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by freehunter 3454 days ago
If Amazon isn't a search company, then Google isn't an OS company. Search is pretty integral to Amazon, search being the main way that anyone finds anything on their site. Sure, selling other company's products is what they're known for, but they do a lot more than that. And funny enough, a search engine is one of them. A9 (an Amazon company) develops custom search engines and search technologies.

You can't pigeonhole conglomerates like that. Google is an email company, Amazon is a cloud hosting provider, Microsoft is a tablet PC maker, Samsung is a heavy equipment company. No wait, Google is a browser vendor, Amazon is a bookstore, Microsoft is the maker of an office suite, and Samsung makes hardware for the iPhone.

Or maybe they're all tech companies and specialize in multiple aspects of that industry.

2 comments

Actually, it's pretty clear that Amazon is not a search company - nor is Google. Amazon's market is digital retail, while Google's is digital marketing.

Amazon's tech is all an effort to extend their reach in their primary business: selling products (both physical and digital) to customers. Google's tech, on the other hand, is all in an effort to extend the reach of their ad and marketing services.

Amazon figured out a while ago its tech can extend their primary business and also be sold to other businesses on the side (AWS and 3p sellers/FBA). This is a broadening that google hasn't been successful at yet.
This is silly, Google is clearly a search company.
He's deriving what a company is based on their revenue streams. What he forgets is that without Google being as good as it is at search there wouldn't be that lucrative revenue.
Search is no more than a powerful tool that Google leverages to better understand and target its users. It is a means to much more lucrative ends.
I mostly use Google search to find things on Amazon.