Amazon Makes Electricity?
May 2, 2008 | By Raymond T. Hightower
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos uses an interesting metaphor to describe his company’s cloud computing offering. About a hundred years ago, a beer-maker in Luxembourg decided to use electricity to power their brewing machines. The problem? Centralized electric companies didn’t yet exist. So the beer company installed their own on-site power generator, becoming experts in electricity as well as beer.
Substitute computers for electricity… that’s what many businesses are doing today with IT. When a beer company develops its expertise in electricity, does that make the beer taste better? No. Better idea: If a task lies outside a company’s core competency, the task should assigned to people outside the company.
Startup School 2008
Amazon’s tongue-in-cheek motto for Amazon Web services is
We make electricity, so you don’t have to.
Bezos says more in this 45-minute video.
What Are You Doing?
Are you doing things in-house that would better farmed out to another company? This doesn’t just apply to IT. What do your customers value about you? Would your time be better spent on tasks that increase your value (and indispensability) to customers?