell it as a service to the world.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  No, the specific tech was developed by specialists. Being a logistics and eCommerce company helped them avoid common mistakes in that area. Specifically, they kept it accessible and cheap with easier scaling. They also eliminated most of the capital investments most IT shops would rather not make. Similar to the backbone of a logistics or eCommerce company like all the warehouses and such.
tuna-piano 9y ago
I'd suggest that a big reason for the success of AWS is not the efficiency of their data center operations, but the quality of their software. AWS is a software company that happens to sell cloud software. The pricing of their core services is not necessarily lower than the IBM/Google/Microsoft equivalents. People choose AWS because of the breadth and depth of the ecosystem compared to Google/IBM/Microsoft. The old quote "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" had some truth to it, as IBM was the safe default choice. In the cloud, the truth seems to be "Nobody ever got fired for choosing AWS". AWS is the safe default choice... you'd really need a good reason to go with IBM in the cloud.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  That sounds true today. Didnt ot originally just have one or two services?