Amazon.com Nears 10-Year Anniversary 181
mopslik writes "Amazon.com is nearing its 10-year anniversary. "Soon after Amazon.com Inc. debuted 10 years ago, Jeff Bezos and his handful of employees spent late summer nights packing books in a tiny warehouse, scrambling to ship a growing gush of orders. Today, the man who has grown accustomed to being hailed the king of Internet commerce runs a global powerhouse that did nearly $7 billion in sales last year, dealing in everything from banjo cases to wild boar baby back ribs." Although Bezos has drawn some ire from his collection of patents, there's no arguing that his company is one of the most successful online sites today."
Will be interesting to see outcome of his patents (Score:5, Interesting)
If he does take that approch, he could be seen as a great hero to your average /. guy, with quite a bit of positive PR. Wonder if this segment of the market matters enough for him to do this.
Amazon and patents (Score:5, Interesting)
What a cinderella story (Score:2, Interesting)
Amazon versus Yahoo board posters (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, I know, you get those types on every Yahoo stock board, and some of them are just shorts trying to scare people away. But the meme on the Amazon board was that they were losing money on every sale...but making it up in volume! Hardy har har. These people were absolutely convinced that Amazon would never succeed at their profit margins. And indded, Amazon was losing money every quarter.
But Jeff Bezos kept saying that the important thing was growth and market share and mind share, and that to go to profitability too soon would be a mistake. The Yahooligans roundly laughed at Bezos for saying stuff like that. But in the end, Bezos pulled it off. Amazon survived the dot-bomb, and is a solid company. But I'll bet anything if I went to the Yahoo board today (I'm no longer an investor in them, so I don't check), they will still be saying that Amazon's end is nigh.
Shows you the value of ignorning conventional wisdom if you have a new idea and a strong vision of how to implemenent the idea in the long term.
Spammers. (Score:5, Interesting)
Their e-mail contains no return or unsubscribe link. I believe that here in the UK that is illegal. I have struggled even to find a phone number or postal address on their website to send a cease-and-desist letter.
Yes, they're big and successful but their behaviour bears all the hallmarks of spammers.
And then there will be.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:That's the problem with the patent game (Score:2, Interesting)
That's exactly what happens, although usually with a bit more negotiating than the Cold War.
When I worked at [large builds-everything company], I heard stories of the yearly "Lawyer's Meeting", where we would meet with [other builds-everything company] and the lawyers would actually sit down and negotiate "lawsuit trades" -- we wouldn't sue them over Patent X if they wouldn't sue us over Patent Y.
That might have just been one of those stories they told the summer interns, but it doesn't sound too far-fetched, if you ask me.
Re:Amazon versus Yahoo board posters (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew darned well he'd make money. He used to talk US Tax law at lunch, and how the IRS gives a company X years before they must show a profit. He used that time to build up his company, to be strong enough to compete.
He's good, and a decent dude, too, tho Ellie may not agree - Ellie usually lost at the lunch tab games played with Jeff and I
Good guy, Jeff. Hopefully, he learned from Graciella how to attract the best and brightest employees, and how NOT to treat them. Fitel was a bear of a place to work. I could not have survived without Jeff and his then-gf Annette St. Onge.
Amazon's 10th anniversary (Score:3, Interesting)
Invasion of privacy? I think not. (Score:2, Interesting)
"In reality, however, users no longer have to log into their personal user accounts --their account is always-on, tied to their Internet Protocol address. It has come to the point where users have to exert effort to sign-out. This is a fundamental paradigmatic shift in retail, and it has begun to manifest itself in the non-retail sector. For example, Google's Gmail allows users to go 2 weeks without confirming their personal user account password. In short, nowadays, users are never not logged into their personal user accounts."
*This is taken from a term paper I wrote in the spring semester. I'll post the full text of "Personal User Accounts are the Future of the Internet" to my website [virginia.edu] later this week.
Nope,that's how patents are used by big pharma too (Score:3, Interesting)
For the most part these patents only exist to create some sort of nuclear stalemate - where your competitors are too afraid to sue you since it's certain that they violate some of your patents.
You're joking, right? Surely you aren't really that naive.... Amazon is doing anything but collecting a portfolio of defensive patents...they are actively stockpiling offensive weapons to use against any competitor, anywhere, for any reason they like.
That may be the case, but the parent post was right that this is common practise. This is exactly how patents are used e.g. by big pharmaceutical companies, who stockpile patents on various processes as a sort of Mutual Assured Destruction policy against each other.
I personally agree with you that MAD is nuts, and counter to the public interest. I also hate patents on "streaming media", etc. However, Amazon's behaviour shouldn't be seen out of context. The point is that many other technology companies are doing this too, and perhaps (as the FSF has decided) a more accurate barometer of their intentions is the way in which they use these patents.
(FSF, at least, seems to think the Barnes and Noble lawsuit ended without too much collateral damage; see link in article summary.)