Amazon Quote by Stephen O’Grady
““As such, the company’s value from a technology perspective isn’t software, strictly speaking, but rather outsourced effort. Any business can download and run software like MySQL or PostgreSQL at no cost. But hosting it, keeping it up and running, backing up the databases, and exposing them safely to other applications requires expertise and effort. For many customers, and AWS customers in particular, then, the value isn’t in the software itself — because that is available at no cost — but the saved expertise and effort of consuming the infrastructure software as a service. Amazon, in other words, is making money with software, rather than from software.””
About This Quote
Source Speech: Business Strategy Talk, 2020
The value of cloud services lies in managing and operating software, not the software itself, which is freely available.
In simple terms: Cloud value is expertise, not code.
Key Takeaway
Focus on operational expertise.
Themes
cloud computing
service models
value creation
Mood
analytical
strategic
Type
business
technology
When to use this quote
- software deployment
- database management
- IT operations
- business cost reduction
Key Concepts
outsourcing
infrastructure as a service
expertise economy
Questions to Reflect On
- How can businesses leverage expertise to reduce costs?
- What risks arise from relying on outsourced operations?
A Different Perspective
Free software still needs skilled maintenance.
