Amazon is at it again. The company that sees no industry boundaries, only opportunities to serve customers better and wider, is entering (or rather creating) a new market space. And there is chatter that this market space will be Amazon’s next billion-dollar idea, after e-commerce and cloud computing.
This space is being carved out by Amazon’s new gadget called the Echo. What is the Echo? It is “Amazon's virtual assistant and audio speaker that lets you control and connect with other services through your voice. It comes with Alexa, Amazon's Siri-like voice-activated service, so you can play a music playlist or order a product simply by talking.” The product retails around $180, has only been on the market for a few months, but consistently ranks at the top of Amazon’s bestseller’s list. From the Slingshot perspective, Echo appears to be a good example of the ‘innovation shortcut’: New value created by the fusion of existing components (wireless speaker and voice-activation).
