Summary of the Article review
Many great inventions have taken place throughout history. There came the steam engine, electric motor, television set, the World Wide Web, and now, mass online storage facilities. Perhaps some few individuals were skeptical when Amazon.Com committed 2 billion dollars over a decade ago for purposes of extensive research aimed at fine-tuning its information technology infrastructure. But the results of that worthwhile investment have been written in the books of history due to the way it has continued to transform the world. Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Computer Cloud (ECZ) have completely revolutionized the online storage and cloud utility computing market. These virtual products have found many admirers due to the fast, easy, and inexpensive opportunities that they have provided to budding and established enterprises. Their reliability, availability, and flexible pay-as-you-go user policy have only made their integration in mainstream society to be unparalleled. Although this online storage and computing tools have been hit by minor technical hitches here and there, they have been able to penetrate the market with a thundering boom (Laudon & Laudon, 2007).
An expanded description of the article
Many organizations have been grappling with the problem of dealing with the large volumes of data that they handle each day. Some startup companies lack the resources needed to buy the software and hardware tools to store and backup huge volumes of data. But in utilizing their huge computing capacity, Amazon.Com, the leading web services provider and online retailer have effectively filled the void exhibited by companies that are always in need of enhanced storage capacities. This has been attainable through Amazon’s development and commissioning of S3 and ECZ storage and computing services, effectively enabling clients to purchase their requirements for such services on a per-usage basis. Companies that have already tested the services are full of praise as they have been able to downsize their personnel requirements while at the same time cut on operational costs. Some companies already utilizing these solutions have been able to save up to 75 percent of their initial data backup costs. A good example of such a company is Webmail.US, headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia. Others like Smugmug Inc. have been able to save up to $1 million in their first year of conducting business due to relying on Amazon’s storage facilities. What is more enticing is that the services are inexpensive, user-friendly, and are backed up by 24-hour service phone support to take care of emergencies (Laudon & Laudon, 2007).
Why my company will stand to gain tremendously from the S3 IT infrastructure developed by Amazons.Com
It is undeniable that the S3 online storage facility will have a major positive impact on the online music store my partner and I have started. We intend to grow our music and video catalogue to international standards but we are often faced with the challenge of soliciting funds to buy more servers, hand disk drives, and software. The office space that we are currently occupying is barely enough for all the computers and employees needed for our enterprise to take off. This article can help us fix a majority of the problems bedeviling us. A much more rounded business strategy would be to sign up with Amazon’s S3 to benefit from unlimited storage facilities for millions of our web-based audios and videos. The benefits that will accrue to our business are many and wide-ranging. First, the company will be paying 15 cents per gigabyte of the music audios and videos that we store using Amazon’s systems. This is much cheap compared to buying our own storage facilities, which may end up costing thousands of dollars. Secondly, it would be cheaper for us since we will be charged for exactly what have used – no monthly subscription fees, no startup charges, and no hidden fees. The company also stands to gain from the fact that it shall not require any additional software or hardware setup to start distributing its products online. Music and video downloads will be extremely fast, reliable, and inexpensive, in the process of adding value to our clients. This will inevitably mean more customers for the business, hence more profits. The company will certainly not require more office space because no investments in computer hardware are going to be made. Tied to this, the company will immensely cut on human capital costs as it shall not need the services of systems and network administrators. Their roles will best be handled by the virtue of computers run by Amazon. These and many more benefits will certainly contribute to the overall growth of the company (Laudon & Laudon, 2007). Talk about the wonders that technology can do!
References
Laudon, C.K., & Laudon, J.P. (2007). Management information systems: Managing the digital firm (11th Ed). New Jersey: Prentice Hall