Amazon Evolution Paper

Running head: AMAZON EVOLUTION PAPER

Amazon Evolution Paper

University of Phoenix

BIS/219

BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Amazon Evolution Paper

Amazon.com is the global leader in e-commerce and has significantly expanded the organization’s product offerings, international sites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers (Amazon.com, 2009). Established in 1995, Amazon.com has manifested into a fortune 500 company with operational sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and China (Amazon.com, 2009). The company understands in order to maintain business success; an organization must take advantage of innovations in technology. With that being said, the internet is vastly becoming the common method society is conducting business and shopping on a daily basis. Amazon’s decision to expand the company’s services from mainly an online retailer to one who offers online services is a dynamic way of fostering a thriving business, because customers are presented a broader array of products and services, easy accessibility, and minimal costs. This paper will examine Amazon’s decision to compete with Google and Microsoft, the strategies used, and why the choice to indulge in the online services market was a wise business decision.

When Amazon decided to expand the company’s online services, the database was an

issue the business needed to address. A database consists of three main components; columns, rows, and tables. The columns list the fields of data a business wishes to store such as a patron’s name, product costs, and invoice dates (Cruickshank, 1999). The rows contain records of data pertaining to the columns, and enable the user to obtain only the specific information needed instead of everything available (Cruickshank, 1999). The tables are groups of columns that make up the complete database and lists information logically such as part numbers, name and...