Amazon

Amazon disclosed Thursday that it has begun testing an online grocery service to residents of a Seattle suburb. The effort mirrors similar but unsuccessful startups that appeared during the dot-com boom.

Those names -- WebVan and HomeGrocer.com -- read like a who's who of the dot com bust. Sales never managed to match the huge amount of capital investment the companies had to make in order to launch the services.

Online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it plans to open a music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Unlike competitors, however, Amazon will only sell songs in the unprotected MP3 format.

Amazon says it will offer millions of songs on the as-yet unnamed service, which come from 12,000 record labels. Most of these will be smaller, independent labels, as EMI is the only major to have agreed to license its tracks without digital rights management.

Without disclosing how much money changed hands, Amazon has settled a patent lawsuit brought against it by IBM in October of last year, by apparently purchasing a license for doing what many online retailers may have thought didn't require a one: providing an interactive program online featuring a catalog, including ads, from which users can purchase goods.

These principal business methods were patented by IBM as far back as 1988. After Amazon.com devised an online business model for worldwide warehousing without thinking to check first whether IBM or another computer manufacturer had patented the idea first, IBM evidently sought to sell Amazon a license. When it declined negotiation, based on IBM's description, it declared that "IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," and filed suit against Amazon for IP infringement.

Exactly one month after announcing a partnership to deliver Amazon's Unbox movie download service to TiVo users, the two companies have put the service live for TiVo customers with a broadband connection.

Amazon and TiVo are billing the service as the first to offer both recorded television content and broadband content in a single interface. Service activation is done through Amazon.com, where the subscriber must enter information about their TiVo Series2 or Series3 set-top boxes.

TiVo and Amazon have entered into an agreement that would bring the online retailer's "Unbox" movie download service to the set-top boxes of TiVo customers in the near future.

Both the rental and purchase functions will be available to broadband-enabled TiVo boxes. Amazon is no doubt banking on Unbox on TiVo as a way to jumpstart its download business, which has seen a rocky start.

A little less than two months after IBM sued Amazon over patent infringement, the web retailer has turned around and countersued Big Blue. Amazon says IBM misappropriated technology in order to enhance its own offerings.

The move could be seen as a defensive action in an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations between the two companies. According to IBM, the two sides have tried to work out an agreement since 2002, but have been unsuccessful thus far.

Comcast said Monday that it would offer its high-speed Internet service through Amazon, and provide a $100 gift certificate for the retailer to those who sign up through the partnership. Comcast joins broadband provider Vonage, which joined Amazon's recently introduced "broadband services" category. A promotional rate of $19.99 USD per month for six months would apply to all new activations.

"Comcast and Amazon share a commitment for offering customers the best products and services and a focus on customer satisfaction," Comcast retail sales senior vice president Bob Faught said. "By creating an online store on Amazon, we can now be even more accessible to the site's huge customer base of more than 61 million active customer accounts."

Amazon will not hand over information on how it searches and indexes the text of books, filing an objection in U.S. District Court in Seattle. Google had subpoenaed the online retailer in its fight against the Authors Guild, which sued the search engine in September of last year.

The information that Google requested was "highly confidential," Amazon said, and would require the divulging of trade secrets. Instead, the company directed Google to publicly available information on the Web about its book search methods.

Claiming it had come to an impasse in negotiations with the Web retailer, IBM said Monday it had filed two patent infringement suits against Amazon.com for unspecified damages. The company said it had attempted to reach a settlement with Amazon for the past four years.

"We filed this case for a very simple reason. IBM's property is being knowingly and unfairly exploited," IBM intellectual property chief Dr. John Kelly said. The suits were filed in two Texas district courts.

After failing to generate much interest in its A9.com search engine, Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it was removing search history and mapping features that differentiated it from competitors. In its place, a simplified front page that links to other search engines has appeared.

A9 now makes heavy use of Windows Live Search and Alexa, as well as links to some 400 other sources.

After months of rumors and speculation, Amazon on Thursday officially took the wraps off its video download store, dubbed Unbox. The service offers movies, television shows and other videos, which play in Amazon's own software player as well as on portable devices.

Like on Apple's iTunes, TV shows on Unbox cost $1.99 USD. Movies will range in price from $7.99 to $14.99 USD, with some films available to rent for $3.99 USD. Amazon is using Microsoft's Windows Media digital rights management technology for the new service.

19-year Microsoft veteran Brian Valentine, who has led Windows development since 1998, is leaving the Redmond company to join Amazon.com. The news comes just one month after Microsoft said Valentine would transition to a new, unspecified role.

Valentine began working at Microsoft in 1987 as an Engineering Manager in the LAN Manager Group. He was largely responsible for cleaning up the Windows 2000 development mess and getting the operating system out the door.

Online retailer Amazon.com has begun to accept pre-orders for Windows Vista, which it says "will be released on January 30, 2007." The company is charging $399 USD for the Ultimate Edition of Vista, $239 USD for Home Premium and $199 USD for Home Basic. Vista Business is priced at $299 USD.

While Amazon frequently lists products before they become available and shipping dates are often an estimate, the pricing usually does not change. Microsoft also appears to be planning a new "Additional License" pack to go along with Vista, which includes just a Product Key and enables customers to use Vista on a second computer. On Amazon, however, pricing for the license pack is only $10 to $20 less than the full retail Vista packages.

Although it has refused to confirm, Amazon has been rumored to be readying its video download service for launch in mid-August. First reported by trade magazine Advertising Age on Sunday, the service is said to offer both movies and episodes of television shows.

Originally, the service was intended to be a music service, however Amazon executives changed their plans due to the dominance of Apple in the market. The company felt it would be too difficult to break into the market, thus they turned to video, a segment that still has no clear leader.

Amazon took baby steps into the realm of online groceries, offering only non-perishable goods and free shipping to anywhere in the United States. The company offers a total of about 10,000 items, and features such as a shopping list, product recommendations and savings opportunities for bulk buys.

Perishable goods are not offered through the service, as Amazon said it would not be able to ship those items for free. The company gave no possible time frame as to when -- and if -- it would offer those products.