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Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

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Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#51

Post by haswell »

volaski wrote: post #42
tsunamifury wrote: post #19

I flew up in First Class on Virgin to Seattle next to a key lead on the fire phone. We had a nice long talk about the project and what happened. He vehemently defended the Fire Phone and touted its great and unique aspects while I examined it and admired the hard work he put in. 3D modeling, gyroscopic-driven interactions, an universal activity feed -- some interesting stuff was there... But there were some serious p…

Go read the book "Everything store" and come back. You're not the first one who's been saying stuff like this about him. While reading the book I was amazed how the entire history of the company is full of doubters saying he's doing it wrong and the company will fail. Yet time after time the doubters were proved wrong, and after two decades its growth is only accelerating. Sure he's not perfect and how the company tr…

In the end, this comes down to a question of ends justifying the means.

I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the company has done very well in many ways. So has Apple. We've learned that both Jobs and Bezos weren't/aren't very good people to work for.

Maybe it's naive of me to think this way, but I'd like to think that companies can be wildly successful without being life sucking and horrible in the process.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#52

Post by droopyEyelids »

sokoloff wrote: post #40
tsunamifury wrote: post #19

I flew up in First Class on Virgin to Seattle next to a key lead on the fire phone. We had a nice long talk about the project and what happened. He vehemently defended the Fire Phone and touted its great and unique aspects while I examined it and admired the hard work he put in. 3D modeling, gyroscopic-driven interactions, an universal activity feed -- some interesting stuff was there... But there were some serious p…

Even if everything you say up to the last clause is perfectly true, it doesn't follow that he blames them for the failure. He simply and objectively doesn't need them if the product they were skilled to do is a flop and has no future.

It's an interesting example of how objectification and anthropormorphism can be the inverse of each other.

We treat the business like a human, assuming it 'blames' people. The business treats humans like objects, throwing them in the garbage when they are no longer of use.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#53

Post by megablast »

gjolund wrote: post #15
an4rchy wrote: post #7

Amazon fires Fire phone engineers.... /s TBH it sucks that the developers are the first ones to go , when it generally isnt their fault... it's bad product management/sales/strategy that caused the device to fail...

Why is this always the case? I've been on a couple of projects that were complete flops, devs are always first to go. Meanwhile the idiots who actually wasted all the money and bloated the feature set start working on version "2.0".

Simple.

If you are a designer, you can go work on another project.

If you are a BA, you can go work on another project.

If you are a manager, you can go work on another project.

If you are an mobile developer/hardware engineer, and they aren't building any more OS/hardware, they can't move you onto another project.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#54

Post by FilterSweep »

cesarbs wrote: post #36
bluepostitnote wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "idiots" are now the ones that learned an expensive set of lessons to apply to that v2

Still doesn't answer why engineers are let go. It's not like they didn't learn lessons too, and their expertise could be used for "that v2".

From my - perhaps "limited" as it's only been to a few years - experience they aren't _all_ let go. With the rest, its easier to start fresh with lower paid devs than give raises to the older engineers who will begin to request being paid appropriately for their time and commitment.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#55

Post by aggie »

kzhahou wrote: post #48
macintux wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve obsessed over details that would benefit users; Bezos apparently forced choices that would benefit Amazon. Seems quite a bit different.

Please list the features that were patently anti-user and done for Amazon's sole benefit.

Parent comment didn't say anti-user, but the dedicated hardware button for identifying and purchasing goods from Amazon is pretty ridiculous. It's like an Amazon Dash button in your pocket all the time. It's hard to argue they weren't thinking Amazon-first on that one.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#56

Post by HelloMcFly »

mrschwabe wrote: post #29

Glad the Fire phone has flopped, simply on the basis that it will help reduce confusion for people looking for a Firefox phone.

Anyone proactively looking for a Firefox phone seems unlikely to also fall into the camp of people that would be confused by the Amazon Fire phone.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#57

Post by batiudrami »

tsunamifury wrote: post #19

I flew up in First Class on Virgin to Seattle next to a key lead on the fire phone. We had a nice long talk about the project and what happened. He vehemently defended the Fire Phone and touted its great and unique aspects while I examined it and admired the hard work he put in. 3D modeling, gyroscopic-driven interactions, an universal activity feed -- some interesting stuff was there... But there were some serious p…

Perhaps it would be wise to remove his specific job working on the Fire phone? Wouldn't want him to get in trouble at work for comments like that, even if it was ill advised to say them to a stranger on a flight.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#58

Post by musesum »

mentos wrote: post #11

"In essence, we were not building the phone for the customer—we were building it for Jeff" http://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire

Interesting article (thanks). My takeaway is that Amazon executes well on delivering low margin goods, but the phone attempted to create a high margin brand.

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#59

Post by ljk »

gjolund wrote: post #15
an4rchy wrote: post #7

Amazon fires Fire phone engineers.... /s TBH it sucks that the developers are the first ones to go , when it generally isnt their fault... it's bad product management/sales/strategy that caused the device to fail...

Why is this always the case? I've been on a couple of projects that were complete flops, devs are always first to go. Meanwhile the idiots who actually wasted all the money and bloated the feature set start working on version "2.0".

i'm guessing the devs are the most expensive?

Re: Amazon Curtails Development of Consumer Devices

#60

Post by ljk »

dlubarov wrote: post #10
pkinsky wrote: post #4

I can't wait for pallet-loads of fire phones to hit the market at scrap metal prices.

No need to wait! Amazon lowered the price to $130 today - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OC0USA6 It still comes with a year of Prime membership, so if you're a Prime customer anyway, it's essentially a $31 contract-free phone. I wonder if it's an aggressive attempt to acquire some users, or if they've given up on the product and they're just getting rid of inventory?

> Currently unavailable.

> We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

Unfortunately they're out for now

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