Case 3: Amazon and eBay New Face of Web Services

Introduction of Information Systems

Mariana Cuahonte Balam


Case 3: Amazon and eBay

New Face of Web Services

Web services are being considered an excellent technology to solve distributed computing
challenges in
the Internet area.
At the same time, investments in business integration are
increasing as well.

N
ow we

can see that it is basic for a company the use of the Internet service to
succeed
, because it allows

the expansion of

a business without

even having a

local
; and

i
n
business

consecrated
, it
allows them to

reach many

more customers
.

Most
companies,
specifi
cally large companies
,

have been implementing new ways of doing
business, from email
to having their own
website, as well as a social network
to be much closer to
their customers.

As we all know, the company

Amazon.com,

Inc.

is

a U.S. company

that

was one
of

the first to
use

electronic commerce

to sell

products

over the Internet

and currently provides a wide

variety
of services.

The case study:

“
Amazon

and
eBay: The New Face

of Web services

in business”
(O'Brien
, 2008) tell us that the company

Amazon. Inc.,

launched to outside programmers to
facilitate database and some features that were offered for a long time.
Amazon.com

Inc
.

is an
American

multinational

electronic commerce

company with headquarters in

Seattle, Washington,
United States. It is the world's

largest

online retailer.

Amazon has separate websites for the
following countries:

United States,

Canada,

United Kingdom,

Germany,

France,

Italy,

Spain,

Japan,
and

China. It is also expected to launch its websites in

Poland, Netherlands,

Sweden

and

India.

It
also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.

Jeff
Bezos

created Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and the site went online in 1995.


Amazon.com started
Introduction of Information Systems

Mariana Cuahonte Balam


as an online

bookstore, but soon diversified,
selling

DVDs,

CDs,

MP3

downloads,

software,

video
games,

electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys.

In the other side eBay Inc. is an American multinational I
nternet consumer
-
to
-
consumer
corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shoppi
ng website in which people and
businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is
one of the notable success stories of the dot
-
com bubble; it is now a multi
-
billion dollar business
with operations localized i
n over thirty countries
.

Such as Amazon, eBay

have bee
n established as trading center

for people who shop online. Thanks
to the experience they have
developed

software
that
has

helped them generate more sales

and
profit.

According to the text, "Today arou
nd 8000 companies or individuals have become members of the
development program, and about 600 applications built by independent develop
ers use eBay's
servers" that is because eBay not just change the way people sale and but what they want for the
commodit
y of their homes, they allowed others to help the website to bring a much more
specialized service, just like Paypal did, the necessity of pay something by credit without a credit
card didn’t existed after eBay, they created this App and change the way of
paying things on
Internet.

On the other side, th
e search engine # 1: Google has been benefice
d

because the

published on
programming protocol lets users write applications that incorporate
the
Google's search engine.

Part of the success that Amazon and eBay

have obtained is that these companies have learned to
encourage programmers to work on their platforms and develop big ideas, as well as they have
the type of user that programmers are more interested.
However, one of the major challenges
Introduction of Information Systems

Mariana Cuahonte Balam


developers

are f
acing

is that the world of Web S
ervices every day

has
new tools and

more

updates
to web platforms
.
So companies must move faster to stay upda
ted on the changes there are on

their platforms.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What are the purpose and business value of

Web services?

Reach customers from all around the world, been known by everyone and manage or resolve
every communication problem with anyone.

2. What are the benefits of Web services to Amazon, eBay, and their developer partners?

There are a lot of them,

the developers create advanced, and everyday more specialized features
for every type of customer, they help to make the big ones grow and at the same time take
advantage on a bit of their enormous profit.

3. What are the business challenges of Web servic
es?

There are certain challenges that web services have to overcome to succeed. Many of these
challenges are relat
ed to the open environment that

they have to
overcome. Every day the
government creates more restrictions with the objective of protect the u
sers, but at the same time
they denied that income for a lot of developers. Also the competition are fierce now, everyone
know now the benefits of having a good idea and developed it in the Web,
and

as

many

achieve
success, many more

get lost in the

W
eb
.



Introduction of Information Systems

Mariana Cuahonte Balam


What was the impact?

The result includes product details, search capabilities, customer reviews, sales ranking, lists
,

records desired things

and finally their own gadget to read eBooks that

Amazon

to amplify their
impact. EBay not just invented a new way

of living for a lot of
people;

they allowed the creation of
services like PayPal, online classified service and much more things.

What concepts and theories did you notice in your examination that worked and if so, why?

The Web Services can increase in
an important way

the business value of telecommunications
network, by removing barriers, costs,
develop

new markets, attract new customers a
nd the
benefit the Web S
ervices
bring
for a company
as well as
for the user
, customer and developer
s.



Sources:



O’Brien, J.A. & Marakas, G. M. (2008).
Introduction to Information Systems. (14th ed.).

New York: McGraw
-
Hill/Irwin. ISBN: 978
-
0
-
07
-
340292
-
5.



"Amazon.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012
-
03
-
02.



Jopson, Barney (2011
-
07
-
12). "Amazon urges Californi
a referendum on online tax".
FT.com. Retrieved 2011
-
08
-
04.



"Ebay.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2011
-
09
-
01.



"eBay: The World's Online Marketplace". eBay Inc..
Retrieved 2010
-
04
-
09.