OpenSolaris -- Sun's open source version of the Solaris kernel first announced in 2005 -- has been made available on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) distributed computing service.

Today at the CommunityOne Developer Conference in San Francisco, California, Sun Microsystems debuted its new OpenSolaris distribution which includes a small core operating system, a network package repository, application packages, and the Sun-developed Image Packaging System (IPS). The root file system of OpenSolaris is ZFS, which promises continual checksum capability and instant rollbacks to chosen states.

Continue reading →

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer sued the state of New York, claiming its new law requiring out of state retailers to collect New York sales tax was unconstitutional.

Amazon filed the complaint with the New York state Supreme Court on April 25, claiming the law was vague and overly broad. It also told the court that it believes the law unfairly singles the company out.

Continue reading →

In an open letter to customers today, Amazon's Jeff Bezos reported the availability of fresh shipments of its popular Kindle e-book reader, after having been in short supply since its November debut.

The Kindle device was officially launched in November 2007, but sold out in less than six hours due to a combination of high demand and major supply issues.

Continue reading →

A developer has found a way to host Google Apps on Amazon's Web services platform, and is open sourcing his solution.

When Google released App Engine, some saw it as a way to lock in applications created within Google Apps from being transferred to to any other Web services provider. This would essentially diminish the attractiveness of start-ups from an acquisition perspective, analysts said, for anyone other than Google, or those who may not mind allowing Google to continue hosting its data.

Continue reading →

Those who purchased an HD DVD set-top player through Amazon will be eligible for a $50 credit towards a future purchase..

Customers can choose to spend the money in any way they see fit, including putting it toward Blu-ray player. It is not the first time a retailer has attempted to appease those who may have bought into HD DVD: Best Buy and Wal-Mart have done the same.

Continue reading →

Mobile text messaging as a form of order placement has seen early adoption in the fast food industry, and now it comes to the Internet's largest retailer.

Late yesterday, Amazon launched TextBuyIt, a system that enables shoppers to text Amazon a keyword or a product's UPC/ISBN to compare prices and buy items.

Continue reading →

A personal letter from Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos graced the front page of the online retailer Thursday, apologizing for the lack of Kindle electronic book readers and promising that production is being sped up.

Since the Kindle made its debut last November, the device has been in very short supply. Many buyers are waiting upwards of six weeks for their Kindle to arrive, and the situation hasn't improved much even after the holidays.

Continue reading →

In a move that's about as surprising as the sun rising each day, Universal Studios said it would start to release titles on Blu-ray. Meanwhile, Amazon said it will give preferred placement to Blu-ray over HD DVD.

With Toshiba halting production of HD DVD players, the format is all but finished moving forward. Universal president Craig Kornblau said it's now clear what direction the industry must head to push adoption of next-generation optical discs.

Continue reading →

Believe it or not, Microsoft isn't really serious in its bid to buy Yahoo, according to one financial analyst. Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research has reached the unusual conclusion that Microsoft's $44.6 billion merger proposal is really just a ploy to fend off a potential deal between Yahoo and Amazon.com. Could he possibly be right? Probably not.

Chowdhry's Amazon.com theory is getting a lot of play on the Web right now, largely because the well respected analyst has been covering Yahoo closely for at least the last ten years.

Continue reading →

Amazon this week began offering Microsoft's HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 for only $79.99, but those wanting to take advantage of the deal may be too late, as the online retailer is currently sold out.

The $80 price tag follows a price cut in early December that made the drive available for just $129. It's not clear if the deal was a one-time offering from Amazon, or whether other retailers will follow suit. Making it all the more enticing, Amazon's 6 free HD DVD deal is also applicable to the Xbox 360 add-on.

Continue reading →

The deal is likely to mean that audiobooks will become the latest addition to its fast-growing music download store.

It's not clear what will happen to Audible's deal with iTunes, if anything -- the company is the chief supplier of audio books to Apple's music service. However, Audible seems a good fit for Amazon considering the retailers core business is book sales.

Continue reading →

The online retailer said over the weekend that it would begin to roll out its music store worldwide during this year in an effort to more broadly compete with market-leader iTunes.

Amazon launched its MP3 store in September of last year, and has since expanded to include music from all four major labels as well as 33,000 independent labels. The company says that it has the broadest DRM-free offering of any service.

Continue reading →

Amazon.com said on Monday that it would rather pay €1000 a day in fines than abolish its free shipping on books in France.

Free shipping from Amazon.fr is apparently a violation of a 1981 law that was passed to ensure the French public receives equal access to all forms of literature.

Continue reading →

The developers of a Web services application environment that leverages the leased computing services of Amazon have reworked their Web functionality to incorporate Adobe's Web language for Flash applications.

In another challenge to the conventional application services model, a nearly five-year-old startup called Coghead, led by former Red Hat executive Paul McNamara, has updated its unique Web application development suite to incorporate Adobe's Flex Web development language.

Continue reading →

With the last remaining label of the big four to join the online retailer's new music store, it could be argued that DRM is essentially dead.

Last week, Sony announced its plans to go DRM-free. It did not name any distribution points at the time, although analysts speculated that Amazon would eventually carry Sony's content.

Continue reading →