Amazon has a $50 tablet in the works

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is about to release a tablet with $50 price tag in time for the holiday shopping season. Currently, the retail giant’s most affordable slate, Amazon Fire HD 6, costs $99.

Like the Fire HD 6, the upcoming ultra-affordable tablet is also going to pack a 6” display. Amazon is also tipped to launch new slates with 8” and 10” screens.

In order to reach the low price point, Amazon has reportedly outsourced some of the tablet’s development work to companies in China and Taiwan. Unsurprisingly, the device will feature decidedly low end hardware, including a mono speaker.

Amazon’s push further into the market for budget devices is a logical step for the company, as it struggled to establish itself as a premier manufacturer of high-end hardware. Roughly a year ago, the company took a massive write-down due to the market failure of its Fire Phone.

Source | Via

Amazon Expands Business-Sales Marketplace After Three Years

Zuma Press

After three years of testing, Amazon.com is hoping to widen the reach of its business customer marketplace site with a rebranding and expanded product selection.

Amazon Business, as the site will be known, will offer some merchandise exclusively to business customers, as well as better prices for some goods, said Prentis Wilson, a company vice president. Amazon is phasing out Amazon Supply in mid-May in favor of the new site, which will require a business license to access.

The new marketplace, which will continue to sell things like beakers, wrenches, and wood sanders, potentially gives Amazon a leg up in a capturing sales that otherwise rely heavily on catalogues and specialty sites like industrial supplier Grainger.

Among the goods offered at special prices on Amazon Business are a Belkin iPad air case for $23.81, compared with $29.81 on Amazon.com and a Fellowes adjustable keyboard tray at $191.43 versus $209.82, according to a spokeswoman.

Wilson declined to say if the distinct pricing on Amazon Business was the result of the Seattle company’s contract with suppliers or whether Amazon is altering the prices itself after paying wholesale.

He said the site will also have business-specific advertising and products not offered elsewhere. Those include scientific goods like antibodies and protein screening kits, among “hundreds of millions” of other items.

In other ways, the site will operate like Amazon.com. Members of Amazon’s $99 Prime program will get unlimited two-day shipping and many of the goods will be stored in Amazon warehouses, said Wilson.

For now Amazon Business will be only for U.S. customers, but Wilson suggested it could expand internationally over time.

Amazon Expands Its Travel Footprint With New “Local Getaways” Site, Amazon Destinations

Amazon last night rolled out a new travel site it’s calling Amazon Destinations, which focuses on helping customers find “getaway destinations” within driving distance of their homes. Currently, Amazon Destinations features hotel selections in three U.S. metro areas: L.A., New York and Seattle, the company says.

This is not the first time that Amazon has dabbled in the travel arena, however – previously, Amazon Local offered customers flash deals and other deep discounts on hotel stays in the range of 40%-60% off. But with Amazon Destinations, Amazon has increased the selection of its hotels, which are handpicked by the company for inclusion on the site. It has done this by moving away from the earlier discount model, and is now posting hotels’ published rates instead. This gives Amazon the opportunity to work with more hotels on an ongoing basis, explains Skift, which was first to note the new site’s launch.

The hotels listed today on Amazon Destinations include those found in popular travel and tourist spots, like the Adirondacks, Catskills, Hamptons, or Jersey Shore in the NYC metro area, for example; or the Cascades, Portland, Puget Sound, Washington Coast and more in the Pacific Northwest; as well as other Southern California hotspots like Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, Central Coast and the Southern California mountains, among others.

Amazon explains that the goal of the new site is to help travelers easily plan and book local trips. “More than 40% of all U.S. domestic leisure trips are short-term getaways of 1-3 nights, and many of these trips are to nearby, drivable destinations,” spokesperson Tom Cook says. “However, travelers often have a hard time planning local getaways. It’s difficult to know where to go, the process is labor-intensive, and people often miss out on finding great places to stay.”

Amazon declined to say if or when it was expanding Amazon Destinations to reach other U.S. metro areas, but it would make sense for the company to do so in the future, assuming it finds traction with Amazon’s user base. In addition, the site is already set up to collect user reviews about the hotels it features, which potentially could make the service a competitor to other travel sites or local review sites, like TripAdvisor, Expedia or Yelp.

The move comes at a time when Amazon has been expanding its offerings to consumers to stretch further into their daily lives – going beyond the physical goods they have shipped to their door, or the digital items they access online or download. Most recently, the company branched out into local services with the launch of Amazon Home Services, a marketplace which connects customers with various local professionals.

For now, Amazon Destinations is housed under the larger Amazon Local brand, which still today functions as Amazon’s Groupon competitor, offering a wide range of deals from various shops, restaurants, bars, clubs, and other online and offline properties. The new service is available both online and in the Amazon Local mobile app.

Amazon’s AWS Quietly Acquired NoSQL Database Migration Startup Amiato

Amazon Web Services, the enterprise division of the e-commerce and cloud services giant, has been growing its reach in data warehousing and big data analytics by way of Redshift, a hosted product that it launched in 2012 and is now AWS’s fastest growing product “ever”, according to CTO Werner Vogels. Along with input from AWS’s own in-house engineering teams, it turns out that at least some of the product’s development came by way of an acquisition.

In May of last year, Amazon quietly acquired Amiato, a startup that built a platform to extract unstructured data from NoSQL databases and migrate it to Redshift, creating structure so that it could be analysed with Amiato’s technology or other business intelligence tools.

A possible acquisition was first reported earlier this month by Bloomberg. While we’ve been waiting for both Amazon and Amiato’s former CEO and co-founder Mehul Shah, along with several other people we have contacted to come back to us with a direct confirmation, we’ve found the evidence to prove it.

One of Amiato’s investors, Signatures Capital, also lists Amiato as a successful exit. “Acquired by Amazon May 2014,” it notes.

And several (but not all) of Amiato’s former employees now list themselves as working at Amazon or AWS (here, here, here, here and here).

Amiato’s Twitter account, meanwhile, has not been updated since 2013, although there is no indication on the site that it the service is no longer operating.

Amiato — which was incubated under another name, Nou Data, at Y Combinator in 2012 — had raised $2 million, with other investors including Bobby Yazdani, Data Collective, Andreessen Horowitz and Ignition Partners.

However, as one observer seems to describe it, the company hit a hitch before it launched: it was essentially developing the same product as Amazon Redshift’s data warehousing service, just before Redshift launched. When Amiato did eventually come out of stealth in March 2013, it pitched itself as a big data A/B testing platform for semi-structured data.

Since then, it appears to have evolved further. As it notes on its own homepage, “Amiato’s Schema-lift™ technology extracts all the data from your NoSQL data stores, automatically transforms it, and loads it continuously into Redshift, Amazon’s petabyte-scale database. You can then immediately write SQL, connect Tableau or Excel, or use BI discovery tools like Looker.”

Given that there are a number of former Amiato employees and founders now working at Amazon, it seems like the move was made both as a technology and talent acquisition.

As interest has continued to grow around how businesses can make the best use of the huge troves of data that they are harnessing in their businesses, Amazon has put a lot of effort into making sure that it is at the center of that trend, and Redshift is part of that strategy.

Earlier this month, during the AWS Summit, Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels noted that “One of the services that’s been on fire is Redshift,” he said. “It’s the fastest-growing service in AWS, ever.” He pointed out that the rapid scaling between nodes “really hit something that enterprise and business need at this moment.”

We’ll update the post as we learn more.

Amazon Shuts Down TestDrive, The Appstore Feature That Let You Try Apps Before Downloading

Amazon is shutting down TestDrive, one of the differentiating features of the Amazon Appstore which allowed consumers to test out new applications ahead of purchase. The feature was introduced back in March 2011 alongside the launch of the Appstore itself, where it then utilized a browser-based emulated instance of Android running in the cloud. This let consumers control an application and experience it like they would on their Android device. The feature later arrived on Android phones, too.

Amazon says that the decision to close the service was based on “a significant decline” in usage, and cited the popularity of “free to play” business models as a factor.

Many of the apps that offered TestDrive were mobile games, as those are generally the kinds of apps that consumers wanted to check out ahead of making a purchase. But game publishers these days tend to generate revenue through sales of virtual goods and other in-app purchases – not by offering their app as a paid download. That means that consumers who wanted to experience a game could simply download it for free on their mobile device and play it. There was no need, really, to test it out first using another means.

To date, 16,000 apps took advantage of the service, which never expanded outside the U.S., Amazon’s website notes. That cited figure indicates there was little developer interest in using TestDrive in recent years – it’s the same number that was mentioned as the number of available TestDrive apps back in 2012. 

Because the feature wasn’t universally adopted by developers, consumers would often find that the apps they’d like to “test drive” weren’t supported. Other times, consumers weren’t even aware that such an option existed.

The feature was actually decommissioned on April 15th, at which point the apps that offered TestDrive would no longer have the option available. They’ll still be available and promoted in the Appstore, says Amazon. The TestDrive category will also be removed from the Appstore client application, and Amazon will no longer be enabling the option for new app submissions.

TestDrive was an interesting and innovative feature for its time – and it helped Amazon’s new Appstore stand out from competitors like Google Play and iTunes.

But these days, the top app stores offer a variety of ways to experience and discover new apps, including the ability to watch videos alongside viewing app screenshots, for example. And even in the case of paid downloads, app publishers regularly run promotions to temporarily make their apps free, in order to attract new users. Amazon, too, runs similar promotions on behalf of app publishers. In fact, it’s doing so now – a sale launched this week is offering 26 applications, which would usually cost around $105.00, for free.

Plus, as TechCrunch recently discovered, Amazon is rolling out new ways to try apps which are just as innovative as TestDrive ever was – including Amazon “Unlocked,” a sort of Amazon Prime for apps that will give away paid apps for free as part of an upcoming service.

Amazon Hints at Smart Home Future Through Echo Device

Amazon’s Echo virtual assistant

 

Amazon.com

Amazon.com AMZN -0.43%’s Echo voice-activated device is starting to take shape.

The company is adding new capabilities to its Wi-Fi-connected speaker and virtual assistant, such as the ability to remotely operate lights and appliances. With just voice commands, for example, someone in bed could turn a television on and turn off the lights. Amazon informed Echo owners about the new services in an email Wednesday.

The $200 Echo is always on, like other Web-enabled devices, so that it can listen for its “wake word” (either Alexa or Amazon). It can scour the Web to answer questions, play music stored on remote servers and queue up customer orders through voice prompts.

The full potential for Amazon’s device, though, is elusive, and it faces stiff competition from competing services like Apple Siri, Google Now and Microsoft Cortana. Still, a fully connected home has long been a coveted prize for tech firms. The so-called Internet of Things is powering a growing number of devices and services, including Google’s Nest line of smoke detectors and thermostats and Apple’s HomeKit software.

But the race to develop such “smart” homes has been complicated by competing goals from hardware makers, as well as challenges like inconsistent Internet service.

The Echo’s new features rely on power outlets from Belkin’s WeMo unit and Hue light bulbs from Philips, both of which can connect to a home’s Wi-Fi network. Amazon said three WeMo products, including a light switch, would work with the Echo, as well as five different Philips light bulbs. The Seattle-based company didn’t say whether it would enable other companies’ devices to work in tandem with the Echo

Amazon Sues Websites Selling Product Reviews

The home page of buyazonreviews.com, one of four websites sued by Amazon.com AMZN -0.23% for selling product reviews.

 

Buyazonreviews.com

Fake reviews are a staple of many Internet sites, and operators of shopping, travel and other websites have long sought to eliminate them.

The Web’s biggest merchant, Amazon.com, this week went a step further, filing suit against four sites that it claimed are selling positive product reviews in bulk. Amazon said the practice damages the e-commerce giant’s credibility with customers.

In the suit, filed Wednesday, Amazon said the websites offer glowing reviews even when reviewers haven’t purchased or used the products. Amazon said the sites attempted to cover their tracks, including encouraging clients to make phony shipments to trip up Amazon software designed to verify a reviewer’s purchase.

“Despite substantial efforts to stamp out the practice, an unhealthy ecosystem is developing outside of Amazon to supply inauthentic reviews,” Amazon said in the suit, filed in King County Superior Court in Washington state. The suit was earlier reported by the Seattle Times.

Amazon has previously sought to police reviews, including eliminating many made by authors’ family members and friends.

An Amazon spokeswoman and its outside attorney declined to comment. Attempts to reach the operators of the websites — buyazonreviews.com,buyamazonreviews.com, bayreviews.net and bayreviewsnow.com — were unsuccessful.

Buyazonreviews.com advertises “verified and regular” reviews for $19 to $22 each, depending on the size of the order. The site specifies that “all of our reviewers are actual people that try your product and deliver high quality optimized unbiased reviews.”

Other sites offer similar services for less. On marketplace fiverr.com, numerous posters offer “positive” or “five-star” reviews for $5 each. Fiverr.com is not named in Amazon’s suit.

Local directory Yelp this year filed suit against a firm it said was selling fake reviews – not one of those sued by Amazon — and has previously taken action against similar companies.

Positive reviews or star ratings can help boost a product’s sales. A 2011 Harvard Business School case study, for instance, found that a one-star increase in a review on Yelp lifts a restaurant’s revenue by 5% to 9%.

But review systems are tempting forums for businesses to try to boost their own image or take down that of a competitor’s; a 2009 Wall Street Journal story chronicled a DeLonghi employee’s rave reviews of DeLonghi espresso machines.

Seattle-based Amazon said in its lawsuit that ersatz reviews represent a small portion of those on its site. “Amazon scours its site for fake reviews, removes them when it finds them, and suspends sellers that post or purchase fake reviews,” the company said.

Amazon Goes After Dropbox, Google, Microsoft With Unlimited Cloud Drive Storage

Last year, Amazon gave a boost to its Prime members when it launched a free, unlimited photo storage for them on Cloud Drive. Today, the company is expanding that service as a paid offering to cover other kinds of content, and to users outside of its loyalty program. Unlimited Cloud Storage will let users get either unlimited photo storage or “unlimited everything” — covering all kinds of media from videos and music through to PDF documents — respectively for $11.99 or $59.99 per year.

And those who want to test drive it can do so for free for three months.

The move is a clear attempt by Amazon to compete against the likes of Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and the many more in the crowded market for cloud-based storage services. It’s not the first to offer “unlimited” storage, but it looks like it’s the first to market this as a service to anyone who wants it. Dropbox, for example, offers unlimited storage as part of Dropbox for Business, Google also aims unlimited options currently atspecific verticals, and Microsoft offers it for those who subscribe to Office 365.

The idea here is to tap into the average consumer who has started to reach a tipping point with the amount of digital media he or she now owns, potentially across a range of devices and in not a very organised fashion (hello, me).

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” said Josh Petersen, Director of Amazon Cloud Drive, in a statement. “With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space–they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place.”

It’s not clear how many customers Amazon has today for Cloud Drive, but as with other new services Amazon has launched — such as Amazon Music — it seems that the idea here is not to convert consumers already using other services, but to pick up new ones from the masses who have yet to adopt anything.

Prime members and Fire device owners, by the way, can still get the unlimited photo option free, but have to pay for the Unlimited Everything Plan for other kinds of media. Those who are already taking other tiers of Cloud Drive use can swap over from today.

Here are the details on the new plans, as per Amazon:

Unlimited Photos Plan (free 3-month trial, then $11.99 per year–equivalent of less than $1 per month): Store an infinite number of photos in Cloud Drivewithout worrying about taking up space on phones, cameras, or other devices. Customers can upload existing collections and store all future photos taken. This plan also includes 5 GB of additional storage for videos or other documents and files.

Unlimited Everything Plan (free 3-month trial, then $59.99 per year–equivalent of less than $5 per month): Store an infinite number of new and existing photos, videos, files, documents, movies, and music in Cloud Drive.