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Amazon.com, through massive investments in technology and knowledge, has acquired not only 35 million active customers worldwide, but also a vast customer database, allowing it to create what amounts to ''individual stores'' for each individual customer. This strategic competence - its ''crown jewels'', as founder Bezos himself put it - has till now set it far ahead of both on-line and off-line competitors. And it is this know-how - the ability to use technology to better know customers, and continuously grow that knowledge base and in the process customer spend - that it has been selling to other retail merchants and now decided, at the end of 2003, to sell via a new venture: Amazon Services, Inc. This case poses some of the strategic and operational challenges and makes for interesting debate on the decision to sell out the know-how fundamental to business success: was it a vital way to grow the business and customer base, amortising its investment and reusing its knowledge for continued gain? Or would it be selling - ostensibly even to competitors - what amounted to its crown jewels? And would Amazon be able to successfully structure, man, and manage this very different kind of enterprise, requiring a completely different set of skills as well as culture?