From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 48

most of that record is now digital, is it not worthwhile to develop strate-
gies to preserve at least some of it in a systematic fashion?
Now it is important to turn to an overview of major participants in the
cloud marketplace, starting with the ive companies generally considered
dominant on the Internet and in the cloud.
Mapping the Cloud Industry: Leaders and Challengers
Arguably the leading force in the U.S. cloud computing industry, and
a global giant as well, Amazon began by applying computer power to
transform publishing and then the general retail industry. As prodigious
as this accomplishment has been, one commentator concluded that these
achievements “may be footnotes to the company's larger and more secre-
tive goal: giving anyone on the planet access to an almost unimaginable
amount of computing power” (Hardy 2012a). By 2013, according to
most accounts, its subdivision, Amazon Web Services, was the leader in
U.S. cloud computing. As an analyst for the consulting irm Forrester
described it, “Almost every major consultancy supports Amazon; almost
every advertising agency runs on Amazon; if I need to hire 10 people
tomorrow to help me build my application, it's super easy to ind people
who have Amazon experience” (Miller and Hardy 2013). While Amazon
does not break out revenue for cloud computing, 2012 estimates range
from $800 million to as much as $2.4 billion (ibid.; Mims 2013). The
company operates its cloud services through the aforementioned AWS,
which achieved widespread public attention in 2012 because the Obama
presidential campaign used AWS to organize its successful voter analysis
and voter-turnout drive. By the middle of 2013, one typically modest
industry observer concluded, following the company's thirty-seventh cut
of its cloud prices, which sent tremors through the industry, “The proof
is in: Amazon fully controls the cloud” (Linthicum 2013c). This conclu-
sion may be premature and a tad overstated, but it does correctly identify
Amazon as an increasingly dominant force in the cloud business.
AWS was created in 2004 with about forty employees, and was the
irst company to rent its data storage and computing power to other
companies. Although it is highly secretive about most of its operation,
by 2012 Amazon was regularly listing more than 600 job openings on