LAS VEGAS -- Pearl Jam did not perform at Amazon's cloud developer conference. They played at Oracle's OpenWorld conference in San Francisco last month, but here in Las Vegas, at Amazon's first-ever worldwide developer shindig, there was no band. There was laser tag.
Amazon is remaking the computer industry with Amazon Web Services, or AWS, a cloud computing platform that lets companies run their software without any of the real-world hassles of plugging in computers or fixing broken hard drives. On Amazon's cloud, you pay for virtual servers, and if you want to spin up a few thousand extra copies of Linux, all you need is a credit card number.
It's a new way of computing, one that -- Amazon executives are happy to say -- earns the kind of low margins that the online retailer already finds comfortable.
AWS was introduced six years ago, but this was the company's first big user conference. It was different, in an Amazon kind of way. "We didn't want to look like any old-school technology trade show," says Adam Selipsky, AWS's vice president of sales, marketing and support. "We were focused on making it a useful show, not a showpiece for AWS."
So on Wednesday night, instead of a Las Vegas A-lister, attendees instead were treated to pigs-in-a-blanket, laser tag, booze, retro arcade games like Pac-Man, and free T-shirts.
It was completely fun, a party designed with the 30-something software developer in mind, says Joel Simpson, the CEO of Alegion, a startup that's using AWS to build crowd-sourcing software for big companies.
"When you design a party with frugality in mind, you don't necessarily start with the A-list," says Selipsky. "We tried to create a non-glitzy real-world feel."
Amazon talks a lot about putting its customers first, but here in Las Vegas, it also put them onstage for most of the show. Amazon says that 57 percent of the sessions this week are led by users, rather than Amazon staffers. Netflix, perhaps Amazon's most high-profile user, has 10 engineers at the conference presenting in technical sessions. And a look through site's online agenda reads like a mini who's-who of the Silicon Valley startup scene: Pinterest, Yelp, and Etsy all sent speakers. And there are presenters from NASA's Mars Rover team and President Barack Obama's 2012 election campaign, both AWS users.
In a market that's endlessly flooded with product press releases, it's hard to think of another company that would make a 25 percent price cut one of the two biggest announcements at the show.
"I think it's clear that they have retailer DNA," says Jeff Sussna, the founder of Amazon consultancy Ingineering.IT.
But Amazon seems proud. While companies like Oracle operate on 80 percent profit margins, Amazon's are in the low 20 percent range. Kicking off the show with a keynote address Wednesday, AWS chief Andy Jassy said Amazon's price-cutting, low-margin approach is a key competitive advantage. "The economics of what we're doing are extremely disruptive to old-guard technology companies," he said.
Amazon charges the same big-ticket rates as other developer conferences -- $1,100 to get in the doors here -- but while Google lavished attendees at its I/O developer conference with more than $1,000 worth of gadgets, the Amazon schwag bag came with a more modest present: a $5 gift card.
A few attendees may have griped about not getting a Kindle Fire, but Selipsky is nonplussed. "I have not got the impression that people are primarily coming here for schwag," he says.
