. Amazon.com is not immune to IT failures despite its widely respected image. During the busy Christmas shopping season in the second week of December this year, Amazon.com suffered outages during which consumers were not able to access their web site. As Internetweek (2000, 1) reported “Amazon crashed Tuesday for 40 minutes after the retailer ran two incompatible pieces of software simultaneously. Amazon.com did not attribute the outages to heavy traffic.”
No technology in the world will save Amazon.com from going bankrupt if they do not find a way to cut costs and increase productivity. Technology is seen as one of the biggest ways of achieving these goals. However, showing the need to cut costs is the move by Amazon.com to form alliances with or purchase technology manufacturers and suppliers. They understand they cannot make everything they need in-house and through these kinds of partnerships they are not only able to cut costs but also gain by improved shipping and distributi
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