Microsoft has scored a big win, snagging Charlie Bell just two week after he left rival AWS.
Charlie Bell was a heavyweight inside Amazon’s cloud business, a 23-year veteran of the company. When Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO, and AWS head Andy Jassy succeeded him, many saw Bell as the most likely candidate to take over as AWS CEO.
Instead, Bell left the company he had spent more than two decades with, sparking a major reshuffling to help fill the gap.
CNBC has now confirmed that Microsoft has hired Bell, although he’s currently listed as reporting to Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s head of HR and an executive vice president. It’s a somewhat odd placement for Bell, given his background, and is likely temporary.
However things shake out, Bell joining Microsoft is a big blow to AWS, especially since Microsoft is Azure is the AWS’ closest cloud competitor.
Amazon may dominate e-commerce, but reports show it now plans to take on traditional retail with its own debarment-style stores.
Department stores were once a staple of American life and the go-to place to shop for everything from clothes to household items. In recent years, however, e-commerce has taken a toll on the industry, with many going into bankruptcy or making major changes to how they do business.
Now Amazon, arguably one of the biggest factors in the demise of the industry, is now preparing to open its own department-style retail stores in California and Ohio, according to The Wall Street Journal.Amazon already has some retail locations, such as bookstores and the Whole Foods chain it purchased 2017. The company also has its 4-star stores, although those primarily sell gadgets.
According to WSJ, Amazon’s new retail stores will be roughly 30,000 square feet, quite a bit smaller than a traditional department store, which usually comes in around 100,000. Even so, the new stores will be much larger than the company’s other retail efforts and will offer the full range of products from top brands, much like a traditional department store.
While nothing is a sure bet, Amazon’s chances of success are pretty good. Having its own stores would give users the ability to try on clothes before buying them, eliminating one of the more frustrating aspects of online shopping.
Amazon is contacting third-party sellers to warn them of how impending action by Congress could impact them.
Congress seems determined to tackle issues with Big Tech, including what it perceives as antitrust violations and monopolistic behavior. Amazon is one of the companies Congress has its sights set on, and this is already a concern for the e-commerce giant.
According to CNBC, the company has begun contacting some of its third-party sellers, one of its biggest growth markets, to inform them of how they may be impacted.
“We’re reaching out to a small group of our sellers to make them aware of a package of legislative proposals, currently in Congress, that is aimed at regulating Amazon and other large technology companies,” states the email, send by CNBC. “It is early in the process and the bills are subject to change, but we are concerned that they could potentially have significant negative effects on small and medium-sized businesses like yours that sell in our store.”
As Amazon points out, there is much that could change before the antitrust bills make it into law. Nonetheless, the threat of the bills is already causing major concern.
Amazon is facing backlash from its employees over its return-to-office plans, with employees saying “this is turning into a circus.”
Amazon recently announced it was pushing back its return-to-office date to at least January as a result of the surge in Delta COVID cases. Th company had previously been planning on bringing employees back to the office in September.
Despite the delay, employees are not impressed with the company’s plans. In fact, according to Business Insider, who saw internal messages, employees are calling for the company to allow permanent remote work for those that want it.
“This is turning into a circus,” one employee wrote. “Just allow those [who] wish to work from to work from home, those who wish to come to the office to do so and anything in between within reason.”
“Many companies are allowing employees to WFH indefinitely. Why not Amazon?,” another wrote.
“What’s going to motivate to work harder: a ping-pong table at the office or the chance to avoid 2 hours in rush-hour traffic?” another employee asked.
While many companies have already faced backlash for their return-to-office policy, Amazon is one that has not built up much goodwill with its employees. The company stiffed drivers $62 million in tips, illegally failed to pay employees for time spent searching their bags and may have violated labor laws in Alabama. If the company isn’t careful, it may face a full-blown rebellion.
Microsoft has announced the general availability of its Azure Government Top Secret, in the company’s bid to gain more government contracts.
Government contracts are some of the most lucrative contracts for tech companies, including cloud providers. Needless to say, however, combining cloud options with classified and top secret information presents very unique challenges. At one point, Amazon had a clear lead, being the only company to have achieved the Pentagon’s Impact Level 6 certification. Microsoft closed that gap in late 2019, and has been accelerating its efforts to get government cloud contracts ever since.
The company has now announced its Azure Government Top Secret is now generally available, aimed squarely at the needs of government agencies with the strictest security requires.
“We’ve worked in close collaboration with the US Government to build a cloud portfolio that serves the national security mission and empowers leaders across the Intelligence Community (IC), Department of Defense (DoD), and Federal Civilian agencies to innovate securely wherever the mission requires and at all data classifications, with a continuum of technology from on-premises to cloud to the tactical edge,” writes Tom Keane Corporate Vice President, Azure Global, Microsoft Azure.
“Launching with more than 60 initial services and more coming soon, we’ve achieved the Authorization to Operate (ATO) of Azure Government Top Secret infrastructure in accordance with Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 503 and facilities accredited to meet the ICD 705 standards. These new air-gapped regions of Azure will accelerate the delivery of national security workloads classified at the US Top Secret level. In addition, we now have 73 services in Azure Government Secret, and we continue to bring new services into the boundary aligned to mission priorities.”
Microsoft’s work to create an Azure solution to meet the government’s toughest requirements should be a major help in its efforts to go toe-to-toe with AWS.
Amazon is once again in the spotlight over privacy, with lawmakers wanting to know what the company plans to do with customer palm prints.
Amazon rolled out palm print biometric scanning as a way for customers to pay without having to use their card. The technology is already in use in Amazon Go, Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star stores, as well as some Whole Food locations.
Lawmakers are concerned about the company’s plans, according to TechCrunch, writing a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy to express those concerns. In particular, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) questioned whether Amazon would use the biometric data in its advertising business.
“Amazon’s expansion of biometric data collection through Amazon One raises serious questions about Amazon’s plans for this data and its respect for user privacy, including about how Amazon may use the data for advertising and tracking purposes,” the Senators wrote.
Amazon already has access to a wealth of information from their e-commerce operations and cloud business. It’s easy to see why there would be concern about them also having access to biometric data, especially if they plan to use it for anything other than a convenience service for their customers.
Amazon is rolling out a sweeping monitoring program, with the goal of tracking the keystrokes and mouse clicks of its customer service staff.
In the era of Big Data, few companies have access to as much customer data as Amazon. The company controls the largest e-commerce platform, a line of popular security devices and, of course, the most popular cloud computing platform in the world. As a result, the company is a prime target for unscrupulous individuals looking to access that data.
According to a document seen by Motherboard, Amazon is preparing to roll out software designed to track customer service employees’ activity in an effort to prevent abuses from occurring. The company has already had instances where imposters have impersonated customer service staff and accessed information.
The company has looked at various solutions, including those that capture all keystrokes and mouse clicks. The one the company appears to be leaning toward focuses on capturing patterns instead, building a profile of how a person interacts with their workstation, via the keyboard and mouse. If someone else tries to use it, their usage would stand out as different from the established pattern, making it easy to spot an imposter.
“We have a security gap as we don’t have a reliable mechanism for verifying that users are who they claim they are,” reads the document.
The lengths to which Amazon is going illustrates the ongoing struggle companies have, and the solutions that will likely become more commonplace as threats continue to grow.
AWS is making changes to its executive roster as Charlie Bell, a long-time company veteran, departs.
Amazon has been in a state of transition following company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down in July, on the company’s 27th anniversary. Andy Jassy, the former head of AWS, took over as CEO, while Adam Selipsky took over as CEO of AWS, the company’s cloud business.
According to an internal email send by Business Insider, Selipsky informed AWS VPs of Bell’s plans. In the meantime, AWS director Ryan Mackle, AWS support vice president Justin Brindley-Koonce and AWS managed services vice president John Brigden will report to AWS sales chief Matt Garman, who has been acting as the company’s COO.
The email also indicated Peter DeSantis, part of Amazon’s “S-team,” will take over utility computing and Prasad Kalyanaraman will take over Infrastructure and Network Services. DeSantis and Kalyanaraman will both report directly to Selipsky.
The reshuffle is one of the largest in recent years at AWS, and not unexpected when there’s such a major leadership change at the top.
The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC) has written the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to block Amazon’s MGM purchase.
The SOC represents four unions: the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Communications Workers of America and the United Farmworkers. Together, the four unions include some 4 million workers.
The SOC has written an open letter to Ms. Holly Vedova, the FTC’s Acting Director, Bureau of Competition, expressing concerns over Amazon’s proposed purchase of MGM Studios, valued at $8.45 billion.
The letter highlights the current state of the streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) market, a market Amazon is uniquely poised to gain an unfair advantage in.
The SVOD market is in the midst of both massive expansion and increasing vertical integration. The market is currently dominated by an oligopoly of five firms. In 2020, Netflix (20%), Amazon Prime Video (16%), Hulu (13%), HBO Max (12%), and Disney+ (11%) collectively comprised 72 percent of the entire US SVOD market.1 Each of these firms operate their own studios as well as a streaming platform which acts as distribution channel for content they choose to acquire, or, increasingly, that they produce themselves.
The letter goes on to highlight that Amazon’s dominance in other markets, specifically e-commerce, allows the company to offer its SVOD services for free, putting it in a position to abuse its market power.
Amazon’s Prime membership – which bundles free, expedited delivery with streaming video at no additional cost to consumers – is radically different from the per-month-fee model implemented by SVOD competitors. This model, which has already drawn the attention of competition authorities in Europe, involves an aggressive pricing strategy that unfairly leverages Amazon’s dominance in e- commerce into the SVOD market by offering streaming content at no cost to consumers.
The letter quotes former studio exec Barry Diller’s assessment of the deal to sum up the SOC’s objections.
“[When I ran studios] the key point of movies was to please consumers,” but for a service like Amazon Prime “incentives have changed … The system is not necessarily to please anybody. It is to buy more Amazon stuff.”
The SOC’s opposition to Amazon’s MGM deal is just the latest challenge the company is facing amid increasing antitrust scrutiny.
Amazon sellers are encouraging users to delete negative reviews, even offering refunds above and beyond the sale price in exchange.
Amazon has long-struggled with fake reviews, with an entire industrysprouting up to game the system. The problem has even received the attention of regulators, with Britain’s Competition and Market Authority investigating whether the company is doing enough to combat the issue.
According to The Wall Street Journal, via Business Insider, some resellers on the platform are contacting individuals who have left negative reviews to offer refunds, in some cases more than double the initial price, in exchange for removing the negative reviews. In some cases, resellers have repeatedly contacted individuals until they get a response.
Amazon’s policy prohibits sellers from contacting buyers outside of the company’s own platform, but that hasn’t stopped sellers from doing just that. The company has reiterated these types of interactions shouldn’t occur, and that it takes action against those responsible.
“Amazon provides a great deal of help content, proactive coaching, warnings and other assistance to sellers to ensure they remain compliant with our clearly stated policies,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Journal. “We have clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit abuse of our community features, and we suspend, ban and take legal action against those who violate these policies.”
In the meantime, as The Journal points out, customers leaving a review should be careful not to leave personal details in their reviews, thereby making it more difficult for sellers to contact them outside of Amazon’s system.
Amazon is the latest company to push back a return to the office, telling employees they won’t come back until January 2022.
Like other companies, Amazon was originally planning on employees returning in September. The rise of the Delta variant of COVID is changing those plans, with multiple companies pushing back their return dates.
Amazon is the latest to do so, and is pushing back its return date further than most. Whereas Apple, Google and Microsoft pushed theirs back to October, GeekWire reports that Amazon is pushing theirs to January 2022.
So far, Amazon has not rolled out a vaccine mandate, although it does require unvaccinated individuals to wear masks.
Amazon employees may get another chance to vote on unionization in Alabama, following an investigation showing the company violated the law.
Employees at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama voted on unionization, ultimately losing in April. The voting process was mired with controversy, however, with Amazon accused of bullyingemployees into voting “no,” with some 70.8% voting that way.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigated, and the official leading the investigation has said Amazon violated labor laws, according to Business Insider. The official is also recommending a new vote be held.
One of the points of contention was a mailbox Amazon had installed at the warehouse to serve as a drop box. The union behind the vote believed it had been installed to intimidate workers, and the NLRB had denied Amazon’s request to install it. Instead, the company appears to have pressured the USPS to install the mailbox.
“Worst yet, even though the NLRB definitively denied Amazon’s request for a drop box on the warehouse property, Amazon felt it was above the law and worked with the postal service anyway to install one,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the union, according to Business Insider. “They did this because it provided a clear ability to intimidate workers.”
The official’s recommendation that a new vote be held is not the final word, and will go to the NLRB’s regional director for a decision. Nonetheless, given the trouble Amazon has been in lately for its treatment of employees — stiffing drivers $62 million in tips and not paying employees for the time spent searching their bags — it’s unlikely the NLRB will be in a lenient mood.
Amazon is looking to reinvent how it handles unsold or returned inventory, following negative reports about it destroying millions of items.
An investigation by Britain’s ITV News reported on Amazon’s practice of destroying millions of items a year that go unsold or are returned. The revelation prompted quick and severe backlash, with many using it as the poster child for greed and waste. As ITV News reported, many of the items are perfectly fine and could have been donated instead of ending up in a landfill.
Amazon appears to be trying to address the problem, with two new “Fulfilment by Amazon” (FBA) programs.
“Customer returns are a fact of life for all retailers, and what to do with those products is an industry-wide challenge,” said Libby Johnson McKee, director, Amazon WW Returns, ReCommerce and Sustainability. “These new programmes are examples of the steps we’re taking to ensure that products sold on Amazon—whether by us or our small business partners—go to good use and don’t become waste. Along with existing programmes like FBA Donations, we hope these help build a circular economy and reduce our impact on the planet. And we’re excited that these programmes will also help the businesses selling on Amazon reduce costs and grow their businesses—it’s a win for our partners, customers, and communities.”
“FBA Grade and Resell” gives sellers the option to resell returned items as “used,” while the “FBA Liquidations” program helps sellers recoup some of their loss via Amazon’s wholesale resale channel.
The company also touted its “FBA Donations” program, which has donated some 67 million goods since its launch in 2019. The company did not, however, touch on why millions of products per year were being destroyed, instead of making their way into FBA Donations.
Former Walmart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon sees technology, such as virtual reality, having a big impact on traditional brick-and-mortar retail, according to CNBC.
Simon served as President and CEO of Walmart U.S. from 2010 to 2014, giving him a unique perspective on the retail industry. Rather than predicting doom-and-gloom for traditional retail, Simon believe technology has the ability to transform the industry and open all new possibilities.
Even something as simple as trying on clothes may be revolutionized by technology, such as virtual reality.
“Could we have virtual changing rooms so that you can just scan an item in a store with your phone and try it on yourself without actually having to go try it on?” Simon said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”
Simon believes successful retailers will combine online sales with a brick-and-mortar presence, and cites Target and Amazon as two examples of companies that are making it work.
“A set of facts could be put forward that would support that (they are destroying the retail landscape),” says former Walmart CEO Bill Simon. “They’re going through another cycle of it where their CFO in the (earnings) call said we’re reinvesting to drive one-day Prime shipping. That’s going to put more pressure on retailers and give them this Sophie’s Choice. Do I want to go out of business because I’ve lost my sales by not matching them on price? Or, do I want to go out of business because I’ve matched them on price?”
Bill Simon, former CEO of Walmart, discusses how Amazon uses profits from AWS to prop up operating losses in online retail while in the process, destroying competing retail businesses, in an interview on CNBC:
Is Amazon Destroying the Retail Landscape?
They’re running their business model and they’re just doing a fantastic job of it. Who doesn’t like stuff shipped to their house for free? It’s an awesome business model. It’s going to be increasingly challenging for them though because nearly 70 percent of their operating income came from Web Services. If you filter out the operating income from web services and if you take out the operating income for advertising, then there’s a chunk of it that is made in brick and mortar through Whole Foods, or at least there was because they don’t report that anymore, their worldwide retail business is operating break-even or at a loss.
Their international business loses money on $16 billion this quarter in sales. It’s really no wonder that regulators internationally are starting to look at them. A set of facts could be put forward that would support that (they are destroying the retail landscape). Think about it, in North America, they priced at or below cost for many years and didn’t make money. It’s arguable today whether their online business makes money in North America.
This Quarter Is the Poster child For Anti-Competitive Behavior
All the while, Circuit City went out of business, Linens N Things went out of business, Toys R Us went out of business, and then Prime is the driver of it. It went from $79 to $99 to $119. That’s sort of the definition of anti-competitive behavior and anti-competitive pricing. Price below the market and when your competitors start to go out of business you ratchet up your price. This quarter is really a poster child for that. Their North American business grew $6 billion and lost money. Their operating income went down in North America.
They’re going through another cycle of it where their CFO in the (earnings) call said we’re reinvesting to drive one-day Prime shipping. That’s going to put more pressure on retailers and give them this Sophie’s Choice. Do I want to go out of business because I’ve lost my sales by not matching them on price? Or, do I want to go out of business because I’ve matched them on price? I’ve not been able to make any profit because they support their retail business with web services. It’s tough to compete with them when they’re not making money and pricing below cost with online retail.
It’s Not Possible To Do One-Hour Shipping and Make Money
Who doesn’t love stuff free shipping to your house in two days or one day or in an hour? That’s awesome. I use it all the time. Everybody does. But there are consequences to it. As the expenses go up and the price goes up, eventually, Prime has been going up in price sequentially and has to continue to go up. It’s not possible to ship things to your house in one hour and do it at the same price or cost that can make money in retail. It’s just not possible. The packaging alone, the delivery person walking from the street to your front door, start adding up the cost of all that and you can’t make money on a $3 box of breakfast cereal.
So it’s going to be tough. I don’t know that regulators will take that on given the consumers love for it. But if the retail landscape keeps getting impacted and the weaker keep dropping out and it gets down to this battle between the behemoth on the online side and Walmart on the physical side, it gets to be a complicating factor. I think then regulators have to look at it. When that happens it’s hard to tell but this quarter has really kind of the poster child for that.
Amazon has been hit with a whopping $888 million fine from the EU over how it handled private data.
The EU has been stepping up its attempts to regulate tech companies and enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its signature privacy regulation.
The EU is accusing Amazon of not processing of personal data in compliance with the law, according to The BBC, resulting in the $888 million fine. Amazon is disputing the charges, telling The BBC there was “no data breach.”
“We believe the CNPD’s decision to be without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously in this matter,” Amazon said.
“There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party,” an Amazon spokeswoman said. “These facts are undisputed.”
“The decision relating to how we show customers relevant advertising relies on subjective and untested interpretations of European privacy law, and the proposed fine is entirely out of proportion with even that interpretation,” she added.
Amazon’s case could set a precedent for the EU’s application of the GDPR and have far-reaching consequences for the entire tech industry.
Amazon has announced its Fire TV Cube now supports two-way Zoom video calling.
Zoom has become one of the most popular videoconferencing solutions since the onset of the pandemic. While it was already popular in the enterprise, the platform is now widely used by remote workers, remote learners, individuals and families.
Given its popularity, it’s somewhat surprising Amazon’s Fire TV Cube is only now supporting Zoom two-way calling. The devices previously supported Zoom two-way calling via another camera-enabled Alexa device. With this update, however, the Fire TV Cube now supports Zoom natively.
We are excited to announce that starting today you can video call friends, family, and business colleagues with the Zoom app on Fire TV.
Amazon has lost a lawsuit over whether it has to pay employees for time their bags were being searched, to the tune of $13.5 million.
At the heart of the issue was whether time spent in security lines, waiting for bag checks, counted as time worked. Obviously, Amazon was arguing it did not, and only the time actually spent working should count.
“Employees are only paid for their labor — to pack boxes, but not to stand at a security checkpoint, which does not involve labor or toil,” argued Amazon’s lawyer, according to Business Insider.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court disagreed, ruling 5-2 that employees should be compensated for that time.
“The PMWA plainly and unambiguously requires payment for ‘all hours worked,’ … signifying the legislature’s intent that any portion of the hours worked by an employee does not constitute a mere trifle,” Justice Debra Todd wrote.
Amazon will now pay some 42,000 workers a total of $8.67 million, while the attorneys will receive an additional $4.5 million in fees. The single biggest payout among the 42,000 is $5,760.
The decision is a big loss for Amazon, and follows another settlementwith the FTC, in which the company was found to have stiffed its delivery drivers a whopping $62 million in tips. This latest case is sure to add even more fuel to recent Teamsters’ efforts to unionize Amazon workers.
Intel has scored a big win in its efforts to rebuild its semiconductor manufacturing, with Qualcomm and Amazon set to use its foundries.
New CEO Pat Gelsinger is determined to reverse Intel’s recent fortunes, and is betting big on the company doubling down on its own manufacturing. The company made headlines when it announced plans to build two foundries in Arizona, to the tune of $20 billion. Intel has also been rumored to be trying to buy GlobalFoundries.
According to Reuters, Intel has scored a major win, with Amazon and Qualcomm set to use the company’s new foundries. Qualcomm, in particular, will use Intel’s 20A chipmaking process, ideal for the company’s mobile chips.
Intel is clearly intent on gaining ground against TSMC, which has long-since eclipsed Intel and poached major customers, such as Apple. The company sees close partnerships with the likes of Amazon and Qualcomm as a key component of that goal.
“There have been many, many hours of deep and technical engagement with these first two customers, and many others,” Gelsinger said.
Amazon has denied it plans on accepting Bitcoin as payment, despite a job posting that seemed to indicate the contrary.
Amazon made headlines last week when it post a job for a “Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead.” Most significantly, the job listing is for a role in the Payments Acceptance & Experience team:
The Payments Acceptance & Experience team is seeking an experienced product leader to develop Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap.
The above description led many to conclude Amazon was on the verge of accepting crypto as payment. It appears that is not the case, however, as a spokesperson has denied any such plans.
“Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true,” said a spokesperson from Amazon, according to Reuters.
“We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon.”
Amazon is getting in on cryptocurrency, posting a job opening for a “Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead.”
Cryptocurrency has been gaining mainstream support, with companies across a range of industries accepting it as payment. Its increased acceptance makes it somewhat strange that Amazon has yet to fully adopt it.
That appears to be changing, if a job posting is any indication. Amazon is looking for a Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead:
The Amazon Payment Acceptance & Experience Team is responsible for how Amazon’s customers pay on Amazon’s sites and through Amazon’s services around the globe.
The Payments Acceptance & Experience team is seeking an experienced product leader to develop Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap. You will leverage your domain expertise in Blockchain, Distributed Ledger, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cryptocurrency to develop the case for the capabilities which should be developed, drive overall vision and product strategy, and gain leadership buy-in and investment for new capabilities. You will work closely with teams across Amazon including AWS to develop the roadmap including the customer experience, technical strategy and capabilities as well as the launch strategy.
If Amazon does embrace crypto, it would likely have major implications and help drive even more widespread adoption.
