When Amazon launched Alexa — its voice-activated virtual assistant — in 2014, it was met with scepticism. Why did an ecommerce company think it could create smart home technology?
It didn’t help that the first Amazon Echo device, shaped like a can of Pringle snacks, followed the ill-fated Fire Phone: Amazon’s pitiful attempt at competing with Apple’s iPhone. That was a project that even Amazon’s biggest fans admit was a misjudgement by its founder, Jeff Bezos.
Eight years on, however, the company has sold hundreds of millions of Echo devices, making it the market leader in smart home assistants, ahead of such formidable rivals as Google and Apple.
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