AWS helped introduce the ethereal concept known as the cloud, and it is viewed as so vital to the future fortunes of technology startups that venture capitalists often give gift certificates for it to their new entrepreneurs. Various divisions of the U.S. government, such as NASA and the Central Intelligence Agency, are high-profile AWS customers as well. Though Amazon keeps AWS’s financial performance and profitability a secret, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate that in 2012, it brought in $2.2 billion in revenue.
