亞馬遜的語音商業(yè)帝國悄然成型

When Amazon launched Alexa, its intelligent voice assistant, it did so on the back of an embarrassing failure. The company’s attempt to make a success of a smartphone called the Fire had flopped, forcing a $170m writedown in late 2014. Analysts called it one of the worst phones ever made.

在推出智能語音助手Alexa之前，亞馬遜(Amazon)剛剛經(jīng)歷了一次令人尷尬的失利。亞馬遜希望用智能手機(jī)Fire做出一番成績，但這一嘗試徹底失敗，迫使該公司在2014年末進(jìn)行了一次1.7億美元的減記。分析師稱Fire是有史以來最糟糕的手機(jī)之一。

The end of the Fire phone seemed to dash Amazon’s hopes of developing its own mobile platform. At a time when Apple had the iPhone, and Alphabet had its ubiquitous Google search engine, Amazon was desperate to find ways to reach customers directly without going through a rival tech company.

Fire手機(jī)的終結(jié)似乎讓亞馬遜發(fā)展自己的移動平臺的希望化為泡影。當(dāng)時蘋果(Apple)擁有iPhone，Alphabet擁有無處不在的谷歌(Google)搜索引擎，亞馬遜急于找到不經(jīng)由競爭科技公司、直接觸及顧客的方法。

Although few expected it at the time, Alexa has given Amazon precisely the entrée it had been seeking with the Fire phone — just in a different format. Instead of asking users to interact with a screen, Alexa is entirely voice based.

盡管當(dāng)時很少有人預(yù)見到，但Alexa給予亞馬遜的正是其一直試圖用Fire手機(jī)實(shí)現(xiàn)的入口，只不過形式不同。Alexa的模式并不是讓用戶與屏幕進(jìn)行交互，而是完全基于語音。

The initial Alexa product, the Echo speaker, was launched two weeks after the Fire writedown and became the first voice-controlled speaker to have mass public appeal. In the two years since its release, Alexa has spread like wildfire, and the voice service is now integrated into dozens of home gadgets, including refrigerators and, soon, cars.

作為最初集成Alexa的產(chǎn)品，Echo揚(yáng)聲器是在Fire手機(jī)的那筆減記兩周后發(fā)布的，成為第一款擁有廣大號召力的語音控制揚(yáng)聲器。在發(fā)布后的兩年中，Alexa勢如燎原，這項(xiàng)語音服務(wù)現(xiàn)在已被集成到冰箱等數(shù)十種家用電器中，很快汽車也將集成這一服務(wù)。

Amazon hopes that Alexa Voice Services, the digital mind behind the assistant, will become ubiquitous wherever voice commands are used.

亞馬遜希望Alexa語音助手背后的數(shù)字智能——Alexa語音服務(wù)(Alexa Voice Services)在任何使用語音指令的場合得到使用。

The company has succeeded in unlikely business areas before, most notably with Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing business. Launched 10 years ago, AWS exploited its first-mover advantage and is now the biggest cloud computing provider in the world.

亞馬遜已在之前看起來不太可能的商業(yè)領(lǐng)域取得成功，最突出的是亞馬遜的云計(jì)算服務(wù)亞馬遜網(wǎng)絡(luò)服務(wù)(AWS)。十年前推出的AWS利用先發(fā)優(yōu)勢，現(xiàn)在是世界最大的云計(jì)算服務(wù)提供商。

Replicating that success with Alexa will not be easy, but Amazon has already put big resources behind the effort. To encourage adoption, the company sells its Alexa devices at a loss — pricing them between 10 and 20 per cent less than the cost of the hardware, according to an estimate from Evercore. The company has never disclosed how many Alexa-enabled devices it has sold.

在Alexa身上復(fù)制這種成功并不容易，但亞馬遜已對此投入大量資源。為了推廣，該公司虧本出售Alexa設(shè)備——據(jù)Evercore的估算，其定價(jià)比硬件成本低10%到20%。亞馬遜從未公開售出了多少內(nèi)置Alexa服務(wù)的設(shè)備。

Amazon also gives Alexa Voice Services away for free, meaning a developer can integrate Alexa into any device with a speaker and microphone. And there is an Alexa Fund that gives grants to developers to work on new applications.

Amazon還免費(fèi)提供Alexa語音服務(wù)，這意味著開發(fā)者可以將Alexa集成到任何有揚(yáng)聲器和麥克風(fēng)的設(shè)備上。亞馬遜還成立了Alexa基金，向那些開發(fā)新的Alexa應(yīng)用的開發(fā)者提供補(bǔ)貼。

The company has also been pouring resources into Alexa. Evercore estimates that Amazon lost about $330m on Alexa in 2016, including net losses on the devices as well as personnel costs, and that this figure will nearly double to exceed $600m this year.

亞馬遜一直在向Alexa投入大量資源。Evercore估計(jì)2016年亞馬遜在Alexa上虧損3.3億美元，包括銷售設(shè)備方面的凈損失和人員成本，今年這個數(shù)字將增長近一倍至逾6億美元。

Amazon is currently advertising openings for more than 500 jobs in its Alexa team as it seeks to expand. (The company has also promised to add 100,000 new jobs, mostly warehouse positions, in the US by mid-2018.) The strategic imperative for Amazon is clear: Alexa is its chance to own the operating system in this new medium, voice.

亞馬遜計(jì)劃擴(kuò)大Alexa團(tuán)隊(duì)，正在為該團(tuán)隊(duì)的500多個崗位空缺登招聘廣告。(該公司還承諾在2018年年中之前在美國提供10萬個新工作崗位，主要是倉儲工作崗位。)對亞馬遜而言，Alexa的戰(zhàn)略重要性顯而易見：Alexa是亞馬遜在語音這個新媒介主導(dǎo)操作系統(tǒng)的機(jī)會。

“It’s kind of like trying to become the Google for voice or the Windows for voice,” said Mark Mahaney, analyst at RBC. “I think Amazon is just running away with this market.”

“這就像是試圖成為語音方面的谷歌或者語音方面的Windows操作系統(tǒng)，”加拿大皇家銀行資本市場(RBC Capital Markets)分析師馬克•馬哈尼(Mark Mahaney)說，“我們認(rèn)為亞馬遜是在拐跑這個市場。”

He points to two places where voice interactions are most convenient: the home and the car. In the home, Amazon can strengthen its ties to customers, and of course make it easier for them to shop on Amazon and listen to Amazon Music.

他指出兩種最適用語音交互的環(huán)境：家居和汽車。在家中，亞馬遜能夠加強(qiáng)其與顧客的紐帶，當(dāng)然，同時還能讓顧客更方便地在亞馬遜上購物，聽亞馬遜音樂(Amazon Music)。

This presence in the home dovetails with Amazon’s recent effort to expand its grocery business, Amazon Fresh. “It is kind of Amazon’s Trojan horse into the refrigerator,” said Mr Mahaney.

Alexa進(jìn)軍家庭與亞馬遜最近推廣亞馬遜生鮮(Amazon Fresh)的努力相吻合。“這就像是亞馬遜在人們的冰箱里放入了特洛伊木馬，”馬哈尼說。

He estimates that as many as 10m Alexa devices were sold in the recent holiday quarter. These direct retail opportunities are only part of the picture, however. Owning the voice operating system puts Amazon in a powerful position, allowing it to act as the gatekeeper for third-party applications and customer data.

他估計(jì)最近的假日季賣出了多達(dá)1000萬臺Alexa設(shè)備。不過這些直接的零售機(jī)會僅是其版圖的一部分。Alexa語音操作系統(tǒng)令亞馬遜獲得了強(qiáng)大地位，使它成為第三方應(yīng)用程序和客戶數(shù)據(jù)的“看門人”。

So far, Amazon has taken an open approach towards third-party apps, or “skills”, that integrate with Alexa. Spotify and Pandora are available through Alexa, even though they compete with Amazon’s music service. Customers can also use Alexa to order Domino’s Pizza — even though it competes with Amazon’s restaurant delivery service.

到目前為止，亞馬遜對第三方應(yīng)用(或“skills”)的集成還采取開放態(tài)度。Spotify和Pandora都能通過Alexa收聽，雖然它們與亞馬遜音樂服務(wù)是競爭關(guān)系。客戶還可以使用Alexa下單達(dá)美樂披薩(Domino's Pizza)，雖然它也與亞馬遜的送餐服務(wù)競爭。

This approach has been reassuring to companies that are planning to partner with Alexa. The carmaker Ford set itself a simple task when it came to picking a giant tech company with which to forge an alliance: find one that was unlikely to end up being a direct competitor.

Alexa的這種開放性態(tài)度讓計(jì)劃與之合作的企業(yè)感到放心。汽車制造商福特(Ford)在挑選要建立聯(lián)盟的科技巨頭時，給自己制定了一個簡單的任務(wù)：找一家不大可能最后變成自己直接競爭對手的企業(yè)。

That was a large part of the thinking behind the carmaker’s announcement last week that it will use Alexa in its cars later this year. The arrangement is a breakthrough for Alexa, giving it a place in car dashboards. It also caps an early lead over Google and Microsoft in the race to bring voice-activated intelligent agents into devices of all types.

福特在近期宣布將于今年晚些時候?qū)袮lexa用在其汽車?yán)铮鲜隹剂吭诒澈笳剂撕艽笠徊糠?。該協(xié)議是Alexa的一次突破，令其在汽車儀表盤上占據(jù)了一席之地，而且在將語音激活的智能代理接入各種設(shè)備的競爭中，相對谷歌和微軟獲得了初步領(lǐng)先。

Perhaps even more important is what the Ford alliance may say about future competition: the ecommerce company is finding an open door among hardware makers that see it as a neutral partner, at a time when Silicon Valley’s ambitions are casting a long shadow over many different industries.

也許更重要的是，與福特的聯(lián)盟所預(yù)示的未來競爭：目前，硅谷的野心已給許多行業(yè)蒙上陰影，而亞馬遜在眾多硬件制造商中找到了一扇開啟的門，這些硬件制造商將這家電商公司視作中立合作伙伴。

Others in the car industry feel like Ford. “It’s more difficult to work with someone when you don’t understand what their objectives are,” said Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Nissan and Renault, in a reference to Apple and Alphabet.

汽車行業(yè)其他制造商與福特感受類似。日產(chǎn)(Nissan)與雷諾(Renault)的首席執(zhí)行官卡洛斯•戈恩(Carlos Ghosn)提到蘋果和Alphabet時表示：“如果你不了解對方的目標(biāo)是什么，將更難與其合作。”

Amazon, on the other hand, has been clear about its intentions. “Some companies have already decided — these companies like Amazon and Uber — [and] you want to work with them, because they know where they’re going,” said Mr Ghosn. “And where they’re going is not a threat to you.”

而亞馬遜已表明其意圖。戈恩說：“有些公司已經(jīng)做出決定——就像亞馬遜和優(yōu)步——你想與之合作，因?yàn)樗鼈冎雷约阂ツ膬?。而它們要?shí)現(xiàn)的目標(biāo)不會對你形成威脅。”

Amazon has also learnt the all-important art for a technology platform company of expanding its ecosystem by making Alexa easier for developers to incorporate in other products. “We’ve seen Alexa become a much more robust ecosystem than it was two years ago,” said John Rhee, North American general manager for UBTech, a maker of humanoid robots that last week announced an integration with Alexa.

亞馬遜還學(xué)會了作為一個技術(shù)平臺公司最重要的藝術(shù)，通過讓Alexa更易于開發(fā)者集合到其他產(chǎn)品，擴(kuò)大自己的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。優(yōu)必選(UBTech)北美總經(jīng)理約翰•李(John Rhee)表示：“我們看到Alexa變成了一個比兩年前強(qiáng)大得多的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。”UBTech是一家人形機(jī)器人制造商，不久前宣布集成Alexa。

However, it is too early to tell whether Amazon’s early success with Alexa will give it a foot in the door to sell a wider set of AWS services.

但現(xiàn)在就判斷亞馬遜在Alexa上的先期成功，是否將為其出售更廣泛的AWS服務(wù)打下基礎(chǔ)，還為時過早。

Also, the loose alliances Amazon is striking with Alexa do not come with any guaranteed distribution period or give it exclusivity, leaving hardware makers free to switch to rival voice assistants.

此外，亞馬遜為Alexa結(jié)成的松散聯(lián)盟并沒帶來任何有保證的分銷期，或?qū)Ｓ袡?quán)，讓硬件制造商可以自由切換到競爭對手的語音助理。

Alexa’s success has also spurred a fresh urgency from companies such as Samsung that are trying to build their own equivalents.

Alexa的成功也激發(fā)了三星(Samsung)等公司嘗試打造同類產(chǎn)品的熱切心情。

Brendon Kim, who leads Samsung’s Next Ventures, a $150m start-up investment fund based in Silicon Valley, said Amazon “has done well to show people the potential of a new conversational voice interface”.

三星旗下1.5億美元的硅谷創(chuàng)業(yè)投資基金Next Ventures的負(fù)責(zé)人Brendon Kim表示，亞馬遜“非常好地向人們展示了新型對話語音界面的潛力。”