Cloud Computing Conclusion Persuasive Essay Example

retail brands in the top 50 US retail brands 2014 list released by another industry source specializing in brand services and activities. Page 4 The company offers products in various categories through its e-commerce website whom'.

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AU and vow. Amazon. Com. Mix in international markets. The online format helps Amazon to rotate its inventory rapidly and reduce its inventory management cost and thereby offer merchandise at comparatively low prices. The company's inventory turnover ratio was nine in PAYOFF.

High inventory turnover ratio allows Amazon to generate revenue from sales before its payments to suppliers come due. Additionally, lower prices act as a compelling proposition in attracting more customers.

The online retail format also enables Amazon to enhance customer satisfaction as it offers customers with a broader selection and greater access to information. Leading market position in the online retail format enables Amazon to target a larger customer base.

Extending product line and strengthening technical platform through strategic acquisitions Amazon has been expanding its business operations and product offering through various acquisitions. In 2009, the company acquired Capos. Com, an online apparel, footwear and accessories retailer. This acquisition enabled Amazon to tap the internet sales of apparel, the largest online shopping category and one in which Amazon has had limited success in the past.

In 201 0, the company acquired Touch, a touch screen technology company.

Amazon merged Touches

technology and staff members into its Kindle hardware division. This acquisition expanded Amazon's platform to encompass more functionality and more content on Kindle. It also helped Amazon to address some of the form-factor issues with the Kindle. Further in 2010, the company acquired Bubbly. Com, a fashion and lifestyle online buying community with more than six million members in countries such as Spain, Germany, and Italy. This acquisition strengthened Amazon's position in retailing fashion apparel.

It offers members top fashion and lifestyle products at lower price points.

Later in 2010, Amazon acquired Squids, which operates Diapers. Com and Soap. Com. Diapers.

Com is an online baby care specialty site, and Soap. Com is an online site for everyday essentials. The acquisition of Squids also brought the ownership of Beauty. Com under Amazon. Beauty.

Com is a prestige beauty boutique. In 2011 , Amazon acquired the remaining shares in Lovelier International, en of the leading European subscription entertainment service providers. It offers online DVD and games rental-by-post, and streams films and TV shows over the internet to personal computers, internet enabled TV's, and Palpitations. Lovelier operates in the 1.

K, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

In PAYOFF, Amazon acquired Kava Systems, one of the leading developers of material handling technology. By utilizing Kava Systems' innovative material handling technologies, Amazon improved productivity in its fulfillment centers. The products were brought directly to employees to pick, pack and store.

In PAYOFF, Amazon acquired AVON Software, a text-to- speech technology company. AVON Software offers voice and language portfolios with 44 voices in 1 7 languages. MONA Software will enable Amazon to develop products with advanced voice solutions. Later in

April 2014, Amazon reached an agreement to acquire commission, a company that operates in the comic book and graphic novel industry. Mycology offers a wide variety of digital comic book content from more than 75 of the top publishers and top independent creators. This acquisition enhances the company's product offering in comic books and graphic novels.

The company's focus Page 5 on product expansion will enable it to gain significant market share-The strengthening of its technical platform will help Amazon reduce its operating cost and improve operational efficiency and allow it to offer more value to its customers. Kindle builds strong presence in the eBooks space Amazon has dominated the fast-growing electronic book market for the past few years through its e-reader device, Kindle. In 2007, the company launched its Kindle e-reader in the US market.

Kindle is Amazon's portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, blobs, magazines and newspapers to a high- solution electronic paper display that looks like real paper.

The US Kindle store offers more than 1 books, which includes new releases and 107 of the 1 1 1 New York Times best sellers. More than 60% of these books are offered at a fixed price of $9. 99 or less. Amazon also offers over 1. 8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1 923 books to read on Kindle devices.

Since the launch of the first version of Kindle in 2007, Amazon has launched other and more advanced versions of the e-reader device, including Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 36, Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Keyboard 36.

In 201 1, the many launched Kindle Fire at a price lower than Apple's cheapest pad. Within nine months of

its launch, Kindle Fire accounted for 22% of the US tablet sales. Subsequently in 2012, Amazon launched Kindle Fire HAD tablet with a seven inch display for $199.

Kindle Fire HAD tablet was the best-selling product on the company's website in 2012. Later in 2012, Amazon launched Kindle Pane. N. 'white and Kindle Paperweight G. Kindle Paperweight is the world's best-selling and most advanced e-reader with higher resolution (62% more pixels and 25% higher contrast), and a battery life of up to eight weeks. Kindle Paperweight G has same features as that of Kindle Paperweight except that it offers free G wireless.

In October 201 3, the company launched Kindle Fire HAD with seven inch display and exclusive features including Fire SO 3. 0, including X-ray for music, second screen, prime instant video downloads, and the Mayday button. Amazon launched Kindle Fire HAD with 8. 9 inch display for $379 in November 2013. This tablet is 34% lighter than last year's model and 20% lighter than the pad Air.

Strong presence in the eBooks space with the Kindle e-reader provides Amazon a competitive advantage over its peer roof, and also enhances the revenue generation capacity of the company. Patent infringement issues affect stakeholder confidence The company is involved in various patent infringement cases.

For instance, in 201 3, Online News Link filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the company infringed on three of its patents that describe a method of inserting links into online newspapers and other media. During the same year, Adapted and Cellular Communications Equipment filed a complaint against Amazon in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleging

that certain Kindle devices infringe their US patents.

Further in 2013, Personalized Media Communications filed a complaint against Amazon and SAWS in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging that the use of certain Kindle devices, @ Markets_nine Page 6 Kindle APS and/or Amazon's website to purchase and receive electronic media infringes nine US Patents.

Earlier, in 2012, Innovative Automation filed a complaint against Amazon in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging that Amazon's products and services relating to Kindle content distribution, Audible daybooks, Amazon Cloud Player and CD and DVD duplication infringe US tents. Also in 201 2, Technology Properties Limited, Phoenix Digital Solutions, and Patriot Scientific Corporation filed a complaint against Amazon for patent infringement in the US International Trade Commission and in the SIS District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges that using the Kindle Fire in combination with certain peripheral devices infringes the US patent entitled 'High Performance Microprocessor Having Variable Speed System Clock'.

In 2012, Amazon Communications filed a complaint against Amazon in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging that the Kindle Fire infringes a patent owned by Amazon Communications. Patent infringement cases have affected Amazon's brand image in the past and may further harm its brand equity in the future.

Frequent outages of Amazon's web hosting and cloud computing servers The company, through SAWS, offers various information technology related products and services to customers. These include computing, content delivery, database, deployment and management, industry specific clouds, monitoring of cloud, networking, storage and web traffic among others.

Of late, Amazon has been facing

frequent problems with respect to its web costing (an internet hosting service allowing individuals and organizations to make their websites accessible to people over the internet) and cloud computing (a web service allowing individuals and organizations to put their data on internet) servers in the recent times. In 2013, Amazon reported certain problems with its Elastic Block Store (EBBS) (a provider of block level storage volumes for use with Amazon EX. instances).

This outage affected some well-known websites and applications, including Airbag, Backbone, Mainstream and Twitters Vine video service. The company reported similar problems in 2012 and 2011 as well. Earlier, in 201 2, Amazon reported certain problems with its EBBS. The outage was caused due to degraded performance of some EBBS volumes.

As a result, websites of companies such as reedit, lemur, and Heroes were unavailable.

Earlier, in 2011, Amazon reported certain problems with its Relational Database Services (a web service that allows to set up, operate and scale a relational database in the cloud), and EX. (a web service providing resalable compute capacity in the cloud), a cloud computing service hosted at its North Virginia data center. The outage of the service was caused due to the shifting of the network traffic to the wrong outer. As a result of the disruption in services, sites of various companies such as Foursquare, Reedit, Whiteouts and Quorum were affected.

Additionally, certain customer data was also lost for which the company failed to give any explanation.

The problem persisted for nearly 1 0 days before it was resolved to normal. A similar problem occurred in the same year affecting Nineteen's streaming service, Reedit, Quorum, and Turntable.

Fem. sites. Such outages of vital services lead to loss of confidence among the enterprise and business customers.

Additionally, with a plethora of companies offering animal SE;aces, inconsistent service by Amazon can also lead to loss of customers to competitors. Page 7 The online retail sales are growing at a faster rate globally. According to the SIS Department of Commerce, online retail sales (adjusted for seasonal variation) in the US increased from $168. Billion in 2010 to $263.

3 billion in 201 3, representing a compound annual growth rate (CARR) of 16. 1%. E- commerce sales increased 16. 5% in 2013 over the previous year.

Total retail sales, on the other hand, grew by only 4. 3% during 2013. E-commerce sales accounted for 5. 8% of total retail sales in 2013, compared to 4.

% in 2010. The growing trend among shoppers to research products prior to purchase is also benefiting the online market. According to industry estimates, online spending reached $1. 2 billion on Black Friday in 2013, an increase of 15% compared to last year's Black Friday. Amazon was the most-visited retail website on Black Friday.

In Canada, more than half of the internet users ordered products and services online in 2012 according to Statistics Canada.

Canadian e-commerce sales are expected to grow at a rate of 10% during 2013-18 according to industry sources. A similar trend was noticed in the European market. According to industry estimates, the online retail sales in Europe are expected to grow by more than 18% in 2014 as compared to 2013. The Asia-Pacific market is also expected to witness strong growth in online retail sales in the

next few years, driven by strong growth rates in China and India.

According to industry sources, the online retail sales in China are expected to grow at a rate of 17% during 2013-18.

Amazon is a leading player in the online retail format. By leveraging its online retailing capability, Amazon can garner top line growth from the growing online sales globally. Growing emphasis on online display advertising business The company has been increasing its focus on the online display advertising business lately. Display advertising is graphical advertisements on the internet, appearing next to content on web pages, and emails among other places. The online display advertising market registered a steady growth rate in the last few years.

According to industry estimates, internet advertising revenues in the US totaled $42. 8 billion in 2013, an increase of 17% compared to 2012.

In 201 3, display-related advertising revenues totaled SSL 2. 8 billion, counting for 30% of the online advertising revenues, and increased by 7% compared to 2012. The online advertising market in Europe grew by more than 1 1% in 2013 compared to 2012, while the display advertising market registered a 14. 9% growth during the same period, with social media and mobile driving this rise.

Online remains second largest media category in Europe for the second year in a row and the gap between online and newspapers is expected to expand in 2014. Amazon has been consistently expanding its worldwide online display advertising business to tap into the growing online advertising market.

As part of this, the company is developing next generation advertising products by leveraging its personalization technologies, unparalleled customer data and engaging video

content. The growing market for online display advertisements and the company's efforts to strengthen its foothold in the industry would add an incremental source of revenue for Page 8 Amazon. Thus, growing emphasis on online display advertising business will enhance Amazon's top-line growth.

The demand for eBooks has been growing globally. According to industry estimates, eBook sales grew by over 40% in 2013 compared with 2011. In 201 3, eBooks accounted for more than 25% of all adult trade sales. In comparison, the sales Of print formats registered flat growth during the same period.

The rising popularity of eBooks is attributable to online access to a wide range of English-language titles, growing marketing and distribution activities, and proliferation of eBook readers.

Additionally, tablet sales are expected to grow globally. Tablet shipments are estimated to grow by more than 75% during 2013-17 worldwide according to industry sources. Amazon offers eBooks under the Kindle brand name, and tablets under Kindle as well s other exclusive brands. The company can leverage its online presence to cater to a growing base of customers. Growing demand for cloud computing The demand for cloud computing services is expected to grow significantly in the medium to long term.

Cloud computing is a computing infrastructure model, which enables delivery of software-as-a-service (AAAS).

Cloud computing facilitates lower expenses related to upfront royalty or licensing payments, investment in hardware infrastructure and other operating expenses. These factors have contributed to rapid adoption of cloud computing.