Technology can drive opportunities, help Amazon.com gain short-term advantage and position itself for longer-term success. Besides, it enables startups to outperform established businesses by finding new and better ways of servicing the same market place (Saunders, 2001, pp.153-167). "In the physical world," Bezos has been quoted saying, “it is location, location, location. The three most important things for us are technology, technology, technology.� (Hamilton, 2004)
In the early years, the entire Amazon.com system was written in "C", which is an open-source software program language most commonly used on UNIX systems. C was supported by Perl, a computer language that enables users to manipulate and edit the contents of text files. The use of open source software was critical because it allowed Amazon to develop and test its applications with the help of worldwide programmers who played with code for fun and were not on Amazon's payroll (Hamilton, 2004). But, now, Amazon.com used much more sophisticated programs for its complex, ever-changing needs (Hamilton, D., 2004). By using increasingly sophisticated software tools to improve back-end operations and reduce mistakes, Amazon had slashed distribution costs from 15% of revenue in 1999 to 7% in 2003 (Hof, 2003).
Amazon also exploited the new CD-ROM version of Books In Print. R. R. Bowker is the nation's official registry for titles and assigns International Standard Book Number (ISBN) (Hamilton, 2004). The 1994-95 registry contained 1.5 million titles, which Amazon uploaded to its own database at the tedious rate of 600 per day, the most that the technology of the time could manage (Hamilton, 2004). Amazon also used information from the nation's two largest book distributors, Ingram and Baker & Taylor, ultimately rejecting the Library of Congress because Bezos and his team thought the subject headings were too restrictive. Amazon began with Oracle's relational database software and, learning as they went along, Amazon engineers layered their own code on top of it (Hamilton, 2004).
On October 23rd, 2003, Amazon launched its newest search feature, which allows users to type a name or phrase and get a listing of instances when the name or phrase appears on the pages of one of 120,000 volumes. With a single click, Amazon then provides an image of the selected page (Hamilton, 2004). Besides that, Amazon.com assigned a unique identifier to all items it sold and it was the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) (Wikipedia, 2004).
When people talked about Amazon.com’s technology, they immeditely thought about its One-Click ordering that streamlined the entire process, allowing customers to shop wiithout entering their shipping and billing information each time they made purchase (Saunders, 2001, pp.153-167). To protect copyright, users could only view two pages on either side of a KWIC (keyword in context) search, and they could not print the results (Hamilton, D., 2004). Besides, other technologies that were used by Amazon.com had been used to solve other major problems too, such as securing customer credit card numbers (Saunders, 2001, pp.153-167).
Another top-secret technology for Amazon.com was A9.com and it was focused on product search (like Google's Froogle), since that was where the big money was in Web searching. According to BusinessWeek Online (December 22, 2003), A9.com would be “as powerful as Microsoft's Windows operating software in computing ... a stack of software on which thousands or millions of others can build businesses that in turn will bolster the platform in a self-reinforcing cycle� (Hamilton, 2004).
Amazon's technological efforts had helped it reduce costs and boost sales so much that revenues are expected to surge 32% in 2003, to $5.2 billion. (Hof, 2003). In conclusion, one secret to Amazon.com’s success was its ability to innovate.
1. Saunders, R. (2001) Business The Amazon.com, UK: Capstone Publishing Limited, ISBN 184112155X
2. Hamilton, D. (2004) “Amazon.com,� Searcher, vol. 12, no. 6, retrieved 26 October, 2004, from http://search.epnet.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/direct.asp?an=13385322&db=afh
3. Wikipedia (2004), retrieved 26 October, 2004, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com
4. Hof, R. D. (2003) “Reprogramming Amazon Sure, it still sells loads of books and CDs. But it's fast morphing into a tech company� Business Week (New York: Dec 22, 2003), Iss. 3863, pp. 82, retrieved 26 October, 2004, from http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000503126421&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1098931177&clientId=14394
Jason Er 10:14, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
