Amazon's Whale Strategy

You cannot — ought not — judge the Fire phone by the traditional standards against which we have come to judge all devices these days, but rather from the perspective of a goods and services company that seeks to facilitate streamlined access to its storefront for its most loyal and devoted customers by offering them a device integrated with its own services to a degree made impossible through third-party integration alone on another device maker’s platform. When considered in this light, the Fire Phone is, inarguably, an interesting proposition that more than merits the considerable number of think-pieces that have been devoted to it since its announcement. This is the point Ben Thompson makes here, and makes so, so very well.