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CHAPTER CHAPTER OUTLINE
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E-Business

SE C T ION 3 .1 Bu si n e s s a n d th e I n t er net

SECTI O N 3. 2 E- Busi ness

D i s r u p t i v e Te c h n o l o g y Evolution of the Internet Accessing Internet Information Providing Internet Information

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E-Business Basics E-Business Models Organizational Strategies for E-Business Measuring E-Business Success E-Business Benefits and Challenges N e w Tr e n d s i n E - B u s i n e s s : E-Government and M-Commerce

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opening case study

Amazon.com—Not Your Average Bookstore
Jeffrey Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, is running what some people refer to as the “world’s biggest bookstore.” The story of Bezos’s virtual bookstore teaches many lessons about online business. Out of nowhere, this digital bookstore turned an industry upside down. What happened here was more than just creating a Web site. Bezos conceived and implemented an intelligent, global digital business. Its business is its technology; its technology is its business. Shocking traditional value chains in the bookselling industry, Amazon opened thousands of virtual bookstores in its first few months of operation. Bezos graduated from Princeton and was the youngest vice president at Banker’s Trust in New York. He had to decide if he would stay and receive his 1994 Wall Street bonus or leave and start a business on the Internet. “I tried to imagine being 80 years old, looking back on my life. I knew that I would hardly regret having missed the 1994 Wall Street bonus. But having missed being part of the Internet boom—that would have really hurt,” stated Bezos. One evening he compiled a list of 20 products he believed would sell on the Internet. Books, being small-ticket items that are easy and inexpensive to ship, were on the top of the list. It was also apparent that no bookstore could conceivably stock more than