Amazon Evolution
Ashleigh DeGlopper
April 7, 2011
Business Information Systems
Raina Knox

The Amazon company has made some very significant changes in order to make a profit. The internet retail company wasn’t making the lead way that was needed in order to stay on top of the internet market as it is today. The competition seemed to overtake the Amazon company. In response to this Amazon began to offer other services to businesses. These services did veer away from the original internet retail part of the company. These other services were through the use of Amazon’s computing storage systems because Amazon only uses 10 percent of this storage at any time (Rainer & Turban, 2009). This strategy for creating profits is actually a wise strategy because Amazon is putting to good use of its extra computing storage systems for a price. This increases the profits for Amazon and also brings it into a new group of competition known as the global computing platform. This is possible because Amazon provides internet businesses with three different services. The first service is known as Simple Storage Services (S3) and is basically a way for businesses to store any data for a reasonable price. The second service is called Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and this helps businesses to process information. The third service provided is The Mechanical Turk which is used by other businesses for processing information and then organizing that information into useful knowledge. The third service is done with the internet and also with real people to make sure that the information is translated and organized in a way that makes sense. The most common data management issues that Amazon may encounter with these new services are information overload and ethical issues. When it comes to information overload it is easy for the information on the internet to become clouded with too much information. This can mean that the information provided by a certain company is not proper or appropriate. It is important that a company is able to stay on top of the information that is allowed on that internet site because when that information becomes overloaded people will not trust that web site and that business will then fail. Ethical issues can be very difficult to work around because there are many situations when consumers do not feel that the information that they find is ethical. It is a necessity that Amazon is able to monitor what is being provided through that internet site in order to prevent unethical actions. When it comes to the three services that are provided through Amazon for businesses there are three components that are important. S3 is used to store data for businesses which means that the data being stored is simply unorganized information that does not mean anything until it is then organized. EC2 is used to store information which is data that has been organized and created information that useful to businesses. The Mechanical Turk is used to process information with the use of the internet along with real people that are able to take information and organize it into knowledge that is understandable for businesses. Basically data is organized to create information, and information is then processed to create knowledge. When it comes to the different competition that Amazon will have to face now there is Google and Microsoft. All of these companies are a part of the global computing platform. The difference that sets Amazon apart from Google and Microsoft is that they also are an internet retail business and this provides Amazon with more potential or profits than just the services that they provide to businesses. Because of this Amazon will most likely be a competitive business in the future because of the ability to adapt to harsh situations and create new opportunities. The different methods that Amazon have for business shows that they are not limited.

Sources:
Rainer, R. K., Jr., Turban, E. (2009). Introduction to information systems: Supporting and transforming business (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley