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Rivalry Building Between Amazon and Google

Amazon and Google, both giants in the online business world, started out as separate entities with two very different agendas. As each has grown into an empire, the overlapping areas of business between the two companies has grown as well. But with both companies moving strongly into the electronic device market, cloud services, and Amazon now building out its advertising network, they find themselves increasingly at odds, and 2013 may bring more direct battles."Amazon wants to be the one place where you buy everything. Google wants to be the one place where you find everything, of which buying things is a subset. So when you marry those facts I think you're going to see a natural collision," said VC partner Chi-hua Chien. Adds Reuters, "Not long after Bezos learned of Google's catalog plans, Amazon began scanning books and providing searchable digital excerpts. Its Kindle e-reader, launched a few years later, owes much of its inspiration to the catalog news, the executive said. Now, Amazon is pushing its online ad efforts, threatening to siphon revenue and users from Google's main search website."

14 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Amazon by BlkRb0t · · Score: 3, Informative

    While everyone is more interested in the rivalry of Google, Apple and Microsoft, Amazon has steadily charted up year after year building a base that is more resilient than that of any other.

  2. "Pack of Four" by tuppe666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While everyone is more interested in the rivalry of Google, Apple and Microsoft, Amazon has steadily charted up year after year building a base that is more resilient than that of any other.

    Nobody is interested in Microsoft. The "pack of four" includes *Facebook* over Microsoft.

    1. Re:"Pack of Four" by DogDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Speak for yourself. My business runs on Microsoft stuff. I couldn't give two shits about Facebook, Google, or Amazon.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:"Pack of Four" by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nobody is interested in Microsoft. The "pack of four" includes *Facebook* over Microsoft.

      Facebook isn't in the same league as the big boys.

      Revenue for most recent quarter:

      • Apple: $36 billion
      • Microsoft: $16 billion
      • Google: $14 billion
      • Amazon: $14 billion
      • Facebook: $1.2 billion

      Facebook makes a lot of noise, but they're smaller than eBay, which had quarterly revenue around $4 billion, and about even with Yahoo.

      Amazon is the company with room to expand. Amazon could potentially take over most of retail. Their real competitor is Wal-Mart.

      The others are near the ceiling of their markets. Google has failed to make money with anything other than search ads. Microsoft probably has a long life ahead of it, like IBM, serving the needs of business. Apple has a price maintenance problem - their huge markups may not survive the flood of lower-priced devices. Facebook is in a bind; their user base has peaked, and shoving more ads at users didn't work out for Myspace.

    3. Re:"Pack of Four" by symbolset · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Our programmers and engineers still need a Workstation class laptop and Windows or Linux OS.

      In a VM, which is where desktop Windows belongs.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
  3. Based on yesterday's Amazon AWS outage by gelfling · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Amazon AWS hosts Netflix and it was done for hours yesterday. Based on that I'd say +1 Google in the systems reliability front.

    1. Re:Based on yesterday's Amazon AWS outage by rgbrenner · · Score: 4, Informative
    2. Re:Based on yesterday's Amazon AWS outage by rgbrenner · · Score: 3, Informative

      1 Netflix does use multiple zones:
      http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/04/lessons-netflix-learned-from-aws-outage.html

      2 US-East-1 is the default zone, and it is the largest zone. It may even be larger than all of the others combined. It consists of more than 10 datacenters in the VA area. It is also the oldest, and it's where Amazon launches new services first.

  4. Once again we are caught in the middle... by petscii · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't torrent. I bought programs from amazon unbox service. I thought paying $1.99 for programs was fair... OK, I have to wait until the next day because the broadcast networks/cable people have an anti consumer bent towards people "buying" media from them. I'll spare you the rant about the the people who watch the shows being the product vs the shows themselves.

    What is hugely obnoxious is that Amazon is using its position to punish people. You can't get the amazon player for android even though you can get it for the Kindle (which is based on android) and surprise you can get it for the iPad. So none of the content that I paid for will work on my Nexus 7.

    Now I just wait for the DVD sets to hit the library.

  5. Re:Who the fuck cares? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think banning humans would go a long way to solving the world's problems.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  6. Cyberpunk by Quakeulf · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope we will see the rise of cyberpunk with real competing technology businesses with their own secret task-forces and total disregard for human life in order to turn a profit and curb their competition!

  7. Re:Who the fuck cares? by Threni · · Score: 4, Funny

    In little more than a blink of an eye we're going to experience the heat-death of the universe, where there will never be anything - ever, anywhere - again. And you want to talk about kids?

  8. Re:Not my words by Mabhatter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft has a near monopoly on Business servers.... Swingline sells a lot of Red Staplers too. Smead sells a lot of hanging file folders. 3M sells a lot of stickie squares.... Lots of companies have very profitable, near monopolies... But they aren't interesting to Wall Street anymore.

    Microsoft has sold just about as many copies of Windows as they can.. On every possible platform. The only place they GROW is in XBox living room machines... But that's a really crowded market that the players are just taking different sizes of pie.... There's NO NEW PIE being created. Apple and Google and Amazon are creating new KINDS of pie ... Microsoft isn't.

  9. Re:Who the fuck cares? by rwyoder · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think banning humans would go a long way to solving the world's problems.

    Skynet? Is that you?