亞馬遜有一個奇怪的新戰(zhàn)略來應對云業(yè)務的威脅

亞馬遜有一個奇怪的新戰(zhàn)略來應對云業(yè)務的威脅

Online retailing giant Amazon has a new strategy for dealing with threats to its cash-cow cloud business: Pretend they don’t exist.

在線零售巨頭亞馬遜(Amazon)制定了一項新戰(zhàn)略，以應對其現(xiàn)金流云業(yè)務面臨的威脅:假裝這些威脅不存在。

At the Seattle-based company’s annual conference to promote its cloud business in New York in July, the tech giant imposed restrictive new rules on participating companies by forbidding them to talk about the competition, The Post has learned.

據(jù)《華盛頓郵報》了解，在7月于紐約舉行的ibm云業(yè)務推廣年會上，這家科技巨頭對參與的公司實施了限制性的新規(guī)定，禁止它們談論競爭。

Companies with booths at the event who dared to name Amazon’s cloud competitors, like Microsoft or Alibaba, had to either remove the offending language or see it covered up with tape, sources told The Post.

消息人士告訴《華盛頓郵報》，在活動中設立展臺的公司，如果膽敢說出亞馬遜在云計算領域的競爭對手，如微軟或阿里巴巴的名字，就必須刪除這些冒犯性的語言，否則就會被貼上膠帶。

It’s not just the names of the competition that got scrubbed. Amazon also banned any language suggesting Amazon’s cloud business isn’t the only digital data storage provider in town by barring phrases such as “multi-cloud,” “any cloud,” or “every cloud,” according to sources and marketing guidelines obtained by The Post.

不僅僅是比賽的名字被抹去了。根據(jù)《華盛頓郵報》獲得的消息來源和營銷指南，亞馬遜還禁止使用任何表明亞馬遜的云業(yè)務不是當?shù)匚ㄒ粩?shù)字數(shù)據(jù)存儲提供商的語言，禁止使用“多云”、“任何云”或“每云”等短語。

“They reviewed everything that will be shown at our booth in terms of any PowerPoints, any presentations, any demos, even swag,” one attendee of the Javits Convention Center conference said.

“他們審查了我們展位上展示的所有東西，包括任何幻燈片、任何演示、任何演示，甚至是swag，”一名參加Javits會議中心會議的人士說。

Amazon reviewed the designs for all the swag items, including giveaway mugs, ball caps and T-shirts, ahead of the conference — and then again when the vendor arrived at the Javits Center to prepare the booth, the attendee said.

參加會議的人說，在會議之前，亞馬遜審核了所有贈品的設計，包括免費贈送的馬克杯、球帽和t恤，然后當供應商到達Javits中心準備攤位時，亞馬遜又審核了一次。

When an Amazon inspector discovered references to other cloud providers in the attendee’s slide show, the inspector demanded they be changed “on the spot,” the source said. “And then they came back an hour later to make sure it was gone.”

該消息人士稱，當一名亞馬遜檢查員在與會者的幻燈片中發(fā)現(xiàn)了對其他云提供商的引用時，他要求“當場”更改這些引用。“一小時后，他們又回來了，確認錢包不見了。”

Another source witnessed summit workers going around the show floor and placing tape over mentions of other cloud providers on booth materials and posters.

另一位消息人士稱，峰會工作人員在會場里走來走去，在展臺材料和海報上粘貼其他云提供商的名字。

The crackdown comes as the e-commerce giant faces growing competition to its cloud business, Amazon Web Services, or AWS, which sells its computer-processing power to government agencies and major companies, such as video-streaming service Netflix and digital scrapbook Pinterest.

此舉出臺之際，這家電子商務巨頭的云業(yè)務亞馬遜網(wǎng)絡服務(Amazon Web Services，簡稱AWS)正面臨日益激烈的競爭。AWS將其計算機處理能力出售給政府機構和主要公司，如視頻流媒體服務Netflix和數(shù)字剪貼簿Pinterest。

Since starting AWS as a side business in 2006, it has grown to be the biggest cloud provider on the planet — and a major source of revenue for Amazon. Amazon’s cloud business currently contributes to more than half of the larger company’s profits, helping to support founder Jeff Bezos’money-losing delivery business.

自2006年AWS作為副業(yè)成立以來，它已成長為全球最大的云提供商——也是亞馬遜的主要收入來源。亞馬遜的云業(yè)務目前貢獻了這家大公司一半以上的利潤，幫助支撐了創(chuàng)始人杰夫·貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)虧損的快遞業(yè)務。

But growth is slowing. Revenue grew just 34.7 percent in the past quarter — a dip from the previous quarter’s 37 percent clip.

但增長正在放緩。上一季營收僅增長34.7%，低于上一季的37%。

Rivals, meanwhile, are chipping away, with Alibaba’s Aliyun and Microsoft’s Azure growing steadily in popularity. Microsoft last month beat out Amazon to secure a $10 billion Pentagon contract to power the Defense Department’s cloud, a significant coup for the Windows-maker and a blow for Amazon.

與此同時，隨著阿里巴巴的阿里云(Aliyun)和微軟(Microsoft)的Azure的受歡迎程度穩(wěn)步上升，競爭對手也在逐漸減少。上個月，微軟擊敗了亞馬遜，獲得了一份價值100億美元的五角大樓合同，為美國國防部的云計算提供動力，這對windows制造商來說是一個重大的成功，對亞馬遜來說也是一個打擊。

“They think they can police it by not showing people what’s going on. But it’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle,” Holger Mueller, principal analyst at Constellation Research, told The Post.

“他們認為他們可以通過不向人們展示正在發(fā)生的事情來監(jiān)督它。但是現(xiàn)在把精靈放回瓶子里已經(jīng)太遲了。”星座研究公司的首席分析師Holger Mueller告訴《華盛頓郵報》。

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives pointed to Microsoft’s recent win of the Pentagon contract as fueling Amazon’s insecurity about the longevity of its dominant position in the cloud.

Wedbush分析師Dan Ives指出，微軟最近贏得了五角大樓的合同，加劇了亞馬遜對其在云計算領域的統(tǒng)治地位的不安全感。

“As we get into this next phase of cloud, it’s going to be a lot more competitive,” Ives said. “In a multiple cloud environment, that’s not a positive for Bezos and Amazon.”

“隨著我們進入云計算的下一個階段，競爭將會更加激烈，”艾夫斯說。“在一個多云的環(huán)境中，這對貝佐斯和亞馬遜來說不是件好事。”