Some parts of this article feel like the author doesn't have much experience in the field of cloud services. For example:<p>"What makes Amazon unique in the fight to own the computing cloud is what it’s not — a traditional tech company with a long history of providing products and services to business customers. Finding a way to deliver services over the Internet that behave like databases and other traditional software products will be critical to keeping its lead because older tech companies like Microsoft are already capable of doing it.
"<p>I understand what the author was trying to get at - IBM/Microsoft/Oracle have 20+ years of providing Business Services, (Well, IBM is closer to 100) - And Amazon has only been providing cloud services for about 10 years - but what an incredible 10 years! Most people would suggest that Amazon is the market leader in providing these types of services to business, and that IBM/Microsoft are playing catch up.<p>A good counterexample is Salesforce - they've only been around for 15 years, but nobody would suggest they aren't a dominant player in their industry.<p>The reality is - when it comes to new and disruptive technologies, the innovator quite often becomes the dominant and trusted player <i>much</i> faster than in traditional (non disruptive) industries.
> Amazon, has returned less in profits in its 17-year life as a public company than cloud competitors ... earn in a single quarter. If Wall Street grows tired of Amazon’s continued losses, it could also pinch A.W.S.<p>The share price two years ago was 250. Today 320. Ok the peak was 408 but that is still pretty good.<p>Over the 17 years it has gone from 1 to 320.<p>I'm still calling Hold / Buy