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This article is just crazy talk. Amazon is not a device company, has never been a device company, and has no intention of becoming a device company. It would

by cek 15y ago

This article is just crazy talk. Amazon is not a device company, has never been a device company, and has no intention of becoming a device company. It would only acquire a boat anchor like webOS if it had no reasonable alternative (and even then I doubt it). It has plenty of alternatives. Kindle as a device is simply a near term means to an end: To ensure that there are phenomenal ways for consumers to access the Amazon cloud services. Amazon has no desire to make $ directly off of devices. It has been happy to sell them at a loss, and will continue to be happy to (to a point). They will also continue to be happy to invest in great experiences that run on other devices (Kindle software for iPhone/iPad/Android/WP7/PC/web as well as the Amazon.com store). Repeat after me: Stop focusing on the device. Device centric computing is done. Cloud+Devices+People is the future. Amazon knows this as well as anyone and is in a great position to capitalize on it.

trebor 15y ago
In other words, we'll regress from having a PC to a net-enabled terminal—they'll just be called "smartphones" and "tablets" instead. Just like computing started it looks like there is a trend to, again, go back to the terminal model.
- cek 15y ago
  "There is nothing new in this world." - Some wise person You could paint it that way, but I choose to view it differently. The "new" terminals are far smarter. Nobody will ever confuse them with dumb terminals. There are a wide range of popular form-factors (phone, tablet, TV, car, watch, browser, PC, signage, ...) where in the old terminal model there was one (~PC). And the kicker: The "app" is now designed to not only SPAN all of those devices but to do so in a rich, people-centric way. That "rich way", by the way, requires huge client side computing resources. Lastly, I said "people-centric" above because the actual equation for the new value proposition is: experience = people + devices + cloud services Note all entities are plural.
Zakuzaa 15y ago
What's stopping Amazon from becoming a device company (and I think they already are)? How can you be so sure about what Amazon's strategy could be? Do you have some insider knowledge? Amazon's primary motive is to generate money. If device business adds 10 billion USD to their yearly revenue, who will complain?

by cek 15y ago

trebor 15y ago

In other words, we'll regress from having a PC to a net-enabled terminal—they'll just be called "smartphones" and "tablets" instead. Just like computing started it looks like there is a trend to, again, go back to the terminal model.

cek 15y ago
"There is nothing new in this world." - Some wise person You could paint it that way, but I choose to view it differently. The "new" terminals are far smarter. Nobody will ever confuse them with dumb terminals. There are a wide range of popular form-factors (phone, tablet, TV, car, watch, browser, PC, signage, ...) where in the old terminal model there was one (~PC). And the kicker: The "app" is now designed to not only SPAN all of those devices but to do so in a rich, people-centric way. That "rich way", by the way, requires huge client side computing resources. Lastly, I said "people-centric" above because the actual equation for the new value proposition is: experience = people + devices + cloud services Note all entities are plural.

Zakuzaa 15y ago

What's stopping Amazon from becoming a device company (and I think they already are)? How can you be so sure about what Amazon's strategy could be? Do you have some insider knowledge? Amazon's primary motive is to generate money. If device business adds 10 billion USD to their yearly revenue, who will complain?