Amazon Q1 Revs Beat; But EPS Light; Shares Slip After Hours Looking at Earnings Thinking About Fed Analyst Blog Ahead of Wall Street Traders Grow Grim Toward Amazon.com As Approach Source Apple to launch ‘Kindle Library Lending’ feature To Let Over 11 000 Libraries Lend Kindle Books Best Buy's Altered Game Plan Reuters Labels Meet Discuss Cloud Music Service Wondering How Amazon's Meeting With the Will Go Today... IBM Inks Tech Deal with Hartford Retail Sales Up Danone Chooses IBM's Network intros adsubsidized Special Offers’ for $114 Drive Boosting Sales; No Licenses Needed Offer Lower Price Offers Streaming A Skirmish in Battle Dominate CloudBased Computing Smart Boost And a Sunny Forecast What Google Need Beat

Amazon.com (AMZN) this afternoon reported mixed results for the first quarter. The online retail gia Earnings reports will be in focus today as we wait for the Fed Chief's history-making news conference on Wednesday following the FOMC meeting that gets underway today. With Fed and other issues on its mind, the market may not fully appreciate the day's solid earnings reports. Pessimism is on the rise toward Amazon.com (AMZN) as the company prepares to report is quarterly ear Late last month, Amazon ( AMZN ) beat rivals Google ( GOOG ) and Apple ( AAPL ) to unveil its music streaming store, Cloud Player. Now, rumors are starting to swirl that Apple will be the next of the companies to launch its own cloud- based music storage service. ... On Wednesday, Amazon announced that its Kindle customers will soon be able to borrow eBooks from more than 11,000 U.S. libraries. Amazon's Kindle Library Lending project will allow users to check out eBooks from local libraries and then read them on the Kindle or any device that has Amazon's free eReader software installed. Unlike traditional libraries, which don't allow borrowers to write in books, they can take notes and highlight as much as they like. "We're doing a little something extra here," said Jay Marine, director of Amazon Kindle. "Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we're extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check Amazon (AMZN) this morning announced a program that will allow Kindle customers to borrow e-books from over 11,000 libraries in the U.S. The company said the Kindle Library Lending service will offered for all generations of Kindle devices and reading apps. Customers will be able to check out Kindle books from local libraries and read them on any Kindle - or on Kindle apps on Android phones, iPads, iPhones, PCs, Macs, BlackBerries or Windows Phones. The company noted that customers who check out a book and then buy it from Amazon - or check it out more than once - will maintains their annotations and bookmarks. Best Buy Co. Inc. intends to employ a strategy of concentrating more on its smaller mobile stores, online sales and expansion in China. _New York _- Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) is meeting with the major record labels this week to discuss a potential deal for its newly-launched Cloud Drive digital music online locker service, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. Earlier this week, Amazon sent a letter to record labels indicating it did not believe it needed any additional licenses to operate its locker service. read more Reuters (via Business Insider): > Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is due to meet with music label executives on Thursday to hash out deals over the online retailer's controversial cloud- based media locker service that has sparked a music business uproar. > > Amazon launched the free digital locker Cloud Drive in March as a way for its customers to store songs and play them on mobile phones and other devices. They can also store photos and documents. > > Music labels are furious that Amazon has not paid for licensing rights to stream music to consumers. They argue that Amazon only has licensing rights to sell digital downloads… Read and comment. From businessinsider.com. International Business Machines Corp. recently inked a new five-year technology services deal with insurance and wealth management company, Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. Total retail sales rose 0.4%, and are up 7.1% from a year ago. International Business Machines Corp. was selected by a leading global dairy producer Danone, to build its secure trading network. Amazon has announced that its customers can now purchase an ad-subsidized version of its Kindle. The "Kindle with Special Offers" eReader will retail for $114 and comes with sponsored screen savers and advertisements on the bottom of the screen. Buick, Procter & Gamble, Visa, and Amazon.com Reward Visa Card (Chase) will be the first companies to offer sponsored screen savers, and Kindle users can use a free "AdMash" Kindle application to choose what ads are displayed. Initial deals include: $10 for $20 Amazon.com Gift Card $6 for 6 Audible Books (normally $68) $1 for an album in the Amazon MP3 Store (choose from over 1 million albums) $10 for $30 of products in the Amazon Denim Shop or Amazon Swim _Seattle_ - Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) has stated in an email to record labels that its new Cloud Drive locker service has increased sales at its Amazon MP3 store, while restating its stance that it does not need additional licenses to operate the service, Billboard reports. "There has also been speculation that we are looking for licenses for Cloud Drive and Cloud Player," the e-mail states. "We are not looking for licenses for Cloud Drive or Cloud Player as they exist today -- as no licensees are required." read more Amazon. com (AMZN) said late yesterday it will now offer a new version of the Kindle e-reader - [...] **Money Morning submits: ** _By David Zeiler_ Cloud-based computing is shaping up to be a major battleground in the U.S. high-tech sector for the rest of this year, as companies compete to deliver such services as music streaming to consumer-based mobile devices. And it figures to be a true clash of titans, with such high-tech heavyweights as Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) serving among the major combatants. And music is just the beginning. Video streaming will follow quickly, joining such already-common "cloud" applications as file storage and sharing and online photo albums. For instance, Amazon made an aggressive move right near the end of the first quarter, when it launched its Cloud Drive service. Users can store 5 gigabytes of music and files for free, with additional storage available for a fee - $20 a year Complete Story » International Business Machines Corp. is set to boost its cloud computing ambitions with the launch of its new computing service "Smart Cloud". **TechCrunch submits: ** _By David Porter_ Last week, Amazon (AMZN) launched its Cloud Drive, with an emphasis on music storage. While there have been a number of "jukebox" services these last 10 years (Napster 2.0, MusicNow, Virgin Digital, Yahoo Music Unlimited, MTV Urge, MOG, Spotify, Thumbplay, Rdio), relatively few "locker" offerings have emerged—although rumors of new locker services from Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) sound promising. Last week, Amazon leapt ahead of both rivals in launching Cloud Drive, a service that allows you to stream, for free, any songs purchased from Amazon. It also allows you to upload up to 5GB from your existing music collection for free storage and streaming; if you pay an additional $1 (or more) per year, you get an incremental 1GB (or more) of storage. Amazon has not (yet, at least) negotiated direct licenses with content owners for Cloud Drive. While it is creating quite a stir, remember Complete Story » If everything goes as planned, the Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Cloud Drive could be a Dropbox-killer. This
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