Amazon is busy, but secretive, at Kendall Square offices
The Amazon name has allure; the
Seattle e-commerce giant hired at least 80 people for its Cambridge
research-and-development office in 2012, according to several employees who
have since moved on. But how’s this for secretive? Current and former employees
are forbidden from talking about what happens at the Cambridge office, and the
company won’t even tell prospective employees what they’d be working on, if
hired.
Sounds nefarious.
So what are they up to? Preparing a drone attack against Wal-Mart, in revenge
for dropping the Kindle?
Developing a Stuxnet variant that will selectively infect the Nook? If you agree that, given the facts on
the ground, this can only point to a massive cover-up, with probable North
Korean involvement, then you are ready to embark upon the thriller experience
of your life:
Set aside a week of your life, to thread through this.
There is only one man -- well okay, actually two men, but they're brothers -- who could possibly unravel this intricate structure of plots within plots: and that man (men) is (are) Murphy (Murphy and his brother Joey, I mean). You can read about his (their) adventure(s) here:
(Note:
Admission to that exclusive site is normally by invitation only, and
involves a fee of five hundred euros; however, for today only, and for
you personally only, it's free.)
Note: As a self-sacrificing service to our devoted readers, we maintain the following, in the face of evil Amazon Kindle monopolism:
http://murphybros.blogspot.com/p/read-murphy-on-your-nook.html'
[2 Dec 2013] Flash update! Amazon acquiring a fleet of drones.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-new-delivery-drones/?tid=hpModule_79c38dfc-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394&hpid=z13
Note: Since the Washington Post was recently bought by Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos, it does not dare criticize the move, but rather glamorizes it. Omitting such details as the use of depleted uranium in the nosecones, and eventually undepleted uranium in the payloads.
Today: Amazon UAVs.
Tomorrow: World domination.
[Update 1 April 2014] Just finished reading Jonathan Franzen's The Kraus Project, towards the end of which he vents:
"In my own little corner of the world, which is to say American fiction, Jeff Bezos of Amazon may not be the Antichrist, but he surely looks like one of the Four Horsemen. Amazon wants a world in which books are either self-published or published by Amazon itself, with readers dependent on Amazon reviews in choosing books, and with authors responsible for their own promotion."
[Update 15 April 2014] Google punches back with its own drone army:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/14/google-buys-drone-maker-titan-aerospace-2/
[Update 17 May 2014]
On Thursday, the new bestseller
list arrived at the offices of Hachette Book Group with good news: One of the
publisher’s books, T.D. Jakes’s “Instinct,” had vaulted to the No. 1 spot.
But the bad news was that anyone
trying to order the book on Amazon.com on Friday got a message saying that it
“usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks,” far slower than the fast delivery on which
Amazon prides itself.
Hachette, which owns Little, Brown;
Hyperion; and Grand Central, says that Amazon is deliberately slowing sales of
Hachette’s books in an effort to pressure the French publisher into agreeing to
new contract terms on book pricing. Hachette says there is no shortage of the
books.
“We are satisfying all Amazon’s
orders promptly,” Hachette said in a statement last week. “Amazon is holding
minimal stock and restocking some of HBG’s books slowly, causing ‘available 2-4
weeks’ messages, for reasons of their own.”
Amazon, whose chief executive,
Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post, would not comment for this article.
[Update 23 May 2014]
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/amazon-escalates-its-battle-against-hachette/?hp
[Update 30 May 2014]
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/gladwell-on-amazon-its-sort-of-heartbreaking-when-your-partner-turns-on-you/
[Update 31 May 2014]
How did Amazon attain such
monopsony power? By providing valuable services? Perhaps, to some extent. But
consider that from the moment it introduced its Kindle product, Amazon sold
e-books at prices far below what it was buying them for. If Amazon bought an
e-book from Hachette for $13, it resold it to a consumer for $9.99, losing
$3.01 per e-book. It should come as no surprise that under these circumstances,
e-book buyers flocked to Amazon.
But there was a problem. When a
company has dominant market power and sells goods for below marginal cost, it
is engaging in predatory pricing, a violation of federal antitrust laws.
What was to be done? Fortunately,
in early 2010, a natural market solution presented itself: the introduction of
the iPad and Apple’s entry into the e-book market. At Apple’s suggestion, the
major book publishers were persuaded to change their e-book business model to
reflect how Apple had been selling its popular apps for the iPhone. Under the
app model, the publisher sets the price, not Apple or Amazon — with the
e-retailer keeping a 30 percent commission. Here, price competition does not go
away; it just moves from the e-retailer to the app developers, book publishers
and authors.
As a result, Amazon found itself no
longer selling e-books at below cost, and its rivals began competing on
service, spurring new entrants to the market and the release of innovative
e-book devices.
All was well until the Justice
Department, supported by a white paper supplied to it by Amazon, filed an
ill-advised lawsuit against Apple and five of the major book publishers for
antitrust violations. The publishers were charged with “price fixing” — but not
for fixing prices: Not a single e-book price was fixed by the conspiracy
contrived by the government.
Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette
Takes an Orwellian Turn
By DAVID STREITFELD
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
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