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Amazon was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos refers to as his
"regret minimization framework," i.e. his effort to fend off
late-in-life regret for not staking a claim in the Internet gold
rush. It is common lore that Bezos wrote its business plan while he
and his wife drove a 1988 Chevrolet Blazer from Fort Worth, Texas to
Bellevue, Washington, although this story is largely apocryphal
according to early employees of the company.[original research?]
The company began operating as an online bookstore under the name
Cadabra.com (as in abracadabra), a name that Bezos quickly abandoned due
to its sounding like "cadaver". While the largest brick-and-mortar
bookstores and mail-order catalogs for books might offer 200,000 titles,
an online bookstore could offer many times more. Bezos renamed his
company "Amazon" after the world's most voluminous river.
The company was incorporated in 1994, in the state of Washington, began
service in July 1995, and was reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware. The
first book ever sold by Amazon.com was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid
Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental
Mechanisms of Thought. Amazon.com had its initial public offering on
May 15, 1997, trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol AMZN
at an IPO price of US$18.00 per share (equivalent to US$1.50 after three
stock splits during the late 1990s).
Amazon's initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect
to turn a profit for four to five years. In retrospect, the strategy was
effective. Amazon grew at a steady pace in the late 1990s while many
other Internet companies grew at a blindingly fast pace.
Amazon's "slow" growth caused a number of its stockholders to complain,
saying that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When
the Dot-com bubble burst and many e-companies went out of business,
Amazon persevered and finally turned its first profit in the fourth
quarter of 2002: a meager US$5 million, just 1¢ per share, on revenues
of over US$1 billion, but it was important symbolically.
The firm has since remained profitable: net income was US$35.3 million
in 2003, US$588.5 million in 2004, US$359 million in 2005, and US$190
million in 2006 (including a US$662 million charge on R&D in 2006).
Nevertheless, the firm's cumulative profits remain negative. As of
September 2007, the accumulated deficit stood at US$1.58 billion.
Revenue continued to grow thanks to product diversification and
international presence: US$3.9 billion in 2002, US$5.3 billion in 2003,
US$6.9 billion in 2004, US$8.5 billion in 2005, and US$10.7 billion in
2006. On November 21, 2005, Amazon entered the S&P 500 index, replacing
AT&T after it merged with SBC
The Web sites of Borders (borders.com, borders.co.uk), Waldenbooks (waldenbooks.com),
Virgin Megastores (virginmega.com), CDNOW (cdnow.com), and HMV (hmv.com)
are powered and hosted by Amazon. Until June 30, 2006, typing
ToysRUs.com into a browser would similarly bring up Amazon.com's Toys &
Games tab; however, this relationship was terminated as the result of a
lawsuit.[4]
Amazon.com powers and operates retail web sites for Target, the NBA,
Sears Canada, Sears UK, Benefit Cosmetics, Bebe Stores, Timex
Corporation, Marks & Spencer, Mothercare, Lacoste and Bombay Company
(now defunct). For a growing number of enterprise clients, currently
including the UK merchants Marks & Spencer and Mothercare, Amazon
provides a unified multichannel platform from whence a customer can
interchangeably interact with the retail website, standalone in-store
terminals, and phone-based customer service agents.
It also powers AOL's Shop@AOL service via Web Services technology.
Source: Wikipedia - News Reports
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