Amazon have a reputation of churning out consumer tech like there’s no tomorrow. They overclock their R&D machine to make us say “take my money” on an ever-growing range of proprietary products. And here I am trying to make sense of their new-product strategy.
To maintain the aggressive pace of output, they appear to have a “past, present and future” product development approach:
To maintain the aggressive pace of output, they have a “past, present and future” product development approach:
1. Past fails are revisited and reborn.
2. Current hits are expanded upon.
3. New, future-facing products and services are being launched continually.
Thing is, all three are happening at once — independently, in chaotic, nonlinear fashion. Take a look at some examples:
1. Past fails are revisited and reborn.
Amazon Dash Smart Shelf
Remember that button that would reorder your loo rolls? Amazon killed that 1-job wonder in August 2019. So the Dash in the home kinda failed. No problem. Let’s try the office! Amazon has a smart board that reorders the stuff you lay on it. You won’t be out of staples ever again.
2. Current hits are expanded upon.
Alexa Blueprints
If you can read, type and click, you can make an Alexa Skill (i.e. app) in minutes with these blueprints. Smart thing is, not only does Alexa have more Skills out there than Google Home, when people build their own Skills, they’re hooked.
Users have done a bit of work, they’ve made a cognitive and emotional investment in Alexa, and this keeps them in the loop. And boy is that loop large; there are there a heap of Echos and Works-with-Alexa things out there — there’s even a microwave you can talk to.
3. New, future-facing products and services are being launched continually.
Amazon Sidewalk
In 2019, Amazon gave away hundreds of Ring smart lights to their LA employees and the Amazon Sidewalk proof-of-concept was realised. By the end of 2020, Sidewalk came online on Ring security cams and Echo devices.
A grid of interconnected low-power, low frequency devices that can cover a city (country?). A grid they can ultimately control. Evil geniuses? Or just evil? Watch this space.
Method to the madness
Perhaps there is some logic to their chaotic tech development strategy of looking to the past, the present and future, making lots of things and seeing what works. Why take one big bet when you can make many small ones?
They certainly have the coin to do it. Forbes notes that Amazon has spent over $100 billion in R&D since 2012. (For comparison — Microsoft: $90 billion, Alphabet: $87 billion, Intel: $84 billion, Apple: $71 billion.)
“Let’s try everything” might appear to be a clunky strategy but when it works, it works really well. I think people will be spending their hard-earned money for some time in the crazy jungle of goods and services that is Amazon.
