mozon and google
252 Management Information Systems
REAL WORLD ~ CASE Amazon, eBay, and Google: Unlocking and
Sharing Business Databases
The meeting had dragged on for more than an hour that rainy day in Seattle, and Jeff Bezos had heard enough. The CEO had rounded up 15 or so senior engineers and managers in one of Amazon's offices to tackle a question buzzing inside the company: Should
Amazon bust open the doors of its most prized data warehouse, containing its myriad databases, and let an eager world of entrepreneurs scavenge through its data jewels? For several years, scores of outsiders had been knocking on Amazon's door to gain access to the underlying data that power the $7 billion retailer: product descriptions, prices, sales rankings, customer reviews, inventory figures, and countless other layers of content.
In all, it was a data vault that Amazon had spent more than 10 years and a billion dollars to build, organize, and safeguard.
So why on earth would Bezos suddenly hand over the keys? In the hands of top Web innovators, some at the meeting argued, Amazon's data could be the dynamo of new Web sites and businesses that would expand the company's already gigantic online footprint and ultimately drive more sales. Others worried about the risks. A free-for-all, one manager warned, would
"change our business in ways we don't understand."
Bezos ended the debate with characteristic gusto.
He leaped from his seat, aping a flasher opening a trench coat. "We're going to aggressively expose ourselves!" he declared. Today, there's considerable reason to cheer Bezos's exhibitionist move. Since the company opened up its data vaults in 2002, under the auspices of a project first called Amazon Web Services, more than 65,000 developers, businesses, and other entrepreneurs have tapped into ~e da.ta. With it, they're building moneymaking
Web SItes,new online shopping interfaces, and innovative services for thousands of Amazon's independent
sellers.
REAL WORLD ~ CASE Amazon, eBay, and Google: Unlocking and
Sharing Business Databases
The meeting had dragged on for more than an hour that rainy day in Seattle, and Jeff Bezos had heard enough. The CEO had rounded up 15 or so senior engineers and managers in one of Amazon's offices to tackle a question buzzing inside the company: Should
Amazon bust open the doors of its most prized data warehouse, containing its myriad databases, and let an eager world of entrepreneurs scavenge through its data jewels? For several years, scores of outsiders had been knocking on Amazon's door to gain access to the underlying data that power the $7 billion retailer: product descriptions, prices, sales rankings, customer reviews, inventory figures, and countless other layers of content.
In all, it was a data vault that Amazon had spent more than 10 years and a billion dollars to build, organize, and safeguard.
So why on earth would Bezos suddenly hand over the keys? In the hands of top Web innovators, some at the meeting argued, Amazon's data could be the dynamo of new Web sites and businesses that would expand the company's already gigantic online footprint and ultimately drive more sales. Others worried about the risks. A free-for-all, one manager warned, would
"change our business in ways we don't understand."
Bezos ended the debate with characteristic gusto.
He leaped from his seat, aping a flasher opening a trench coat. "We're going to aggressively expose ourselves!" he declared. Today, there's considerable reason to cheer Bezos's exhibitionist move. Since the company opened up its data vaults in 2002, under the auspices of a project first called Amazon Web Services, more than 65,000 developers, businesses, and other entrepreneurs have tapped into ~e da.ta. With it, they're building moneymaking
Web SItes,new online shopping interfaces, and innovative services for thousands of Amazon's independent
sellers.