Amazon is another Engineering company like Google which I kind of know about “internally” lot more than what is said / talked about in the global media. I had bumped into one of the Princeton P.hDs working @ Amazon while I was @ Microsoft in Seattle. Amazon’s e-commerce then was modeled [They are Dynamic Models which these nerds keep tweaking to get Analytical data to increase sales as much as they can] in such a way that even by the volume of the shipments they could arrive at the Sales Number 🙂 This explains why I call Amazon / Google Products Truly Engineered when compared to the Samsung or Chinese WhiteBox Phones.
In this backdrop, I’d like to touch upon a different perspective on the Amazon Fire Phone rather than the widely discussed physical features & attributes. What is it that Jeff Bezos thought while they decided to venture into the SmartPhone ecosystem ? [Technocrat CEOs are thinking years ahead of the rest of the curve, Bill Gates was a decade ahead when he quit as CEO] Amazon adopted the core of Android and branched it as Fire OS 3.5. In addition to basic Android SmartPhone features the ones Amazon added to distinguish themselves are,
- A dynamic perspective screen that adjusts point of view based on users head position which makes for a new user experience. 13 MPS camera including optical image stabilization and wider aperture lens for improved low light pictures
- An integrated identification software (similar to Amazon Flow app) that can recognize movies, TV shows, songs, email and phone numbers, as well as 70mn products to quickly load on Amazon for purchase
- 12 months of Prime membership free for new and existing customers
- Unlimited cloud storage for photos [Means AWS to Get stronger across the Globe]
From the above set of Features; 2, 3 and 4 are heavily focused on existing customers of Amazon and enhancing their experience to stick to the Amazon platform. Amazon continues to offer new content features for Prime members. Amazon Prime has become the focal point of Amazon’s strategy as Prime creates customer lockin and Prime members purchase with more frequency. Beyond doubt, Amazon is slowly building a competitive media ecosystem (content consumption on tablets, TV, and now phones). This ecosystem should fuel Amazon’s media unit sales.
On the Pricing front I expected Amazon Fire Phone to undercut iPhone and Samsung but it is priced at par with the Top End Models thus making a bottom-line on the Hardware as well for Amazon rather than just making it a device for its e-commerce.