...Amazon Is Not A Monopoly and Should Not be Regulated Business Writing and Research BU.001.620.53. Rensi Zhang July 28, 2014 Amazon Is Not A Monopoly and Should Not be Regulated Recently, Amazon has been widely criticized by the media for "abusing" its "monopolistic" power to control the book market. Since February this year, Amazon has been using certain strategies against Hachette, one of the five biggest publishers. The "war" between Amazon and Hachette is simple as pie: Amazon wants to get a bigger share of e-book market, while Hachette holds its ground, stating that Amazon is trying to take away too much of its profits. Authors involved also complain that certain strategies used by Amazon, such as raising prices, lengthening shipping time, and removing buy buttons, make it more difficult for customers to order Hachette titles, thus leading to a decrease in its book sales. If you search "Amazon" and "monopolistic" on the internet, you'll find countless articles. Charlie Stross (2014) writes on his blog that "Amazon very nearly gained a monopoly of e-book sales; they're still around the 85-90% mark in the UK, and peaked at over 80% in the USA." Concerned that Amazon may become a monopoly in the future, Rod Dreher (2014) writes that "once they've driven everybody else out of business, there will be nothing to stop Amazon from raising its prices without fear of competition" (p.15). Some authors go even further to push for government regulation. ...
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...following paper, I’ll be focusing on Apple’s antitrust investigation. Additionally, we’ll identify some costs associated with the antitrust behavior, and why Apple was investigated? To conclude, we’ll then shift our focus to weighing out whether or not monopolies and oligopolies benefit society, with at least looking at one study where they did benefit. Apple Gets Investigated and Charged Apple, which has an oligopoly market structure because of their number of competitors, pricing similarities and dependencies with other vendors, was hit with a huge fine for antitrust violations (in the 840 million range). Apple was investigated for helping facilitate a price hike in the e-book market space by colluding with major publishers. The U.S. Department of Justice said this conspiracy was designed to undercut online retailer, Amazon.com Inc’s dominance of the fast-growing e-book market (Reuters, 2013). However, what really drew attention was the immediate price increase for books that the specific publishers that had an agreement with Apple implemented (Sagers, 2013). By cutting out Amazon, Apple could have changed their economy of scale since they were positioning themselves as a powerhouse in the E-book space. Other organizations, such as Amazon, would have experienced barriers to entry into the market, especially...
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...be a monopoly of every industry, trade, marketing, and services. This would in-turn lead to higher prices for the consumer, lower quality products, less innovation, and poor service. As I mentioned in my opening sentence, I will bring up two individual cases that the DOJ (Department of Justice) is pursuing when it comes to Antitrust Laws. I would like to begin by quoting the DOJ’s mission statement. Mission “The mission of the Antitrust Division is to promote economic competition through enforcing and providing guidance on antitrust laws and principles. Antitrust Laws The goal of the antitrust laws is to protect economic freedom and opportunity by promoting free and fair competition in the marketplace. Competition in a free market benefits American consumers through lower prices, better quality and greater choice. Competition provides businesses the opportunity to compete on price and quality, in an open market and on a level playing field, unhampered by anticompetitive restraints. Competition also tests and hardens American companies at home, the better to succeed abroad. Federal antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. They prohibit a variety of practices that restrain trade, such as price-fixing conspiracies, corporate mergers likely to reduce the competitive vigor of particular markets, and predatory acts designed to achieve or maintain monopoly power...
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...With so many newspapers and magazines ceasing publication, you may be asking yourself if print will survive. I don't have the answer. And, I'm not even sure it's the right question. Even when the global economy turns around, it's unlikely that we'll see the same number of magazines or newspapers. So, how will we consume print- or page-like content? Computers are the most obvious answer, but I think products like the Amazon Kindle 2 really point the way. You see, we have to prepare ourselves for a time when the majority of written works, whether in magazines, newspapers, short stories, or novels, are delivered electronically. I don't imagine that everyone believes the computer screen and Web page is the preferred format for the consumption of this kind of content. I know that industry analyst Tim Bajarin made the argument in a recent column that future generations of e-book readers will offer color screens (I guess that's a good thing), and he suggests that a copy of Harry Potter might benefit from having an embedded video clip from the movie. I disagree. When I want to read a novel, I want to read a novel. I don't need to be distracted by multimedia, or even color, to help me imagine the story. My mind is quite adept at painting a picture with the words I'm reading. For me, that's the allure of a good, rip-roaring novel. The minute that publishers start producing e-books with "enhancements," we'll witness the beginning of the end of that format for the written word. The...
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...compete in each one, competition levels, coming into and exiting the economy, the price range of goods, and product variety. I will relate Auto Edge’s market structure to pricing concepts. The demand for goods is related to price sensitivity. This differs. I will align market structures with elasticity of demand structures. A monopoly involves no pressures as related to competition. This can well be related to government regulation. Consumers have no freedom as related to choices. Monopoly is an example of perfect inelasticity. Government regulations are hard to keep without legal restrictions. The post office is a great example of a monopoly. They only deliver envelopes (Hagen, 2014). De Beers is a great example of a monopoly. They offered diamonds very openly. They put a complete lockdown on the whole chain of supply. De Beers put quite a bit of pressure on retailers to just sell their diamonds. The company would buy up all diamonds; so that the diamond supply was limited because of De Beers’ monopoly and ways of doing business. Until a few years ago, another monopoly was seen as related to the commercial airlines. Boeing had a monopoly over certain product lines until now. Pure competition involves many competitors. It has no leader. Competitors come and go. These are very competitive surroundings. No restrictions are in place. Pure competitions...
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...Amazon versus Ebay Amazon versus Ebay Analyze each company’s history, product / services, major customers, major suppliers, and leadership and provide a synopsis of each company. Seattle based Amazon.com was founded in July, 1994, but it was introduced to the world in June, 1995 by its CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos who was a hedge fund manager in New York left to head west after coming across a finding that the usage of the internet is growing 2300 percent a month. He came up with a plan to get his own retail business online, and headed to Seattle to begin his dream. He started with only 3 employees working out of a garage. Jeff Bezos was able to get Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers to fund Amazon. Some of Amazon.com products include a variety from books, to CDs, videos, and video games. Amazon product line also includes groceries, supplies for pets, greeting cards, and has auctions. A major supplier for Amazon is Ingram, a book distributor, who is still the provider for 60 percent of the books. Amazon is also allied with sites such as Yahoo, Excite, GeoCities, and Netscape. Amazon.com also has links that can be used for household purchases such as groceries and prescriptions. Bezos leadership is demonstrated by observing his comfortableness when he is around the people he addresses on a regular basis from customers, to investors, and the employees. Other leadership qualities of Bezos include his understanding of e-commerce, being focused, having an entrepreneurial team to back...
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...Software Copyright and Patents Introduction The escalating speed of the advancement in the software industry has put many parties in a competitive race to come up with new softwares for commercial purposes. This digital arms race contributed to a rapid increase in software patents from a mere 45 average patents a week in year 1985 to an average 1200 patents a week in year 2012 (Patent Metrics, 2013). Intrigued by such large numbers of software patents, multiple studies have been carried out by scholars to investigate the impact of software patents to the software industry. The studies sparked an ongoing debate on whether software copyrights and patents are beneficial or detrimental for the software industry. This paper touches lightly on the methodology of software copyrights and patents under the current standards of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It then explores the benefits of copyrights and patents in the software industry and lay out the drawbacks of software patenting. Finally, this paper provides a possible four-point solution to the problems concerning software patents. Methodology of Software Copyrights and Patents According to WIPO, copyright is defined as something that “provides exclusive legal rights to a creator to publish, print, perform or materialise an original work and authorize others to do the same” (2002). In the context of software copyright, a software is subject to copyright as soon as it is documented in a verifiable manner...
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...with all the changes in technology, buyers bargaining power has increased greatly. With the emergence of companies like Amazon.com and online stores like Half Price Books.com (where you can buy school books or any book) university book stores and big chain stores now have to compete buy price. Stores like Barnes & Noble have to compete buy price because now-a-days all you have to do is do a Google search of whatever book you what to buy and the search will come up with thousands of hits of people wanting to sell you that book. Also with devices like the kindle, and iPad, readers can buy eBooks and download them rite to that device for a discounted price. Stores that have already adopted the new way of buying and reading books such as Amazon will survive a downfall in actual published books because there philosophy has always been online and competitive. Barnes & Noble over the last few years has started to do more on-line sales and they specialize in sales of eBooks for the Nook, which Barnes & Noble came up with to compete with other e-readers. There are two types of buyer power. The first is related to the customer’s price sensitivity. If each brand of a product is similar to all the others, then the buyer will base the purchase decision mainly on price. This will increase the competitive rivalry, resulting in lower prices, and lower profitability. The other type of buyer power relates to negotiating power. Larger buyers like Barnes & Noble tend to have more...
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...Hollywood Video was their only national competitor; however, they did compete with many regional and local movie rental companies. New technology, along with multiple competitors, have changed the way consumers purchase movie rentals and other video. Once considered a monopoly by many, Blockbuster Video fought the many pressures affecting brick and mortar stores today. The company had stores on every corner, which resulted in high costs. Once the industry started evolving with new technologies, these stores became sunk costs for the retailer. Online-only retailers who enjoyed much lower costs than the brick and mortar stores were able to profitably charge customers a lower rate; however, at the same time, Blockbuster Video was saddled with the high costs of labor as well as the physical stores. It was not long before Blockbuster’s costs became too much for the retailer, as they were forced into bankruptcy. Today’s market landscape looks much differently than it did when Blockbuster Video was at its peak. Many more competitors fight for the consumer’s dollar; however, there are still a few dominant companies that stand out among them. These include Netflix, Redbox, Apple, and Amazon. Hypothesize the basic short-run and long-run behaviors of the model in the industry you...
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...Both Amazon and eBay are two most important competitors in the industry of online shopping. A short foreword and the background history of both companies will offer a base for the better understanding of how both the companies stand where they are today and in what manner they manage their respective companies. The financial synopsis will also be provided to provide an understanding of the better investing options in either of the two companies. Introduction When Amazon.com opened for business on July 16, 1995, it was nothing more than a few people packing and shipping boxes of books from a two-car garage in Bellevue, Wash. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, had left New York City for the Pacific Northwest, using some of his time on the road to write the company's business plan. Books were packed on a table made out of an extra door they found lying in the new home — a practice the company continues today in spirit by making many of the office's desks out of doors. Now, on its 15th anniversary, Amazon can raise a toast to being one of the largest online retailers in the world, selling everything from tubas and golf carts to dishwashers and diapers. On the other hand in September, 1995, 28-year-old software developer Pierre Omidyar, who had previously worked with Claris developing software for Apple computers, sat down to write the code that would eventually evolve into what we know as eBay today. Originally called AuctionWeb and hosted on the same server as Pierre's page...
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...Amazon.com the Hidden Empire Three digital engines to reshape and dominate retail Amazon.com: a digital shop around the corner… … and a digital colossus. Did you know: all these companies belong to Amazon… Did you know: Amazon is also… AmazonBasics Amazon-branded electronic products AmazonFresh sells and delivers groceries in Seattle AmazonStudios online social movie studio Amazon WarehouseDeals offers discounts on refurbished products Did you know: Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the Internet’s history… Revenues reached within first 5 years $2,8 bn $1,5 bn $0,4 bn eBay Google Amazon Amazon and eBay results from 1995 to 2000, Google from 1998 to 2003. Even though Zynga and Groupon appear to have an even quicker growth, they haven‟t been compared because 1- sales have not been officially disclosed 2- they haven‟t reach their fifth year Did you know: Amazon Web Services drives these companies… Did you know: Amazon.com is a giant… Y/Y growth for Q1 2011 +38% Market cap $90 bn Customers 137 m 3 × growth of 2 × market cap 2 × # customers E-commerce market Employees 33,700 Annual revenue $34 bn Internet traffic rank 16th Retail brand 1st Paid out $1.2 bn 15 × more than 16% more than before before to buy Source: Amazon.com, Alexa, Brandz. Market capitalization as of April 2011. Why? A vision… From 1994, Jeff Bezos knew he could create a retail website that would not have the limitations...
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...Hey guys, below is our assignments from last week and the prompt for this week SWOT Analysis Prompt Due Friday, March 13th, 2 p.m. Now that you have had the chance to analyze the macro-environment trends, industry trends, and target markets, as well as conduct the internal scan and competitive analysis (your past prompts so far), it’s time to bring it all in. You will be evaluating strengths and weaknesses within the internal organization, and opportunities, and threats in the external environment. As the name suggests, it’s called a SWOT analysis. Strengths and weaknesses aim to identify your organization’s internal environment and internal characteristics. Weaknesses and opportunities assess the external environment and external characteristics of your organization. I would like you to do SWOT analysis of your assigned company. Please provide your analysis in bullet points under each category. Minimum of 5 bullet points under each area. Helpful to achieving the objective Harmful to achieving the objective Strengths Their outdoor clothing products are of the highest quality that are a reflection of their expertise of the outdoors They have pioneered revolutions in clothing technology in order for their products to be more environmentally sensitive. Their business model is based around environmental responsibility. Several of its stakeholders, as advocates of outdoor apparel, are also environmentally conscious, so Patagonia has always had...
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...Amazon.com the Hidden Empire Three digital engines to reshape and dominate retail Amazon.com: a digital shop around the corner… … and a digital colossus. Did you know: all these companies belong to Amazon… Did you know: Amazon is also… AmazonBasics Amazon-branded electronic products AmazonFresh sells and delivers groceries in Seattle AmazonStudios online social movie studio Amazon WarehouseDeals offers discounts on refurbished products Did you know: Amazon has had one of the fastest growths in the Internet’s history… Revenues reached within first 5 years $2,8 bn $1,5 bn $0,4 bn eBay Google Amazon Amazon and eBay results from 1995 to 2000, Google from 1998 to 2003. Even though Zynga and Groupon appear to have an even quicker growth, they haven‟t been compared because 1- sales have not been officially disclosed 2- they haven‟t reach their fifth year Did you know: Amazon Web Services drives these companies… Did you know: Amazon.com is a giant… Y/Y growth for Q1 2011 +38% Market cap $90 bn Customers 137 m 3 × growth of 2 × market cap 2 × # customers E-commerce market Employees 33,700 Annual revenue $34 bn Internet traffic rank 16th Retail brand 1st Paid out $1.2 bn 15 × more than 16% more than before before to buy Source: Amazon.com, Alexa, Brandz. Market capitalization as of April 2011. Why? A vision… From 1994, Jeff Bezos knew he could create a retail website that would not have the limitations...
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...• Describe the evolution of Voice communications from analog to digital to VoIP to unified communications. Before 1984 AT&T was a monopoly in the telecom market in the U.S., but then 7 Regional Bell Operating companies. Then they started the long distance war. I remember it started in early 90’s in Hong Kong. They were promoting cheap long distance phone call called (IDD). Then dialog internet kicked in to play; the 56K. When I was a kid, I went to my cousin’s house. He had his computer connecting to the internet with phone line. It was loud, weird sound, when he kept pressing Enter, it showed the connection went back and forth in picture with consistent weird sound. When it comes to digital, I had a computer with internet called ADSL. It allowed us transferring voice, video and data through internet with cable. I remember the quality of calling was quite bad; the internet’s speed was quite slow back then. Optical cable came to play, literally came to my house with a staff installing the network. They called it 100 Mbps network. The speed was tremendously fast. Smart phone was getting popular at that time with 3G. At that time Voice over IP is very common. I could easily voice call or video call my friends in computer with decent quality. Today, unified communication is really common. We can’t live without it. It includes voice communication, instant messenger, audio and video conference and also collaboration(47 Kim and Solomon). • Differentiate store-and-forward communications...
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...a 33 percent smaller display, no cameras, no 3G wireless, less memory and only two-finger multi-touc [...] 2 comments, 1 called-out + Comment now par4par “But, in comparison with the iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 33 percent smaller display, no cameras, no 3G wireless, less memory and only two-finger multi-touc [...] Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the Kindle Fire (Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife) Jeff Bezos unveiled the $199 Kindle Fire this morning with great fanfare, but a closer look should disappoint those looking for an iPad killer. The Kindle Fire is poised to nibble at Apple’s market share. But this low-cost and under-powered tablet is more likely to suffocate its Android-based brethren than the iPad and actually should cement Apple’s dominance of the general-purpose tablet market. On the plus side, the Kindle Fire has a custom Amazon user interface that supports tight integration with Amazon’s content and media apps. It also includes one month’s free subscription to Amazon Prime (a $6.58 value!), which includes free 2-day shipping and some free streaming video access. In short, at $199, the Kindle Fire is an attractive Amazon shopping and content consumption device. But, in comparison with the iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 33 percent smaller display, no cameras, no 3G wireless, less memory and only two-finger multi-touch (thus limiting its gaming capabilities). As a result, the Kindle Fire will be in direct competition with Barnes & Noble’s Color Nook...
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