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Apple – the pretender to Amazon’s reign?

This is the first in a series of posts regarding Amazon’s competitors.

Game on between Cupertino and Seattle:
It is clear to me that Apple is the company at the moment that can topple Amazon. It won’t be overnight but rather the process will take some time and will need Amazon to drop the ball (which at the moment I am not seeing any time soon).

Apple in it’s current form can take Amazon head on. When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded the company, the main purpose was to create personal computers. The rest is history and is outside the bounds of this post. The point is Apple has software and hardware creation in it’s DNA.

Apple has a much larger global footprint in comparison to that of Amazon and in my mind it makes more revenue based on providing opportunity to users to spend money on its App Store and iTunes. One thing that must not be forgotten is that Apple has 400 million credit cards saved by users on their iTunes platform. It may not be one click buying but the process is user friendly.

In terms of content, Apple can match and exceed the amount of content that Amazon has. The content I refer to is ebooks, music and apps which all lead to income for the Cupertino company. Steve Jobs was the only competitive CEO that realized that eBooks was a genius move by Bezos. However he took the potential negative of not being first to market and turned it to a positive by actively trying to assist publishers in fighting versus Amazon. In the end it lead to legal proceedings and a hefty fine for Apple (which they are contesting) but Apple will continue in the content game. Not one direct competitor took the Amazon bull by the horns as Apple did.

Who is Amazon’s biggest challenger?

Having read George Taylor’s interesting article on “The battle over global commerce: Amazon vs Rakuten“, I feel a bit of perspective is needed. Amazon is a true giant that spans over many different business and Rakuten is the challenger trying to catch up. However, they are not the only commerce companies that want to be global.

I spent time in Seattle and New York in the latter part of October 2012 and one company has been following me coast to coast is Amazon.com. I had meetings with folks in operations and research and Amazon was given plenty of air time.

The Amazon value proposition summarized

I have been following the Amazon Kindle event in Los Angeles and could not help but feel that Bezos is becoming a better presenter. OK – he is no Jobs but the products unveiled today is definitely aimed Apple and Google.

The Amazon value proposition is summarized brilliantly by the following image from The Verge‘s coverage of the event. (For the record their live blogging of events are top class).

The image can be seen with all of the announcements here: Live from Amazon’s Kindle event

Two of those items are up for discussion (Best Hardware and Best Interoperability). The Kindle Fire HD is a direct response to the Google Nexus I believe. I think we can all agree that a Apple iPad mini is on the way..

The above image highlights what makes Amazon.com, the behemoth that has the potential to shut ecommerce verticals and businesses down..

The Amazon effect

“Google = fab search, Amazon = top-notch retail, Apple = elegant devices, Microsoft = dominant Windows, Facebook = best social networking.”
Kara Swisher, on Yahoo

The last few days have been busy for Amazon and in all honesty, I think the bigger implications of this week will be seen in future quarters. I have been deliberately not mentioning Google in this as I think the implications of a paid for Google product search (Google Shopping) is much larger than what is expected.

Why Amazon.com is neither Friend or Foe..

Earlier today Brian Walker from Forrester Research wrote a very interesting summary post on a research document on Amazon.com, called Amazon.com: Friend or Foe? I have great respect for both Brian Walker and co-author Suchurita Mulpuru and would love to see the research piece. As much as I respect them both, Amazon.com is a complex Rubiks cube that is both secretive and dominant in how they are perceived. All the news that they want the world to see is either given to the press or released via press release.