Tech giant Amazon could be sitting on quite the valuable asset in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud business. At least that is the assessment of former long-time Apple CEO John Sculley. ‘If you were to break AWS out as an independant company now, they would be the largest cloud company and be worth a $100 billion,’ said Sculley in an interview with TheStreet. Sculley, who is an investor in several startup cloud companies such as pharmacy benefit manager RxAdvance Corp., added, ‘You have to have incredible respect for what Jeff Bezos has done with Amazon Web Services, that business didn’t exist six and a half years ago — you see everyone racing to catch up with Amazon, whether it’s Microsoft , Google or IBM — so huge success story for Amazon here.’ Given Amazon’s start to the year at AWS, Sculley’s valuation math doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Amazon’s cloud business raked in $2.6 billion in revenue during the first- quarter, representing 64% growth from the prior year. The segment’s operating income, excluding stock-based compensation, tallied $716 million in the first-quarter, up significantly from $265 million during the year-ago quarter. Over the past four quarters, AWS has generated $8.9 billion in revenue for Amazon — on a call with analysts Apr. 28, Amazon execs said the business is on track to pull in $10 billion in sales this year. In large part, the growth of AWS is being spurred by Amazon’s aggressive investment in expanding cloud-based services for small and large-sized businesses.
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