What are some of the advantages in having a longer time horizon? What are some of the challenges? What needs to happen to enable Amazon to continue to ‘think long term’? What could derail this approach? (1.5 points)
Does Amazon buy most of its warehouse automation software from others or is most of the software written in-house? Why do you suppose this is the case? (1 point)
Describe how Amazon Marketplace offers two-sided network effects. Besides network effects, what additional benefits does Amazon gain by allowing other retailers to sell potentially competing products on Amazon? (1.5 points)
Both Amazon and Apple would like you to store books, music, and other media in their ‘cloud’. What critical key strategic advantage comes to a firm when consumers adopting one firm’s cloud vs. the other? (1 point)
Which firms use AWS? What do they gain by using a cloud provider and what do they give up? How might Amazon or other cloud firms reduce concerns potential and existing clients might have? (1 point)
Are network effects at work in cloud platforms? How so? What kinds of complementary products might make AWS seem more attractive than a new cloud computing effort? (1 .5 points)
Why did Amazon decide to get into cloud computing? This business is radically different from shipping books and other physical products, do you think Amazon should continue to keep AWS as part of Amazon.com, or should it spin the firm out as a separate company? What would be the advantages to either approach? Search online to see if you can find opinions that analysts or journalists may have regarding AWS’s growth prospects in Amazon or as a separate firm.
Sample Solution
