FORTUNE: How Andy Jassy helped Amazon own the cloud, now a good spin-off candidate says The Edge Group
Jun 28, 2015
By Leena Rao, Senior Writer, Fortune Magazine:
Jassy helped Amazon Web Services dominate cloud-computing services; now he’s defending AWS’s crown against tough competition. The business world learned just how big AWS was in April, when Amazon for the first time broke out its numbers in a quarterly earnings report. AWS was not only profitable, Amazon said, but on track to earn $6.3 billion in revenue in 2015.
Other tech analysts see Amazon’s decision to unveil AWS’s numbers as a statement to clients and competitors alike that AWS has the scale and profitability to remain dominant. But some in corporate finance perceive it as a subtle for sale sign. Jim Osman, president of investment research firm Edge Consulting Group, says AWS is a good spin-off candidate, given its strong balance sheet and the disparity between its services and Amazon’s core e-commerce business. Jassy’s take? “I’ve learned at Amazon in my 18 years to never say never about anything,” he says, “but I don’t anticipate that.”