Amazon as a software developer
By Paul Biba
I came across this comment by Felix Torres and it hit me right in the center of the forehead like a 50 caliber bullet. (Well, maybe not quite like that as I am writing this.) He is so right! We all forget that Amazon developed all the software for their store (and has patents on a lot of it) and has developed, on its own, software for enterprise level backup and search. We get fooled by the facade of Amazon as a retailer and proceed to forget that they do all the back end stuff themselves. Felix is so correct, I don’t think there is anyone out there in the ebook industry with the Amazon’s high-level software expertise. Felix’s comment deserves to be quoted in full on the front page. Begin:
One of the things that must folks in the publishing world neglect is that Amazon is not just a retailer, but also a software developer. More, they are one of a handful of companies working on a platform for (potentially) the next age of computing: the so-called “cloud computing” era of blended local and remote computing. Once you factor this in it is hardly surprising that they are leveraging their cloud platform capabilities into boosting Kindle.
And when you consider that none of their existing ebook competitors has any experience in that arena (except Microsoft, who may not even be in the game anymore) this just might turn out to be the deciding factor.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:54 am
You can read more about the behind-the-scenes of Amazon.com right here http://striphas.wikidot.com/kindle-the-labor-of-reading-worksite-v2-0, as well as in my book, *The Late Age of Print.*