the smartphone wars

What is Amazon's smartphone strategy?

Dear Amazon, can you tell me how you are re-making your company in light of the smartphone? Yes, you may tell me anonymously, as long as you realize I may print everything you say (excepting any identifying characteristics of you).

The smartphone is the computer. Amazon is a PC-era company. The smartphone is with us always, in real-time. It merges the virtual (online) with the physical (off-line). It is location-based, providing us with Groupons and check-ins based on our current location. It is real-time, providing us with coupons and savings and offers and specials, based on time.

We increasingly rely upon our social network -- which is different than an aggregation of anonymous tipsters -- for purchasing decisions. We have the ability to scan barcodes to learn more about a product, and find a better price. We have a screen with us always, though it is quite small.

Amazon sells smartphones. Will sell apps. Offers a mobile-optimized webpage, if such a thing can exist for the world's largest retailer. Has offered a nifty service that lets us take a picture of an item and then Amazon looks to see if they can offer us one (like, my mother-in-law's 1960s glassware). The company offers digital media content for sale, including music, books and videos.

But none of these are world-changing. None decpict a larger, complete vision. None suggest an ability to compete with Google's offline-online market entries, or Facebook, or Foursquare, or Groupon. I see nothing that suggests Amazon has even begun to accept that the world, including America, will soon shift from PCs to smartphones and this shift will *fundamentally* alter how we shop; just as Amazon did last century.

Anyone?

Does this look like 'the world's biggest online retailer' to you?

amzon on iphone

Amazon says they "strive to become Earth's most customer-centric company, we constantly look for new ways to innovate."

There are no Amazon stores. The company exists in the cloud. As more of use use smartphones, and as we transition from PC to smartphone, how will Amazon remain customer-centric? Innovative? Or, do they believe they can merely port their PC empire to the smartphone?