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ACM Queue: Many think of Amazon as "that hugely successful online bookstore." You would expect Amazon CTO Werner Vogels to embrace this distinction, but in fact it causes him some concern. "I think it's important to realize that first and foremost Amazon is a technology company," says Vogels. And he's right. Over the past years, Vogels has helped Amazon grow from an online retailer (albeit one of the largest, with more than 55 million active customer accounts) into a platform on which more than 1 million active retail partners worldwide do business. Behind Amazon's successful evolution from retailer to technology platform is its SOA (service-oriented architecture), which broke new technological ground and proved that SOAs can deliver on their promises.

JG At this point, what are your biggest successes and biggest headaches?

WV Next to the things that we already talked about—the service-oriented architecture, the way we scale, the way we serve our customers—I think our biggest success has been that Amazon has become a platform that other businesses can benefit from.