Is Amazon WorkMail The Next Fire Phone?

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is launching WorkMail, a new email service for businesses. Many bloggers think this is another attempt to compete with Microsoft Corporation MSFT and other tech giants. But is this venture another Fire Phone waiting to happen? "I'm excited to try it out," Cody Willard, a former hedge fund manager and chairman of Scutify (a financial social network), told Benzinga. "I'm worried they're trying to bring a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, much like they did with the Amazon Fire Phone. They need to be careful and make sure it's not a me-too product like the Fire Phone was." Willard suspects that Amazon will not be deterred by the handset's weak sales "I think they'll try at least another version or two," said Willard. "[CEO Jeff Bezos] has got to make the value proposition of the Amazon bundle that comes with the Fire Phone more compelling. Amazon Prime is great but the video content, the video library, isn't compelling enough." Video content is not enough, however. "He's got to figure out more value," Willard added. "It's got to be such a no-brainer to get the Amazon phone because the Amazon ecosystem brings so much to the table. [Currently] it's not even close to being revolutionary compared to, say, the Android/Google ecosystem or the Apple ecosystem."

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You've Got…Too Many Email Clients

Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report, questioned the necessity of WorkMail. "I don't know why we need another email service," he told Benzinga. "[But] I can make an argument that we need a much better Internet and email service. I don't really believe there's a great one." In any case, Udall said that Amazon is "going to keep throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks." "They've made a huge homerun with Amazon Web Services," he added. "Maybe they think they can start leveraging it [for WorkMail]." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.