2012 100 - Networld Media Group

pia Snowe called the incentive “an attack
on Main Street businesses that
employ workers in our communities,”
and called on Amazon to cancel the
program. “Small businesses are fighting
every day to compete with giant retailers,
such as Amazon,” she said in a
statement, “and incentivizing consumers
to spy on local shops is a bridge
too far.” Pundits, commentators, latenight
comics and principled consumers
warned of a future in which the entire
physical world would serve as Amazon’s
showroom.
2
APPLE
Amazon’s third-quarter profits for 2011
were down an alarming 73 percent —
yet reported revenues went up 44 percent
to $10.9 billion, powered in part
by the new generation of Kindle book
readers and preorders for Kindle Fire.
So where did the money go? Amazon
invested it for the future and apparently
intends to keep doing so. For one
thing, Amazon invested nearly $1.6
billion — double what it spent the year
previous — toward “fixed assets, including
internal use software and website
development,” and another $769
Despite Amazon’s steady march of progress throughout 2011, Apple, true to form,
managed to out-dazzle the world’s biggest online retailer every step of the way.
The company continued to lure consumers and business users away from desktop
computers to the more manageable environment of iOS devices such as the iPad,
hastening the day when general-purpose computers are the province of software
engineers and tech enthusiasts.
The year began with an effort to broaden the iPhone market beyond a single carrier
by terminating Apple’s exclusive partnership with AT&T and announcing that the
iPhone 4 would be available through Verizon. January also saw the launch of the
Mac App Store, Apple’s effort to remake its Mac OS ecosystem in the image of iOS,
and thus collect a 30 percent cut of Mac app revenue in the process.
In February Apple became the first computer maker to introduce Intel’s Light Peak
data transfer technology under the name Thunderbolt. The iPad 2 came out in
March even as competitors were struggling to deliver an answer to the original.
In October Apple announced a breakthrough set of free cloud services that keep
stored data up to date across all devices, including PCs.
million to “technology and content,”
up 74 percent. Founder and chief executive
Jeff Bezos has increasingly used
Amazon’s cash to expand the business
into the digital domain and invest in
backend infrastructure to support all
the digital media he expects users to
consume on their new Kindle Fires.
Toward that end, Bezos struck deals
with Twentieth Century Fox and PBS
to stream movies and TV shows from
their vast libraries. (This is in addition
to deals previously inked with CBS,
Sony, Warner Bros. and others.)
The company sold 72 million iPhones (nearly double the total for 2010), 32 million iPads, 17 million Macs and 42.6 million
iPods, generating $108 billion in revenue in 2011 — up 66 percent from fiscal 2010.
However, Apple’s many marketing, business, and technology achievements through the year were overshadowed by the death of
Steve Jobs on Oct. 5, the day after Apple introduced the iPhone 4S. Under the guidance of corporate America’s most high-profile
practicing Buddhist, Apple made function not merely inseparable from form, but indistinguishable from it. In Jobs’ hands, the
two truly became one.
5