Amazon

Beginning today, customers can implement instances of Windows Server 2003 (licensed to and purchased by them) in Amazon's cloud, enabling businesses to deploy sophisticated Internet applications without their own servers.

After a two-year beta cycle, Amazon's Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) service this morning entered general availability. Now, for what's essentially a service, what does this mean besides removing the warning that some parts are still under construction? Today, Amazon implemented a service-level agreement for EC2 customers guaranteeing 99.95% availability during what it describes as a "service year."

2:56 pm PDT October 22, 2008 - Amazon's third-quarter earnings call had plenty of positive things to say about their success with the Kindle e-book reader. Good thing the company's happy with it, because it'll be the one and only Kindle for the remainder of the year.

CFO Tom Szkutak confirmed during this afternoon's call that there will be no newer model of the Kindle reader until 2009.

After tests are completed sometime this fall, the cloud provider announced this morning, customers will be able to deploy complete Windows Server-based machine images to Amazon's high-capacity computing cloud, eliminating hardware costs.

In what could be a waterspout moment, if you will, for cloud computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS) developer Jeff Barr announced this morning that his operation is currently hosting a private beta of hosted Microsoft Windows Server instances. Within the next three months, AWS customers will be able to deploy machine images with 32- or 64-bit versions of Windows Server -- including high-performance packages -- to Amazon's cloud, to be hosted remotely.

Today, Amazon announced its indie publishing service CreativeSpace is now tied with its MP3 shop, allowing independent artists and labels to release DRM-free materials in Amazon's MP3 store.

Artists can set up an account on CreateSpace and sell their materials with no upfront charges; however, accounts are arranged in such a way that money is not directly distributed to artists. Instead, royalty checks are given out with expenses subtracted.

Amazon's Video On Demand, which began beta testing in July, was officially released in its working form yesterday.

Movie, TV, and Web-exclusive content can now be streamed or downloaded using Amazon Video On Demand. While downloading still requires the Amazon Unbox Video Player, it does make purchased content available for later viewing on PCs, portable devices, as well as media center-connected Xbox 360s. Sony Bravia Internet Video Link and certain TiVo boxes will also enable customers to peruse and purchase Amazon Videos On Demand directly on their TVs.

Amid charges from LibraryThing of planting blog comments, social networking site Shelfari now belongs 100 percent to Amazon.com. Yet so, too, does AbeBooks, a partial owner of LibraryThing.

Amazon.com today acquired Shelfari, a social networking site for book lovers, less than a month after buying AbeBooks, an online retailer of used and rare books. AbeBooks holds an equity stake in LibraryThing, Shelfari's chief rival.

Fresh analysis indicates that Amazon's popular Kindle device may eventually serve a second purpose: as a provider of college texts and other materials for students. For that reason, Amazon may be marketing the device towards students.

For many college students, a walk between classes is the equivalent of ROTC basic training. The reason, of course, is textbooks. They're too numerous, they're too heavy, and they're too expensive.

The Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon's block-level persistent storage service for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) has come out of beta, offering more security for databases in the event of instance failures.

For companies relying on cloud-based services, the threat of outages looms large. In July, when Amazon's Simple Storage Service went down for eight hours, dozens of popular sites such as Twitter and SmugMug were disrupted.

Amazon has rolled out its equivalent of PayPal and Google Checkout in two flavors: Checkout by Amazon and Amazon Simple Pay. Both services fall under the Amazon Payments banner and allow third party retailers to access Amazon user accounts for payment.

The service integrates with Amazon Marketplace as well as third party sites. A "Checkout with Amazon" button takes the user to the Amazon Payments site where they sign into their account and pay for shipping.

In an attempt to further monetize its DVR offering, TiVo has partnered with online retailer Amazon to allow advertisers to sell products to TiVo users directly through their TV.

The new service is most easily described with this example: an author appears on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote his or her new book. At the end of the show, TiVo pops up a window with an option to purchase the book. TiVo currently embeds advertisements at the bottom of certain windows, which is likely where this offer would appear.

Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) was down for more than eight hours over the weekend, affecting many prominent sites, and the company is still investigating the cause of the problem.

Cloud-based services such as those offered by Amazon provide cost effective solutions in computing and storage. However, the oft-cited drawback of relying on such offerings is that customers are left with little or no control if something goes wrong. The only option is to wait -- and in cases like this, wait nearly half a day.

The latest project from the leading online retailer allows movies to be streamed directly to PCs. Built upon Amazon's library of Unbox titles, beta testers get a $5 rental credit to check out the streams.

In May, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos mentioned that an a la carte, pay-per-view streaming video service would be coming to the Site, but did not mention if it would be entirely new, or simply a feature upgrade to Unbox.

Amazon.com has rolled out deferred billing as an option to customers, realizing an agreement made with Bill Me Later in the beginning of 2008.

As the largest online retailer, Amazon's stock is not limited to items that are normally purchased in one lump sum. From a 6.21 carat diamond for $384,000 to full playground apparatus for $35,000, there is demand for financing on Amazon, and an affiliated partnership currently expedites the process.

Celebrating the release of British alt-pop group Coldplay's new album "Viva la Vida: or Death and All his Friends," Amazon has taken the opportunity to offer customers the band's entire back catalog for $1.99 per album.

Even though Apple's iTunes has been running "exclusively on iTunes" commercials for Coldplay's newest album since May, "Viva.." is Amazon's top-selling album today. The retailer is now offering the album DRM-free for one dollar cheaper than iTunes.

Linux software player Red Hat this week entered public beta with a hosted edition of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, its second product to take advantage of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Web-based infrastructure.

A hosted version of Red Hat's enterprise software which includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was made available last November through Amazon's cloud, and is also still in public beta.