Amazon’s next chief executive made his name by launching one of the retail giant’s most profitable businesses – South Africa. Andy Jassy, who joined Amazon in 1997 as technical assistant to Jeff Bezos, started Amazon Web Services ( AWS), of which he later became CEO. The Web services business started the era of cloud computing and now accounts for more than half of Amazon’s operating profit.
AWS ‘story is incomplete without recognizing the legendary role of an independent team of engineers and developers in Cape Town. This South African team was assembled and led by Chris Pinkham, a South African who proposed a new web infrastructure service for Amazon as the engineer responsible for its global infrastructure. Pinkham founded Amazon’s software development center in Cape Town. Eventually, it would become the cradle of AWS cloud computing, after the team successfully built the original elastic computing cloud, known as EC2.
EC2 is the core technology of the AWS platform and allows users to rent units of storage space, network connectivity and computing capacity effectively across the AWS global infrastructure. Before joining Amazon, Pinkham founded South Africa’s first Internet service provider, Internet Africa, in 1993. Its back-end infrastructure software startup, Nimbula, was acquired by Oracle in 2013, and its technology is now the backbone backbone of Oracle’s cloud systems. Pinkham also served as vice president of engineering for Twitter 2015-2017.
In a 2018 press release announcing his plans for data centers in Africa, Jassy acknowledged the importance of the Cape Town team’s work. “Having built the original version of Amazon EC2 at our Cape Town development center 14 years ago, and with thousands of African companies using AWS for years, we were able to witness firsthand the technical and potential talent in Africa,” he wrote .
Cape Town The team and the center continued to play a key role in the development and operation of most of the EC2 core, while AWS expanded its presence in South Africa. The company formed several local teams, including solution architects, account managers, partner managers, customer service representatives, and increased its permanent workforce in the country to 7,000 people in June last year. It also launched more services and expanded its infrastructure in the country, including several data centers opened in the country last year.
“In many ways, Andy Jassy has been the waiting CEO for many years. It turned AWS into the world’s leading cloud services platform, starting almost from scratch, with a set of ideas, ”says Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx, a leading South African technology market research organization. “It is precisely that kind of quality that characterizes Amazon’s history, and it will follow in Jeff Bezos’s footsteps.”
Some analysts in South Africa say that Jassy’s appointment suggests that Amazon is likely to double connected services. “Jassy’s main focus has always been on expanding AWS,” says Obadiah Jeshuren Naidoo, a cloud technology consultant in South Africa. “Satya Nadella led the way in Azure cloud computing with Microsoft, and her appointment as CEO ensured Azure’s advance with Microsoft. Likewise, I feel that Jassy is going to push the cloud stack with Amazon. “
Jon Tullett, research manager for IT services in Africa at IDC, a market research group based in the United States, says the appointment shows that Amazon is focusing on its strengths. “Connected services are a great future for Amazon. Not just AWS, but artificial intelligence, connected lifestyle services, automation and many other areas, ”he said. “These are all areas that Jassy has been actively cultivating.”