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Amazon.com, Inc.

5/25/2013, 4:25 PM ET

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Saturday, May 25, 4:15 PM Apple's (AAPL) effective tax rate of 14% is just a smidgin lower than IBM at 15% and Google (GOOG) at 17%. And Apple's hardly on the lowest rung: Amazon's (AMZN) rate is just 6%, Ford's (F) 3%, and Carnival's (CCL) just 1%. In trying to untangle what S&P 500 companies pay in taxes, David Leonhardt finds top executives are exceptionally shrewd at holding tax rates down. (infographic) Comment!
Wednesday, May 22, 9:22 AM Amazon (AMZN) introduces a new publishing platform that will let writers use characters from existing works of licensed fiction to publish new stories and make them available for purchase in the Kindle store. The author-AMZN split will be 35%-65% for works of 10K words or more. Comment! [Consumer]
Tuesday, May 21, 7:39 PM Amazon's (AMZN) ad ambitions pose a threat to Google (GOOG), thinks ReadWrite's Derek Brown. In addition to Amazon's vision/ambition, obsession with customer satisfaction, and willingness to forgo near-term profits, the e-commerce giant's mountains of consumer purchase data stand to give it an edge as it pushes ads on its sites, on Kindles, and through a targeted display ad network. Moreover, Amazon could provide customers/partners with "relevant online transaction activity that might follow [its ads], effectively offering a closed loop marketing environment unlike any other." Of course, Google isn't standing still either. Comment! [Tech, Consumer]
Tuesday, May 21, 7:07 PM VMware (VMW, EMC) officially launches its vCloud Hybrid Service, which allows clients to pair on-premise workloads with a VMware-run public cloud infrastructure. VMware claims the service supports more than 90 OS', has high-availability options, and allows public and on-premise workloads to be jointly managed. VMware also says it will offer SAP software, including Hana, "as a subscription service on premise and in the cloud." vCloud Hybrid competes with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure (perhaps the most direct rival), and Rackspace's OpenStack offerings. ITWorld calls it "ideal for a significant set of enterprise applications," but adds it's "no Amazon killer," given AWS' focus on low cost and ease-of-use. 3 Comments [Tech]
Tuesday, May 21, 10:27 AM Amazon Web Services (AMZN) obtains FedRAMP accreditation, a security certification that should make it easier for state, local, and federal agencies to migrate workloads onto the cloud infrastructure platform. The credential has been granted two months after a report claimed AWS has won a 10-year, $600M deal from the CIA to build a private cloud for it. Comment! [Tech, Consumer]
Friday, May 17, 2:38 PM Amazon (AMZN +1.5%) and eBay (EBAY +1.9%) are outperforming after mid-May U.S. consumer confidence numbers blow past expectations. Of course, it was European sales (I, II), rather than U.S. sales, that put investors in both companies on edge following their Q1 reports. 1 Comment [Tech, Consumer]
Friday, May 17, 5:44 AM The British parliament will call Amazon (AMZN) back to testify before the Public Affairs Committee to explain how it justifies paying just $9M in income tax on some $23B in sales to British customers over the past six years, Reuters said Friday, citing lawmakers. The company claims it should only pay tax in Luxembourg as it operates a single business in Europe from there, rather than multiple independent subsidiaries across the region. Reuters suggests this is a mischaracterization. 2 Comments [Tech]
Thursday, May 16, 2:32 PM Google's (GOOG -0.6%) I/O news deluge isn't over. 1) Google Search's Knowledge Graph feature is being updated to include more stats and anticipate/answer follow-up questions. Echoing Ray Kurzweil's remarks, Google also plans to use natural language analysis to make results more conversational. 2) The Compute Engine and App Engine cloud infrastructure/app development services (compete against AMZN) have received updates. Compute Engine is also now open to all developers. 3) YouTube's live streaming service is now available to any channel with 1K+ subs. 4) Facebook and Twitter Glass apps are about to launch. 5) Google has bought a quantum computer, and will use it in an artificial intelligence lab it's creating with NASA. (previous) Comment! [Tech]
Thursday, May 16, 9:57 AM Amazon (AMZN +0.4%) keeps adding to its portfolio of video content by signing a new deal with Comcast (CMCSA -0.4%) for shows from NBC and other NBCUniversal networks. As is standard, the shows will be available on Prime Instant Video several months after they originally air. 4 Comments [Consumer]
Wednesday, May 15, 1:51 PM Perhaps take it with a grain of salt, but a surprising 44% of consumers responding to a survey on the impact of an online sales tax say they will buy less items online if the legislation is passed into law. The number rises to 75% for the 18-year to 25-year old demographic (ZUMZ, ANF, URBN, ARO, BKE, VRA). Though seemingly a bad development for Amazon (AMZN -0.6%) and eBay (EBAY), many retail analysts thinks those shopping habits are pretty hard to break. 5 Comments [Consumer]
Wednesday, May 15, 6:52 AM Amazon (AMZN) now has more than 4K members in its partner network designed to help lure big businesses to use its cloud computing services, up from just over a thousand a year ago. The company thinks using a partner ecosystem of middlemen with developed solutions that function on AWS servers can help convince large corporations and government agencies to make the final leap to AWS. 5 Comments [Consumer, Tech]
Monday, May 13, 1:43 PM Amazon (AMZN) has bought Samsung's (SSNLF.PK) Liquavista e-reader display unit, The Digital Reader uncovers via Dutch regulatory filings; Amazon has subsequently confirmed the purchase. Past rumors indicated Samsung was trying to sell Liquavista, which was developing low-power color displays relying on a process called electrowetting, to Amazon for less than $100M. Look for Liquavista's tech to appear in future Kindle e-readers. 3 Comments [Tech, Consumer, M&A]
Monday, May 13, 9:44 AM Amazon (AMZN -0.4%) brings Amazon Coins to the Kindle Fire and says it will add $5 worth of free coins that can be spent on apps and games to the accounts of all Kindle Fire owners. The company appears to be pushing its virtual currency hard than ever, offering discounts to users who buy the e-coins in bulk. 2 Comments [Consumer]
Thursday, May 9, 5:57 PM Amazon's (AMZN) Quidsi unit is launching Familyhood Plus, a membership program that's almost a carbon copy of Amazon Prime (free 2-day shipping for orders, regardless of size), but which applies to Quidsi's 10 consumer goods sites rather than Amazon.com. No pricing details have been disclosed. Quidsi, still independently run, has been rapidly expanding its reach since Amazon bought it for $545M in 2010. Comment! [Tech, Consumer]
Thursday, May 9, 1:52 PM Amazon (AMZN +1.8%) is working on two smartphones - one of which has a 3D screen - and a music-streaming device, the WSJ reports. The 3D phone is said to feature eye-tracking tech that makes images "seem to float above the screen like a hologram," and might also allow users to "navigate through content using just their eyes." Sources cautioned there's no guarantee the devices, as well as an Amazon set-top (previous), will ever be sold. LG and others have experimented with 3D phones, but the devices failed to catch on. The Smart Scroll and Smart Pause features in Samsung's Galaxy S4 enable navigation via face movements. 2 Comments [Tech, Consumer, Breaking News]
Tuesday, May 7, 9:19 PM Marissa Mayer (YHOO) held a preliminary talk with Hulu (DIS, CMCSA, NWS) execs about a bid for the video site, "numerous sources" tell Kara Swisher. Amazon (AMZN), Guggenheim Partners, and ex-News Corp. COO Peter Chermin (previous) are also said to be weighing bids. Yahoo was one of the companies offering to buy Hulu back in 2011, and with the French government having thwarted its Dailymotion bid, Hulu and its 4M+ premium subs might not be a bad backup plan. But much likely depends on the content rights Hulu's risk-averse old media owners are willing to give. 1 Comment [Tech, M&A, Consumer]

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