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Tag: Amazon

  • Amazon Celebrates 20th Birthday with New “Prime Day” Shopping Event

    Amazon Celebrates 20th Birthday with New “Prime Day” Shopping Event

    If you’re thinking about signing up for Amazon Prime, it might be a decent idea to do it by July 15th.

    Amazon has just announced Prime Day, an online shopping “holiday” for Prime members that it says will trump Black Friday in terms of deals offered.

    According to the company, Prime Day will take place on July 15th and is being initiated in honor of Amazon’s 20th birthday.

    “Next week, Amazon turns 20 and on the eve of its birthday, the company introduces Prime Day, a global shopping event, offering more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria. On Wednesday, July 15, new and existing members in the U.S. will find deals starting at midnight, with new deals starting as often as every ten minutes. They can shop thousands of Lightning Deals, seven popular Deals of the Day and receive unlimited fast, free shipping,” says the company.

    “Prime Day is a one-day only event filled with more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members around the globe. Members tell us every day how much they love Prime and we will keep making it better,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President Amazon Prime. “If you’re not already a Prime member, you’ll want to join so you don’t miss out on one of the biggest deals extravaganzas in the world.”

    The promise of a deals extravaganza will likely push a good amount of people to at least try an Amazon Prime free trial. The company sure hopes they’ll stay on and pay the $99 a year, as Amazon Prime subscriptions have been crucial in helping it turn a profit as of late.

  • This Gun iPhone Case Is the Perfect Accessory for Getting Shot

    I’m not saying that anyone deserves to be shot by the police, because they don’t – but if you’re walking around with an iPhone case that looks like a gun sticking out of your pocket, you deserve to be shot by the police more than I do.

    In yes, we’re all about to celebrate America for a weekend buy why news, police across the country are suddenly warning people about the dangers of putting your iPhone in a case that strongly resembles a real gun.

    “Please folks – this cell phone case is not a cool product or a good idea. A police officers job is hard enough, without having to make a split second decision in the dark of night when someone decides without thinking to pull this out while stopped for a motor vehicle violation. What do you think?” wrote the Ocean County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s Office on Facebook.

    A spokesman for the office said he found the photo on a “closed social media site for cops,” according to CNN.

    It’s unclear who manufactures the case, but it’s available to purchase on Amazon and eBay right now.

    On Amazon, people are writing negative reviews urging Amazon to pull the product.

    “Dear Amazon: I highly recommend that you remove this product from your website right now! Your corporate attorneys will thank you, as will the law enforcement officers who might otherwise be put into a tragic and unnecessary lethal force situation!” says one reviewer.

    “Amazon…this is highly offensive and dangerous! Some idiot will buy this and end up getting killed by police. Come on – do NOT SELL this crap,” says another.

    Just think about things before you buy them. Just for a second. Ok?

  • Amazon Web Services Adds Support For Budgets And Forecasts

    Amazon Web Services Adds Support For Budgets And Forecasts

    Amazon announced the launch of support for budgets and forecasts in Amazon Web Services a year after launching the Cost Explorer, which is integrated with the AWS Billing Console.

    The Cost Explorer gives users reporting, analytics, and visualization tools. The new budgets and forecasts support lets users define and track budgets for AWS costs and forecast AWS costs for up to three months out.

    It also now provides the ability to get email notifications when actual costs exceed or are forecast to exceed budget costs.

    “Budgeting and forecasting takes place on a fine-grained basis, with filtering or customization based on Availability Zone, Linked Account, API operation, Purchase Option (e.g. Reserved), Service, and Tag,” says Amazon’s Jeff Barr in a blog post. “The operations provided by these new tools replace the tedious and time-consuming manual calculations that many of our customers (both large and small) have been performing as part of their cost management and budgeting process.”

    Amazon ran a private beta of the new features with over a dozen customers, and says that after doing so, it believes the tools will help customers do a better job of managing costs.

    With the budgets support, users can set monthly budgets around AWS costs and customize them by multiple dimensions (including tags). The AWS Management Console will list each budget, and you can filter them by name.

    budgets

    “You can set alarms that will trigger based on actual or forecast costs, with email notification to a designated individual or group,” explains Barr. “These alarms make use of Amazon CloudWatch but are somewhat more abstract in order to better meet the needs of your business and accounting folks. You can create multiple alarms for each budget. Perhaps you want one alarm to trigger when actual costs exceed 80% of budget costs and another when forecast costs exceed budgeted costs. You can also view variances (budgeted vs. actual) in the console.”

    For forecasts, AWS will use the same algorithm that many of its teams use to predict demand for their own offerings. It will give you cost estimates that include 80% and 95% confidence interval ranges. You can filter forecasts by various dimensions.

    Images via Amazon

  • Amazon Launches Full Operations in Mexico

    Amazon Launches Full Operations in Mexico

    As expected, Amazon has just announced its biggest international launch ever.

    Amazon is expanding its operations in Mexico, launching retail and marketplace offerings in the country. The new hub for Amazon in Mexico is Amazon.com.mx, and there you’ll find a welcome letter from CEO Jeff Bezos.

    “Our mission is to be the most customer-oriented on the planet where you can find a wide selection of products at low prices, fast and efficient shipping, as well as a safe and convenient experience of purchase in the company you can trust. We are eager to fulfill this promise in Mexico,” says Bezos.

    Until now, Amazon only sold e-books in Mexico. Now, Amazon is operating a physical goods store in the country. According to the company, the Amazon Mexico launch features more product categories than any other international launch in the company’s history.

    Amazon is offering free shipping on all orders fulfilled by the company that are over 599 pesos.

    “The expansion of Amazon.com.mx represents Amazon’s biggest international launch ever,” said Juan Carlos García, Country Manager for Amazon Mexico. “With convenient and secure payment options and fast delivery, our goal is to deliver a world-class shopping experience for customers in Mexico.”

    Of course, as this is a full-fledged launch, Amazon has also announced the availability of ‘Selling on Amazon’ and ‘Fulfillment by Amazon’ for businesses in Mexico.

    “Mexican businesses and online sellers can list their merchandise at no cost on Amazon.com.mx and reach customers across Mexico and internationallyFulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service in Mexico will help sellers take advantage of Amazon’s world-class fulfillment and customer service expertise,” says the company.

    “Our goal is to make selling on Amazon.com.mx as simple as possible, whether you’re a local business new to ecommerce or an established business looking to grow sales in a new online channel,” added Pérez-Duarte. “With Fulfillment by Amazon, we do the heavy operational lifting so sellers can grow their business by focusing on core functions like sourcing new products or operating their brick and mortar stores.”

  • ‘Transparent’ Season Three Is Already a Go

    Amazon has announced that it has greenlit a third season of its award-winning original series Transparent – and the second season hasn’t even premiered yet.

    The third season will begin filming next week. The show’s creator, Jill Soloway, will stay on as showrunner.

    “Jill is truly a creative force and I’m thrilled that we will be collaborating with her additional projects in the future and on a third season of Transparent,” said Roy Price, Vice President, Amazon Studios. “The second season is currently starting production, and I know our customers will be delighted to continue the journey with Maura and the Pfefferman family.”

    Transparent is a half hour novelistic series that explores family, identity, sex, and love. The series stars Tambor as Maura, who has spent her life as Mort—the Pfefferman family patriarch. When she reintroduces herself to her family, everyone else’s secrets finally start to come out. This includes her ex-wife Shelly (played by Light), and their children—meandering Ali (played by Hoffmann), record producer Josh (played by Duplass), and sexually conflicted Sarah (played by Landecker). Each family member spins in a different direction as they figure out who they won’t become.

    You can watch the first season right now if you’re an Amazon Prime members. The second season debuts in the fall.

    Earlier this year, at the Golden Globes, Transparent gave Amazon its first ever wins at a major award show. The series won best TV series comedy or musical, and its star Jeffrey Tambor won best actor in a TV comedy as well.

  • Amazon Begins HDR Streaming for Prime Members

    Amazon Begins HDR Streaming for Prime Members

    Amazon has announced that it’s going to start streaming some shows in High Dynamic Range (HDR), just as it promised earlier this year.

    HDR basically improves image quality by enhancing shadows and highlights and brightening colors. With HDR, Amazon’s streaming video will appear more lifelike.

    This sounds nice, obviously, but there’s one catch to this – it’s very, very limited at this point.

    Amazon is only enabling HDR streams for one of its original series – Mozart in the Jungle. And it’s only for Prime members in the US, and it’s only compatible with one device as of now – Samsung SUHD TVs.

    “HDR is a technical innovation that provides a truly stunning viewing experience and we’re thrilled to be the first to offer this unmatched picture quality,” said Michael Paull, Vice President of Digital Video at Amazon. “We can’t wait for our Prime members to watch and re-watch Mozart in the Jungle in HDR at no additional cost to their membership, and we look forward to adding more titles and devices that support HDR this year.”

    Of course, Amazon says that this is just the beginning and that there will be “more ways to watch soon.”

    Amazon is the first to offer HDR streaming, but it won’t be the last. Netflix is also rolling it out soon – and it feels that HDR is way more important to your viewing experience than other quality boosts like 4K resolution.

  • Amazon Bans Confederate Flag Merchandise

    Amazon has joined other retailers in banning the sale of merchandise sporting the Confederate flag.

    Following the racially-motivated slaying of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina, calls across the country to “take down the flag” have intensified. Earlier this week, Walmart and Sears announced they would be removing confederate flag merchandise from their stores, and soon after online marketplaces eBay and Etsy made the same decision.

    Amazon has always withheld the right to remove products it deems offensive, including “products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views,” according to its banned products page.

    Amazon has yet to make a public statement on the ban, but an eBay spokesperson said its decision was based on the belief that the flag is a symbol of divisiveness and racism.

    “We have decided to prohibit Confederate flags, and many items containing this image, because we believe it has become a contemporary symbol of divisiveness and racism,” eBay spokesperson Johnna Hoff said in a statement. “This decision is consistent with our long-standing policy that prohibits items that promote or glorify hatred, violence and racial intolerance.”

    As of now, Amazon returns tens of thousands of products for a “confederate flag” search.

    This story is developing…

    Image via fauxto_digit, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Amazon Makes Echo Smart Device Available To The Masses

    Last year, Amazon unveiled Echo, its smart device that serves as a speaker and a virtual assistant. Until now, it’s been available on an invitation basis, but on Tuesday, Amazon announced that it’s now available to all customers.

    You can now pre-order the device for $179.99, and it will begin shipping on July 14. It also has some new features.

    “The customer response to Amazon Echo has been incredibly positive, and we’ve been working hard to build more as quickly as possible. We are grateful to our early customers for their incredible engagement and for providing us with invaluable feedback to help shape Echo as it evolves—with their help, we’ve been able to add features like Audible, Pandora, home automation, sports scores, calendar, and more,” said Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon Echo. “We’re excited to get Echo into the hands of even more customers and continue to invent new features and experiences.”

    With one new feature, users can use Echo to switch on a lamp, turn on a fan or heater, dim the lights, etc. thanks to integration with Belkin WeMo and Philips Hue products.

    You can now pause and skip tracks, and gives tracks thumbs up and down on Pandora and listen to audiobooks from Audible. You can say, “Alexa, read my book” to do this. Alexa is the “brain” behind Echo, by the way. It also supports Whispersync for Voice so you can switch between reading and listening without losing your place.

    There’s new Google Calendar integration and the ability to re-order Prime-eligible products.

    “If you’re low on kitchen supplies, want to restock on snacks, or need more rolls of duct tape for the garage, simply ask Echo to place an order for you,” the company explains. “Echo uses your order history and can order the Prime-eligible item for you using your default payment and shipping settings. If Echo can’t find the requested item in your order history, it may suggest an item for your approval using Amazon’s Choice, which picks highly-rated, well-priced, Prime-eligible products.”

    You can create “if this then that” recipes using shopping and to-do lists, and use Echo to add items to Evernote, email your to-do list to your spouse, and add your list to your phone.

    You can also use Echo to get sports scores and schedules and get traffic info.

    Finally, there are personalized streaming music stations from Prime Music and customized news from more sources including The Economist, NPR Business, TMZ, and ESPN Radio via TuneIn.

    A free SDK, which developers have already been using in private beta, will roll out later this year.

    Now check out this parody of the device.

    Image via YouTube

  • Amazon Is Changing How It Shows Reviews And How Ratings Work

    Amazon Is Changing How It Shows Reviews And How Ratings Work

    Amazon is reportedly changing how it displays customer reviews on product pages in the U.S. It’s using machine learning to figure out which reviews are most helpful to users, and giving those more weight in the algorithm. It’s also putting more weight on newer reviews.

    This is according to a report from CNET, which interviewed Amazon spokesperson Julie Law about it. According to her, the system will “learn what reviews are most helpful to customers,” and “improve over time” to “make customer reviews more useful”.

    The new system, which also influences products’ star ratings, apparently went into effect on Friday, though it may not be noticeable by many right away. Products’ star ratings are expected to change more frequently due to the way reviews are now weighted. CNET’s Ben Fox Rubin reports:

    The new platform was something the company looked at “very closely” before instituting, Law said, though she declined to say how long Amazon had been developing it.

    “It’s just meant to make things that much more useful,” Law said, “so people see things and know it reflects the current product experience.”

    While it’s still early, I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot of feedback from people who have products listed on the site. Reviews – especially the ones that are most visible – can make or break a product’s sales, and I’ll be surprised if we don’t see some anger arise from this.

    Ultimately, the system should better serve customers if it works as it’s supposed to, but anytime there’s a major change like this that has a direct effect on others’ ability to make money, there’s almost always a built-in controversy. We’ll see how this one plays out.

    Image via Amazon

  • Amazon May Crowdsource Package Delivery

    Amazon May Crowdsource Package Delivery

    Is Amazon developing the Uber for package delivery?

    Amazon’s shipping costs have been rising for a while now (that’s why you now pay more for Amazon Prime, for instance). Now, it appears that in an effort to reign in these swelling costs, Amazon is thinking about crowdsourcing the delivery process.

    The Wall Street Journal is citing the omnipresent “sources familiar with the matter” who claim that Amazon is currently developing an app that would let regular people (as opposed to carriers like UPS and FedEx) deliver packages.

    From the WSJ:

    Amazon would enlist brick-and-mortar retailers in urban areas to store the packages, likely renting space from them or paying a per-package fee, the people said. Amazon’s timing for the service, known internally as “On My Way,” couldn’t be learned, and it is possible the company won’t move ahead, the people said.

    In theory, anyone could pick up a package and take it with them “on their way”.

    If Amazon wants to turn the country into its delivery force, there are plenty of hurdles it’ll have to jump.

    First and most importantly, there’s safety of packages. There would have to be some sort of vetting process for carriers. How would that work? Who would be qualified to pick up packages? Would people trust the average Joe with their deliveries? Who would carry the bulk of the responsibility for any hiccups along the way?

    How much would carriers be paid? Which retailers would cooperate with Amazon’s plans to basically be auxiliary warehouses for the online giant?

    As the WSJ says, it’s early and Amazon could easily scrap the whole thing. But it sure is interesting, for sure. And maybe more plausible than drones?

    Image via Stephen Woods, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Amazon Web Services Launches New EC2 Instances

    Amazon announced the launch of new M4 instances for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). These are the next generation of general purpose instances, and make use of custom 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 Haswell processors, and offer dedicated bandwidth to Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS).

    The instances provide Enhanced Networking for higher packet per second performance, lower network jitter, and lower network latencies, according to the company. They also deliver up to four times the packet rate of instances without Enhanced Networking.

    “Within Placement Groups, Enhanced Networking reduces average latencies between instances by 50 percent or more,” Amazon says. “M4 instances are well-suited for a wide variety of applications including relational and in-memory databases, gaming servers, caching fleets, batch processing, and business applications like SAP and Microsoft SharePoint.”

    “Amazon EC2 provides a comprehensive selection of instances to support virtually any workload, and we continue to deliver new technologies and high performance in our current generation instances,” says Matt Garman, Vice President, Amazon EC2, AWS. “M4 instances bring new capabilities to the General Purpose family through the use of a custom Intel Haswell processor and larger instance sizes. We are also pleased to deliver even better network performance with dedicated bandwidth to Amazon EBS and Enhanced Networking, an Amazon EC2 feature that we are providing, for the first time, to General Purpose Instances. With these capabilities, M4 is one of our most powerful instance types and a terrific choice for workloads requiring a balance of compute, memory, and network resources.”

    You can launch M4 instances using AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), AWS SDKs, and third-party libraries. There are five different sizes:

    More details on the AWS blog.

    In other AWS news, Redshift is getting more cost-effective.

    Image via Amazon

  • Amazon Redshift Now Lets You Get More For Your Money

    First unveiled in 2012, Amazon made petabyte-scale data warehouse service Amazon Redshift available to all Amazon Web Services customers in 2013. Last year, it got faster data nodes.

    Now, Amazon has announced that it is making Dense Storage with Redshift faster and more cost-effective with a second-generation instance type, DS2. This has twice the memory and compute power of DS1, which was previously known as DW1, with the same amount of storage. DS2 also supports Enhanced Networking and offers 50% more disk throughput than DS1.

    According to Amazon, DS2 also provides 50% better performance while maintaining the same pricing. Here’s a look at that, by the way:

    “We expect existing DS1 customers to quickly adopt DS2. There’s really no reason not to,” says Amazon Web Services’ Tina Adams. “To move from DS1 to DS2, simply restore a DS2 cluster from a snapshot of a DS1 cluster of the same size. Restoring from snapshot is a push-button operation in our Console. Our streaming restore feature allows you to resume querying as soon as your new cluster is created, while data is streamed from S3 in the background. After the restore completes, if you’d like, you can resize your DS2 cluster with a few clicks.”

    “You now have three Reserved Instance payment options!” Adams adds. “This gives you the flexibility to determine how much you wish to pay upfront. To purchase these offerings simply visit the Reserved Nodes tab in our Console.”

    There are three options: No Upfront, Partial Upfront, and All Upfront. No Upfront means you don’t pay anything upfront, but commit to pay hourly over the course of a year at a 20% discount over On-Demand. The option is only available for a one-year term. Partial Upfront is the same as Redshift’s previous heavy utilization offering, in which you pay a portion of the Reserved Instance upfront and the rest over a one or three year term. The discount can be up to 41% for a year or 73% for three. All Upfront obviously means that you pay for the entire Reserved Instance term (1 or 3 years) at once upfront. It offers a discount of up to 42% for a year or 76% for three compared to On-Demand.

    Adams says Amazon has more Redshift news on the way. Here’s a recent presentation from the company on how to build your own data warehouse with the product.

    Images via Amazon

  • Amazon Is Dropping Crappy Reality Shows from Prime Instant Video

    Amazon Is Dropping Crappy Reality Shows from Prime Instant Video

    It could be because it wants to really go after Netflix in the original content game. It could be because it just thinks that type of TV sucks. Either way, Amazon has reportedly decided to ditch some reality programming.

    Bloomberg quotes the ubiquitous “people with knowledge on the matter” who say that Amazon is working to drop shows like Teen Mom and Mob Wives from its Prime Instant Video offerings.

    Amazon currently has a deal with Viacom, whose networks air said reality shows. Amazon is apparently looking to keep a deal in place with Viacom to still offer many if its shows – just not some of the lagging reality titles. Apparently, Amazon just has reality show fatigue:

    Viacom isn’t the only programmer grappling with shrinking audiences for reality TV. Amazon this year also declined to renew a deal with A+E Networks, which supplied “Pawn Stars” and “Storage Wars,” the people said. Some of the Viacom shows are still in production. The shrinking value of reality shows may have contributed to the $785 million charge Viacom took last quarter, said David Bank, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

    Amazon looks to be taking notes from Netflix, who ditched Viacom in 2013. “Netflix at the time said that it had little desire to pay Viacom’s fees for ‘nonexclusive bulk content.’ Netflix also said that it would be willing to pay for select titles, but not Viacom’s entire library,” says CNET.

    Through Teen Mom does really, really suck, Amazon’s move is pure business. If they don’t have to pay Viacom for Teen Mom, it can spend the money it saves on more original programming to battle Netflix, HBO, and other big-name original series-producing entities. Not only that, but reality TV ain’t what it used to be.

    Image via Teen Mom, Facebook

  • Walmart Is Going After Amazon Prime

    Walmart Is Going After Amazon Prime

    Walmart is planning to take a run at Amazon Prime by offering a fast delivery program that’s half the price.

    The news, first reported by The Information, was confirmed by a Walmart spokesperson.

    The program will roll out this summer, and will cost subscribers $50 per year. It will offer speedy shipping on over a million products – three days or less.

    From the AP:

    Ravi Jariwala, a company spokesman, said the offering is in response to increasing demands from customers who are looking for predictable and affordable shipping. It’s also part of Wal-Mart’s overall strategy to test new ways to serve customers who are increasingly researching and buying on their PCs or mobile devices and are looking for convenience.

    Walmart’s unnamed program (codenamed Tahoe at the moment) is half the price of Amazon Prime, which offers free two-day delivery and costs $99 a year.

    Of course, Amazon Prime comes with a handful of other perks – Amazon Prime Instant Video, Prime Music, and the Kindle Lending Library.

    Walmart’s offering will focus on delivery only – at first. Walmart does have a streaming video arm – Vudu – but apparently there aren’t any immediate plans to work this into the new service.

    Walmart has been trying to edge into the online shopping market for some time. Back in 2012, the company launched same-day delivery on some items in select cities. Last November, Walmart began price-matching Amazon at all of its locations – but that didn’t work out so well.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Fifty Shades of Grey Is Amazon’s Biggest Pre-order Ever

    Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic film based on the erotic novel of the same name, will be available to purchase on Amazon Instant Video on May 8.

    But people are ready. Super worked up about it.

    Amazon shared a list with Mashable that ranks the company’s biggest digital pre-orders of all time.

    And Fifty Shades of Grey has topped Frozen. Think about that for a second.

    Y’all horny.

    Take a look at the list:

    1. Fifty Shades of Grey
    2. Frozen
    3. Guardians of the Galaxy
    4. American Sniper
    5. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
    6. Maleficent
    7. X-Men: Days of Future Past
    8. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    9. How to Train Your Dragon 2
    10. Star Wars (bundle)

  • Amazon Hikes Free Shipping Threshold in the UK

    If you’ve been ordering stuff from Amazon for a while, you probably remember a time when Amazon’s free delivery would kick in no matter what you bought.

    In the UK, the first minimum spend threshold came in 2013, when Amazon forced customers to buy at least £10 worth of product to qualify for Free Super Saver Delivery.

    Now, that’s doubling to £20

    Of course, you could just pay £79 a year for Amazon Prime and avoid this threshold altogether … or at least that’s probably what Amazon wants people to consider.

    Engadget UK first spotted the new rules, which go into effect at 6pm. They say Amazon “may also be moving to to cover the cost of its wide range of delivery options, which now include same-day collection and shipment to your local Post Office.”

    Folks in the States should recognize this sort of move. In October of 2013, Amazon upped the free shipping threshold to $35. Free delivery had previously kicked in at any $25 order – and it was that way for a decade.

    If you have a £7 item lying around in your cart, you better go ahead and buy it now. Super Saver delivery still kicks in at £10.00, according to Amazon UK’s help page.

    Image via Stephen Woods, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Amazon Launches New B2B Marketplace Amazon Business

    Amazon Launches New B2B Marketplace Amazon Business

    Amazon announced a new B2B marketplace called Amazon Business, which features unique benefits tailored specifically to businesses. In fact, you even need a business license to use it, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    Amazon Business includes search and browsing features geared toward businesses as well as business-only pricing, including quantity discounts from select manufacturers and sellers. Businesses can also get free two-day shipping on orders of $49 or more.

    Business shoppers will be able to view multiple offers on a single product page for price comparisons. The product pages include studio-quality photography, dimensions, CAD drawings, and manufacturer how-tos.

    “We’ve heard from business customers that they love the convenience of shopping online, and want an experience at work that is similar to how they shop at home,” said Prentis Wilson, Vice President of Amazon Business. “Amazon Business delivers a new and expanded marketplace that brings the selection, convenience and value of Amazon to business customers, manufacturers and sellers with the additional selection, features and back-end integration businesses need to save time and money.”

    “We’re consistently listening to feedback from customers so we can innovate, deliver more value and set a new standard for B2B e-commerce with Amazon Business,” said Wilson. “We think this is an experience that businesses will love and a great opportunity for manufacturers and sellers to reach registered business customers. It’s only the beginning for this new marketplace – we will continue to build out features in areas like product support, payments, shipping and pricing.”

    You can create a single or multi-user business account, and invite additional users to join the account. You’ll be able to define groups of users to share payment methods and shipping addresses. You can also create approval workflows to manage spending controls and integrate third-party procurement solutions.

    You can make tax-exempt purchases to assist with reporting and account reconciliation. You can also place orders and finance purchases using a Pay-in-Full Credit Line or a Revolving Credit Line.

    Amazon Business has its own customer support service as well.

    If you want to start an account, you can just go to amazon.com/business. If you want to sell your products through the new marketplace, you can sign up for that here.

    According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is phasing out Amazon Supply next month.

    Image via Amazon

  • Bezos: Amazon Web Services Is A $5 Billion Business

    Bezos: Amazon Web Services Is A $5 Billion Business

    Amazon just reported its financial results for the first quarter, including a 15% year-over-year increase in net sales at $22.72 billion.

    With this report, Amazon has begun giving more financial details about its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business. And the financials on that are looking pretty good.

    CEO Jeff Bezos said: “Amazon Web Services is a $5 billion business and still growing fast — in fact it’s accelerating. Born a decade ago, AWS is a good example of how we approach ideas and risk-taking at Amazon. We strive to focus relentlessly on the customer, innovate rapidly, and drive operational excellence. We manage by two seemingly contradictory traits: impatience to deliver faster and a willingness to think long term. We are so grateful to our AWS customers and remain dedicated to inventing on their behalf.”

    The company recently made a handful of AWS announcements including Amazon Machine Learning, AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps, AWS Lambda, the Amazon EC2 Container Service, the latest generation of EC2 Dense-storage instances, and faster EBS volumes.

    Here’s the release in its entirety:

    SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apr. 23, 2015– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2015.

    Operating cash flow increased 47% to $7.84 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $5.35 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2014. Free cash flow increased to $3.16 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.49 billion for the trailing twelve months ended March 31, 2014.

    Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 483 million on March 31, 2015, compared with 476 million one year ago.

    Net sales increased 15% to $22.72 billion in the first quarter, compared with $19.74 billion in first quarter 2014. Excluding the $1.3 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 22% compared to first quarter 2014.

    Operating income increased 74% to $255 million in the first quarter, compared with operating income of $146 million in first quarter 2014.

    Net loss was $57 million in the first quarter, or $0.12 per diluted share, compared with net income of $108 million, or$0.23 per diluted share, in first quarter 2014.

    “Amazon Web Services is a $5 billion business and still growing fast — in fact it’s accelerating,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Born a decade ago, AWS is a good example of how we approach ideas and risk-taking atAmazon. We strive to focus relentlessly on the customer, innovate rapidly, and drive operational excellence. We manage by two seemingly contradictory traits: impatience to deliver faster and a willingness to think long term. We are so grateful to our AWS customers and remain dedicated to inventing on their behalf.”

    Highlights

    • Amazon launched Dash Button — a small button that Prime customers can place in their home and use to reorder frequently used household items. Today, customers can chose from 18 popular brands, such as Bounty, Huggies, and Clorox.
    • Amazon announced the Dash Replenishment Service (DRS), a new service that enables connected devices to order goods from Amazon when supplies are running low — like a coffee maker that automatically orders more coffee beans. By using DRS, device makers are able to leverage Amazon’s authentication and payment systems, customer service, and fulfillment network. Early adopters of DRS include Whirlpool, Quirky, Brother, and Brita.
    • Amazon announced new features for Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, including X-Ray (now available directly on your HDTV), support for a captive portal to connect to Wi-Fi at a hotel or dorm room, and new shortcuts. Amazon Fire TV also added expandable USB storage and private listening with support for Bluetooth headphones.
    • In just one year, Amazon Fire TV apps and games selection is up 5x, including Sling TVFox Sports GoFlappy Birds FamilyTEDWSJ LiveCrossy Road, and Game of Thrones – A Telltale Game Series.
    • Fire TV Stick launched in the U.K. and Germany, joining Amazon Fire TV. Pre-orders for Fire TV Stick on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de broke all previous records for Amazon devices in the first week of availability.
    • Amazon Echo continues to get smarter as more customers use it and provide feedback — new features include Pandora integration, home automation, support for sports scores and schedules, traffic reports and route suggestions, and voice control for customers if listening to music via Bluetooth. Amazon has released a limited preview of the Alexa SDK to enable developers, content creators, and service providers to build apps and experiences for Echo.
    • Amazon launched unlimited cloud storage with Amazon Cloud Drive — two new storage plans for customers to securely store new and existing content collections. The Unlimited Everything Plan provides unlimited storage for photos, videos, movies, music, and files, and the Unlimited Photos Plan provides unlimited photo storage plus 5 GB of additional storage for videos, documents, or other files — all for a low annual fee. Customers can sign up for a free 3-month trial on either plan.
    • Prime Now has expanded to Miami, Baltimore, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin. Prime members can choose from tens of thousands of daily essentials through a mobile app. With Prime Now, two-hour delivery is free and one-hour delivery is available for $7.99.
    • Amazon Prime celebrated its 10-year anniversary with tens of millions of Prime members around the world. Prime members in the U.S. enjoy unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 20 million items, unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video, more than one million songs and hundreds of playlists with Prime Music, unlimited photo storage with Prime Photos, and access to more than 800,000 books to borrow with the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
    • Amazon Studios announced that full seasons of Mad DogsThe Man in the High CastleThe New Yorker Presents, and children’s shows Just Add Magic and The Stinky & Dirty Show will debut exclusively for Prime members in the U.S., U.K., and Germany. Amazon Studios also greenlit second seasons of Mozart in the Jungleand Bosch, as well as original kids series Tumble LeafCreative GalaxyAnnedroids, and Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street.
    • Amazon introduced Amazon@Purdue, our first staffed on-campus pickup and drop-off location at Purdue University. Amazon Student and Amazon Prime members get Free One-Day Shipping on textbooks and Free One-Day Pickup on over one million items when shipped to the Amazon@Purdue location.
    • Amazon officially launched Write On by Kindle, an online community where writers and readers share in the creative process. Readers can check out works-in-progress — from short stories to novels — and offer feedback, or they can try their hand at writing a story themselves.
    • Amazon launched Amazon Home Services, a new marketplace for on-demand professional services, backed by Amazon’s Happiness Guarantee. Customers can browse, purchase, and schedule hundreds of professional services directly on Amazon.com in less than 60 seconds. Amazon Home Services features handpicked pros offering upfront pricing on pre-packaged services with helpful reviews from customers that have made verified purchases.
    • Poppy J. Anderson became the first German author to sell over one million Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), joining the Kindle Million Club with many other internationally successful KDP authors such asJohn Locke, J.A. Konrath, and Tina Folsom.
    • Amazon expanded public fulfillment center tours to the U.K., Germany, France, and Poland. Visitwww.amazon.com/fctours for information on available tour locations, dates, and times.
    • Amazon Prime members in Spain now receive Free One-Day Shipping with their Prime subscription.
    • Amazon Fashion, which has emerged as a top category on Amazon.in, partnered with the Fashion Design Council of India as the official title sponsor of the 25th edition of India Fashion Week.
    • Amazon.in launched the Amazon Seller App, a best-in-class mobile app for sellers in India, which makes it easy and convenient for sellers to update inventory, source and list new items on Amazon.in, and respond faster to customer queries.
    • Amazon.in launched Kirana Now, a pilot service that delivers everyday essentials to customers within two to four hours. This local service utilizes India’s vast network of small and medium businesses to achieve quick, easy, and convenient delivery for Amazon.in customers.
    • Amazon China opened an Amazon international brand flagship store on Tmall, which features thousands of Amazon China’s popular, directly imported products. Additionally, Amazon Global Store selection on Amazon.cn has grown to over one million items.
    • AWS announced Amazon Machine Learning, a fully managed service that makes it easy for any developer to use historical data to build predictive models that can be used for a broad array of purposes, including detecting problematic transactions, preventing customer churn, and improving customer support. Amazon Machine Learning is based on the same proven, highly scalable machine learning technology used by developers acrossAmazon to generate more than 50 billion predictions a week.
    • AWS announced AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps, a new category on the AWS Marketplace that makes it easy for customers to search for and buy applications for their Amazon WorkSpaces cloud-based desktops. Customers can choose from a broad selection of more than 100 applications in eleven categories, and pay by the month for the applications they use. To simplify deployment of these desktop applications, AWS also announced Amazon WorkSpaces Application Manager (Amazon WAM), a new service that packages and delivers applications to Amazon WorkSpaces.
    • AWS announced the general availability of AWS Lambda, a compute service that runs developers’ code in response to events and automatically manages the required compute resources, making it easy to build and manage applications that respond quickly to new information. AWS also launched several new features to make it easy for mobile developers to use Lambda for mobile, tablet, and Internet of Things applications.
    • AWS announced the general availability of the Amazon EC2 Container Service, a high-performance container management service that makes it easy to run distributed applications using Docker containers on AWS. AWS also added the ability to use Elastic Block Store (“EBS”) and Elastic Load Balancing (“ELB”) with the EC2 Container Service, as well as a new, flexible container scheduler that combine to make the EC2 Container Service the best place to run containers in production.
    • AWS introduced the latest generation of Amazon EC2 Dense-storage (D2) instances, and larger, faster Amazon Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EBS) volumes. To support very large transactional databases and big data analytics, the new Amazon EC2 D2 instances offer up to 48 TB of storage and up to 3,500 MB per second of disk read throughput, while the new Amazon EBS volumes store up to 16 TB and process up to 20,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS).

    Financial Guidance

    The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com’s expectations as of April 23, 2015, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and consumer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce, and the various factors detailed below.

    Second Quarter 2015 Guidance

    • Net sales are expected to be between $20.6 billion and $22.8 billion, or to grow between 7% and 18% compared with second quarter 2014.
    • Operating income (loss) is expected to be between $(500) million and $50 million, compared to $(15) million in second quarter 2014.
    • This guidance includes approximately $600 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, investments, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates.

    A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at www.amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company’s financial and operating results.

    These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

    Our investor relations website is www.amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases and social media postings, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.

    About Amazon

    Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS,Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, and Fire TV are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    March 31,
    Twelve Months Ended
    March 31,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, BEGINNING OF PERIOD $ 14,557 $ 8,658 $ 5,074 $ 4,481
    OPERATING ACTIVITIES:
    Net income (loss) (57 ) 108 (405 ) 299
    Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash from operating activities:
    Depreciation of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, and other amortization, including capitalized content costs 1,426 1,010 5,162 3,563
    Stock-based compensation 407 321 1,582 1,226
    Other operating expense (income), net 44 35 139 117
    Losses (gains) on sales of marketable securities, net 1 (3 ) 2
    Other expense (income), net 91 (50 ) 203 48
    Deferred income taxes (2 ) (185 ) (136 ) (261 )
    Excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation (22 ) (121 ) 94 (199 )
    Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
    Inventories 721 699 (1,172 ) (1,245 )
    Accounts receivable, net and other 441 727 (1,324 ) (849 )
    Accounts payable (4,249 ) (4,675 ) 2,184 1,400
    Accrued expenses and other (940 ) (731 ) 500 708
    Additions to unearned revenue 1,803 1,092 5,144 3,100
    Amortization of previously unearned revenue (1,163 ) (732 ) (4,123 ) (2,564 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities (1,499 ) (2,502 ) 7,845 5,345
    INVESTING ACTIVITIES:
    Purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development (871 ) (1,080 ) (4,684 ) (3,854 )
    Acquisitions, net of cash acquired, and other (365 ) (1,345 ) (208 )
    Sales and maturities of marketable securities 375 593 3,131 2,299
    Purchases of marketable securities (986 ) (437 ) (3,091 ) (2,487 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities (1,847 ) (924 ) (5,989 ) (4,250 )
    FINANCING ACTIVITIES:
    Excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation 22 121 (94 ) 199
    Proceeds from long-term debt 183 65 6,478 426
    Repayments of long-term debt (316 ) (70 ) (760 ) (272 )
    Principal repayments of capital lease obligations (502 ) (249 ) (1,537 ) (863 )
    Principal repayments of finance lease obligations (39 ) (42 ) (132 ) (47 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities (652 ) (175 ) 3,955 (557 )
    Foreign-currency effect on cash and cash equivalents (322 ) 17 (648 ) 55
    Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents (4,320 ) (3,584 ) 5,163 593
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, END OF PERIOD $ 10,237 $ 5,074 $ 10,237 $ 5,074
    SUPPLEMENTAL CASH FLOW INFORMATION:
    Cash paid for interest on long-term debt $ 17 $ 18 $ 90 $ 102
    Cash paid for income taxes (net of refunds) 55 38 194 121
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases 954 716 4,246 2,243
    Property and equipment acquired under build-to-suit leases 103 126 897 852
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Operations
    (in millions, except per share data)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    March 31,
    2015 2014
    Net product sales $ 17,084 $ 15,705
    Net service sales 5,633 4,036
    Total net sales 22,717 19,741
    Operating expenses (1):
    Cost of sales 15,395 14,055
    Fulfillment 2,759 2,317
    Marketing 1,083 870
    Technology and content 2,754 1,991
    General and administrative 427 327
    Other operating expense (income), net 44 35
    Total operating expenses 22,462 19,595
    Income (loss) from operations 255 146
    Interest income 11 11
    Interest expense (115 ) (42 )
    Other income (expense), net (130 ) 5
    Total non-operating income (expense) (234 ) (26 )
    Income (loss) before income taxes 21 120
    Provision for income taxes (71 ) (73 )
    Equity-method investment activity, net of tax (7 ) 61
    Net income (loss) $ (57 ) $ 108
    Basic earnings per share $ (0.12 ) $ 0.23
    Diluted earnings per share $ (0.12 ) $ 0.23
    Weighted average shares used in computation of earnings per share:
    Basic 465 460
    Diluted 465 468
    _____________
    (1) Includes stock-based compensation as follows:
    Fulfillment $ 90 $ 81
    Marketing 35 27
    Technology and content 233 169
    General and administrative 49 44
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss)
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    March 31,
    2015 2014
    Net income (loss) $ (57 ) $ 108
    Other comprehensive income (loss):
    Foreign currency translation adjustments, net of tax of $(1) and $0 (243 ) 27
    Net change in unrealized gains on available-for-sale securities:
    Unrealized gains, net of tax of $0 and $(1) 1 1
    Reclassification adjustment for losses included in “Other income (expense), net,” net of tax of $0 and $0 1
    Net unrealized gains on available-for-sale securities 2 1
    Total other comprehensive income (loss) (241 ) 28
    Comprehensive income (loss) $ (298 ) $ 136
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Segment Information
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    March 31,
    2015 2014
    North America
    Net sales $ 13,406 $ 10,808
    Segment operating expenses (1) 12,889 10,518
    Segment operating income (loss) $ 517 $ 290
    International
    Net sales $ 7,745 $ 7,883
    Segment operating expenses (1) 7,821 7,916
    Segment operating income (loss) $ (76 ) $ (33 )
    AWS
    Net sales $ 1,566 $ 1,050
    Segment operating expenses (1) 1,301 805
    Segment operating income (loss) $ 265 $ 245
    Consolidated
    Net sales $ 22,717 $ 19,741
    Segment operating expenses (1) 22,011 19,239
    Segment operating income (loss) 706 502
    Stock-based compensation (407 ) (321 )
    Other operating income (expense), net (44 ) (35 )
    Income (loss) from operations 255 146
    Total non-operating income (expense) (234 ) (26 )
    Provision for income taxes (71 ) (73 )
    Equity-method investment activity, net of tax (7 ) 61
    Net income (loss) $ (57 ) $ 108
    Segment Highlights:
    Y/Y net sales growth:
    North America 24 % 23 %
    International (2 ) 18
    AWS 49 69
    Consolidated 15 23
    Net sales mix:
    North America 59 % 55 %
    International 34 40
    AWS 7 5
    Consolidated 100 % 100 %
    ______________________________

    (1) Excludes stock-based compensation and “Other operating expense (income), net,” which are not allocated to segments.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Net Sales Information
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    March 31,
    2015 2014
    Net Sales:
    North America
    Media $ 2,969 $ 2,825
    Electronics and other general merchandise 10,250 7,829
    Other (1) 187 154
    Total North America $ 13,406 $ 10,808
    International
    Media $ 2,320 $ 2,642
    Electronics and other general merchandise 5,378 5,188
    Other (1) 47 53
    Total International $ 7,745 $ 7,883
    Year-over-year Percentage Growth:
    North America
    Media 5 % 12 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 31 28
    Other 22 18
    Total North America 24 23
    International
    Media (12 )% 4 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 4 27
    Other (12 ) 13
    Total International (2 ) 18
    Year-over-year Percentage Growth, excluding the effect of foreign exchange rates:
    North America
    Media 5 % 13 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 31 28
    Other 22 19
    Total North America 24 23
    International
    Media 2 % 4 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 21 26
    Other 2 11
    Total International 14 18
    ______________________________

    (1) Includes sales from non-retail activities, such as certain advertising services and our co-branded credit card agreements.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Balance Sheets
    (in millions, except per share data)
    March 31, 2015 December 31, 2014
    (unaudited)
    ASSETS
    Current assets:
    Cash and cash equivalents $ 10,237 $ 14,557
    Marketable securities 3,544 2,859
    Inventories 7,369 8,299
    Accounts receivable, net and other 4,772 5,612
    Total current assets 25,922 31,327
    Property and equipment, net 17,736 16,967
    Goodwill 3,491 3,319
    Other assets 2,926 2,892
    Total assets $ 50,075 $ 54,505
    LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
    Current liabilities:
    Accounts payable $ 11,917 $ 16,459
    Accrued expenses and other 8,840 9,807
    Unearned revenue 2,420 1,823
    Total current liabilities 23,177 28,089
    Long-term debt 8,257 8,265
    Other long-term liabilities 7,768 7,410
    Commitments and contingencies
    Stockholders’ equity:
    Preferred stock, $0.01 par value:
    Authorized shares — 500
    Issued and outstanding shares — none
    Common stock, $0.01 par value:
    Authorized shares — 5,000
    Issued shares — 489 and 488
    Outstanding shares — 466 and 465 5 5
    Treasury stock, at cost (1,837 ) (1,837 )
    Additional paid-in capital 11,565 11,135
    Accumulated other comprehensive loss (752 ) (511 )
    Retained earnings 1,892 1,949
    Total stockholders’ equity 10,873 10,741
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $ 50,075 $ 54,505
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions, except per share data)
    (unaudited)
    Q1 2014 Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Y/Y %
    Change
    Cash Flows and Shares
    Operating cash flow — trailing twelve months (TTM) $ 5,345 $ 5,327 $ 5,705 $ 6,842 $ 7,845 47 %
    Purchases of property and equipment (incl. internal-use software & website development) — TTM $ 3,854 $ 4,288 $ 4,628 $ 4,893 $ 4,684 22 %
    Principal repayments of capital lease obligations — TTM $ 863 $ 969 $ 1,103 $ 1,285 $ 1,537 78 %
    Principal repayments of finance lease obligations — TTM $ 47 $ 60 $ 73 $ 135 $ 132 178 %
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases — TTM $ 2,243 $ 2,716 $ 3,347 $ 4,008 $ 4,246 89 %
    Free cash flow — TTM (1) $ 1,491 $ 1,039 $ 1,077 $ 1,949 $ 3,161 112 %
    Free cash flow — TTM Y/Y growth (decline) 744 % 292 % 178 % (4 )% 112 % N/A
    Invested capital (2) $ 16,681 $ 17,743 $ 18,715 $ 21,021 $ 23,090 38 %
    Return on invested capital (3) 9 % 6 % 6 % 9 % 14 % N/A
    Free cash flow less lease principal repayments — TTM (4) $ 581 $ 10 $ (99 ) $ 529 $ 1,492 157 %
    Free cash flow less finance principal lease repayments and capital acquired under capital leases — TTM (5) $ (799 ) $ (1,737 ) $ (2,343 ) $ (2,194 ) $ (1,217 ) 52 %
    Common shares and stock-based awards outstanding 476 480 481 483 483 2 %
    Common shares outstanding 460 462 463 465 466 1 %
    Stock awards outstanding 16 18 18 18 17 11 %
    Stock awards outstanding — % of common shares outstanding 3.5 % 3.9 % 3.9 % 3.8 % 3.8 % N/A
    Results of Operations
    Worldwide (WW) net sales $ 19,741 $ 19,340 $ 20,579 $ 29,328 $ 22,717 15 %
    WW net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 23 % 22 % 20 % 18 % 22 % N/A
    WW net sales — TTM $ 78,124 $ 81,759 $ 85,246 $ 88,988 $ 91,963 18 %
    WW net sales — TTM Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 24 % 23 % 22 % 20 % 20 % N/A
    Operating income (loss) $ 146 $ (15 ) $ (544 ) $ 591 $ 255 74 %
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (29 )% (158 )% N/A 22 % 90 % N/A
    Operating margin — % of WW net sales 0.7 % (0.1 )% (2.6 )% 2.0 % 1.1 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 710 $ 617 $ 97 $ 178 $ 287 (60 )%
    Operating income — TTM Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X 7 % (11 )% (94 )% (79 )% (56 )% N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of WW net sales 0.9 % 0.8 % 0.1 % 0.2 % 0.3 % N/A
    Net income (loss) $ 108 $ (126 ) $ (437 ) $ 214 $ (57 ) (153 )%
    Net income (loss) per diluted share $ 0.23 $ (0.27 ) $ (0.95 ) $ 0.45 $ (0.12 ) (152 )%
    Net income (loss) — TTM $ 299 $ 181 $ (216 ) $ (241 ) $ (405 ) (236 )%
    Net income (loss) per diluted share — TTM $ 0.64 $ 0.39 $ (0.47 ) $ (0.52 ) $ (0.88 ) (234 )%
    ______________________________
    (1) “Free cash flow” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less cash expenditures for purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development.
    (2) Average Total Assets minus Current Liabilities (excluding current portion of Long-Term Debt) over five quarter ends.
    (3) TTM Free Cash Flow divided by Invested Capital.
    (4) “Free cash flow less lease principal repayments” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities, less (i) purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, (ii) principal repayments of capital lease obligations, and (iii) principal repayments of finance lease obligations. Free cash flow less lease principal repayments approximates the actual payments of cash for our capital and finance leases.
    (5) “Free cash flow less finance principal lease repayments and capital acquired under capital leases” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities, less (i) purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, (ii) principal repayments of finance lease obligations, and (iii) property and equipment acquired under capital leases. In this measure, property and equipment acquired under capital leases is reflected as if these assets had been purchased for cash, which is not the case as these assets have been leased.
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Q1 2014 Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Y/Y %
    Change
    Segments
    North America Segment:
    Net sales $ 10,808 $ 10,994 $ 11,699 $ 17,333 $ 13,406 24 %
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 23 % 25 % 23 % 21 % 24 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM $ 50,834 $ 53,432 23 %
    Operating income (loss) $ 290 $ 329 $ (60 ) $ 733 $ 517 79 %
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X 77 % N/A
    Operating margin — % of North America net sales 2.7 % 3.0 % (0.5 )% 4.2 % 3.9 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 1,292 $ 1,520 N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of North America net sales 2.5 % 2.8 % N/A
    International Segment:
    Net sales $ 7,883 $ 7,341 $ 7,711 $ 10,575 $ 7,745 (2 )%
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 18 % 14 % 13 % 12 % 14 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM $ 33,510 $ 33,371 7 %
    Net sales — TTM % of WW net sales 38 % 36 % N/A
    Operating income (loss) $ (33 ) $ (2 ) $ (174 ) $ 65 $ (76 ) 137 %
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X N/A N/A
    Operating margin — % of International net sales (0.4 )% % (2.3 )% 0.6 % (1.0 )% N/A
    Operating income (loss) — TTM $ (144 ) $ (188 ) N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of International net sales (0.4 )% (0.6 )% N/A
    AWS Segment:
    Net sales $ 1,050 $ 1,005 $ 1,169 $ 1,420 $ 1,566 49 %
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 69 % 43 % 43 % 47 % 49 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM $ 4,644 $ 5,160 46 %
    Net sales — TTM % of WW net sales 5 % 6 % N/A
    Operating income $ 245 $ 77 $ 98 $ 240 $ 265 8 %
    Operating income — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (13 )% N/A
    Operating margin — % of AWS net sales 23.3 % 7.7 % 8.4 % 16.9 % 16.9 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 660 $ 680 N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of AWS net sales 14.2 % 13.2 % N/A
    Consolidated Segments:
    Operating expenses (6) $ 19,239 $ 18,936 $ 20,715 $ 28,290 $ 22,011 14 %
    Operating expenses — TTM (6) $ 76,069 $ 79,710 $ 83,599 $ 87,180 $ 89,951 18 %
    Operating income (loss) $ 502 $ 404 $ (136 ) $ 1,038 $ 706 41 %
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X 10 % (9 )% (151 )% 22 % 45 % N/A
    Operating margin — % of Consolidated net sales 2.5 % 2.1 % (0.7 )% 3.5 % 3.1 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 2,055 $ 2,049 $ 1,647 $ 1,808 $ 2,012 (2 )%
    Operating income — TTM Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X 20 % 14 % (12 )% (10 )% (1 )% N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of Consolidated net sales 2.6 % 2.5 % 1.9 % 2.0 % 2.2 % N/A
    ______________________________
    (6) Represents cost of sales, fulfillment, marketing, technology and content, and general and administrative operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation.
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions, except inventory turnover, accounts payable days and employee data)
    (unaudited)
    Q1 2014 Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Y/Y %
    Change
    Supplemental
    Supplemental North America Segment Net Sales:
    Media $ 2,825 $ 2,464 $ 2,734 $ 3,544 $ 2,969 5 %
    Media — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 13 % 14 % 5 % 1 % 5 % N/A
    Media — TTM $ 11,121 $ 11,411 $ 11,536 $ 11,567 $ 11,711 5 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise $ 7,829 $ 8,366 $ 8,793 $ 13,529 $ 10,250 31 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 28 % 29 % 31 % 27 % 31 % N/A
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM $ 31,686 $ 33,575 $ 35,636 $ 38,517 $ 40,938 29 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM % of North America net sales 73 % 74 % 74 % 76 % 77 % N/A
    Other $ 154 $ 164 $ 172 $ 260 $ 187 22 %
    Supplemental International Segment Net Sales:
    Media $ 2,642 $ 2,380 $ 2,510 $ 3,406 $ 2,320 (12 )%
    Media — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 4 % 4 % 3 % (1 )% 2 % N/A
    Media — TTM $ 11,004 $ 11,160 $ 11,246 $ 10,938 $ 10,615 (4 )%
    Electronics and other general merchandise $ 5,188 $ 4,912 $ 5,160 $ 7,109 $ 5,378 4 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 26 % 20 % 19 % 19 % 21 % N/A
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM $ 19,919 $ 20,894 $ 21,737 $ 22,369 $ 22,559 13 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM % of International net sales 64 % 65 % 65 % 67 % 68 % N/A
    Other $ 53 $ 49 $ 41 $ 60 $ 47 (12 )%
    Balance Sheet
    Cash and marketable securities $ 8,666 $ 7,986 $ 6,883 $ 17,416 $ 13,781 59 %
    Inventory, net — ending $ 6,716 $ 6,644 $ 7,316 $ 8,299 $ 7,369 10 %
    Inventory turnover, average — TTM 9.1 9.1 8.9 8.6 8.8 (3 )%
    Property and equipment, net $ 12,267 $ 14,089 $ 15,702 $ 16,967 $ 17,736 45 %
    Accounts payable — ending $ 10,590 $ 10,457 $ 11,811 $ 16,459 $ 11,917 13 %
    Accounts payable days — ending 68 71 74 73 70 3 %
    Other
    WW shipping revenue $ 849 $ 889 $ 1,048 $ 1,701 $ 1,299 53 %
    WW shipping costs $ 1,829 $ 1,812 $ 2,020 $ 3,049 $ 2,309 26 %
    WW net shipping costs $ 980 $ 923 $ 972 $ 1,348 $ 1,010 3 %
    WW net shipping costs — % of net sales (7) 5.2 % 5.0 % 5.0 % 4.8 % 4.8 % N/A
    Employees (full-time and part-time; excludes contractors & temporary personnel) 124,600 132,600 149,500 154,100 165,000 32 %
    ______________________________

    (7) Includes North America and International segment net sales.

    Amazon.com, Inc.
    Certain Definitions

    Customer Accounts

    • References to customers mean customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses, established either when a customer places an order or when a customer orders from other sellers on our websites. Customer accounts exclude certain customers, including customers associated with certain of our acquisitions, Amazon Payments customers, AWS customers, and the customers of select companies with whom we have a technology alliance or marketing and promotional relationship. Customers are considered active when they have placed an order during the preceding twelve-month period.

    Seller Accounts

    • References to sellers means seller accounts, which are established when a seller receives an order from a customer account. Sellers are considered active when they have received an order from a customer during the preceding twelve-month period.

    AWS Customers

    • References to AWS customers mean unique AWS customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses that are eligible to use AWS services. This includes AWS accounts in the AWS free tier. Multiple users accessing AWS services via one account are counted as a single account. Customers are considered active when they have had AWS usage activity during the preceding one-month period.

    Units

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Segment Financial Information

    Effective Q1 2015, Amazon.com, Inc. has three segments: North America, International, and AWS. These segments reflect changes in the way Amazon.com, Inc. evaluates its business performance and manages its operations. Historical results for 2014 and 2013 for the North America, International, and AWS segments are presented below.

    The North America segment consists primarily of amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through North America-focused websites such as www.amazon.comwww.amazon.ca, and www.amazon.com.mx. This segment includes export sales from these websites.

    The International segment consists primarily of amounts earned from retail sales of consumer products (including from sellers) and subscriptions through internationally-focused websites. This segment includes export sales from these internationally-focused websites (including export sales from these sites to customers in the U.S. and Canada), but excludes export sales from our North American websites.

    The AWS segment consists of amounts earned from sales of compute, storage, database, and other AWS service offerings for start-ups, enterprises, government agencies, and academic institutions.

    We allocate to segment results the operating expenses “Fulfillment,” “Marketing,” “Technology and content,” and “General and administrative” based on usage, which is generally reflected in the segment in which the costs are incurred. In conjunction with creating a separate reportable segment for AWS, we have made other allocation changes among the North America and International segments to reflect the relative contribution provided to both segments. The majority of technology infrastructure costs are allocated to the AWS segment based on usage. The majority of the remaining non-infrastructure technology costs are incurred in the U.S. and are allocated to our North America segment. We exclude from our allocations the portions of these operating expense lines attributable to stock-based compensation. We do not allocate the line item “Other operating expense (income), net” to our segment operating results. There are no internal revenue transactions between our reportable segments.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Segment Financial Information
    Two years of historical financial information on reportable segments and reconciliation to consolidated net income (loss) using the new segment presentation are as follows (in millions):
    Year Ended Three Months Ended Year Ended
    December 31,
    2014
    December 31,
    2014
    September 30,
    2014
    June 30,
    2014
    March 31,
    2014
    December 31,
    2013
    North America
    Net sales $ 50,834 $ 17,333 $ 11,699 $ 10,994 $ 10,808 $ 41,410
    Segment operating expenses (1) 49,542 16,600 11,759 10,665 10,518 40,244
    Segment operating income (loss) $ 1,292 $ 733 $ (60 ) $ 329 $ 290 $ 1,166
    International
    Net sales $ 33,510 $ 10,575 $ 7,711 $ 7,341 $ 7,883 $ 29,934
    Segment operating expenses (1) 33,654 10,510 7,885 7,343 7,916 29,780
    Segment operating income (loss) $ (144 ) $ 65 $ (174 ) $ (2 ) $ (33 ) $ 154
    AWS
    Net sales $ 4,644 $ 1,420 $ 1,169 $ 1,005 $ 1,050 $ 3,108
    Segment operating expenses (1) 3,984 1,180 1,071 928 805 2,435
    Segment operating income $ 660 $ 240 $ 98 $ 77 $ 245 $ 673
    Consolidated
    Net sales $ 88,988 $ 29,328 $ 20,579 $ 19,340 $ 19,741 $ 74,452
    Segment operating expenses (1) 87,180 28,290 20,715 18,936 19,239 72,459
    Segment operating income (loss) 1,808 1,038 (136 ) 404 502 1,993
    Stock-based compensation (1,497 ) (408 ) (377 ) (391 ) (321 ) (1,134 )
    Other operating income (expense), net (133 ) (39 ) (31 ) (28 ) (35 ) (114 )
    Income (loss) from operations 178 591 (544 ) (15 ) 146 745
    Total non-operating income (expense) (289 ) (162 ) (90 ) (12 ) (26 ) (239 )
    Benefit (provision) for income taxes (167 ) (205 ) 205 (94 ) (73 ) (161 )
    Equity-method investment activity, net of tax 37 (10 ) (8 ) (5 ) 61 (71 )
    Net income (loss) $ (241 ) $ 214 $ (437 ) $ (126 ) $ 108 $ 274
    Segment Highlights:
    Y/Y net sales growth:
    North America 23 % 21 % 23 % 25 % 23 % 26 %
    International 12 3 14 18 18 14
    AWS 49 47 43 43 69 69
    Consolidated 20 15 20 23 23 22
    Net sales mix:
    North America 57 % 59 % 57 % 57 % 55 % 56 %
    International 38 36 37 38 40 40
    AWS 5 5 6 5 5 4
    Consolidated 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 %
    _________________

    (1) Excludes stock-based compensation and “Other operating expense (income), net” which are not allocated to segments.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Segment Financial Information
    Segment Assets
    Total segment assets exclude corporate assets, such as cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, other long-term investments, corporate facilities, goodwill and other acquired intangible assets, capitalized internal-use software and website development costs, and tax assets. Technology infrastructure assets are allocated among the segments based on usage, with the majority allocated to the AWS segment. Total segment assets reconciled to consolidated amounts are as follows (in millions):
    December 31,
    2014 2013
    North America (1) $ 13,257 $ 9,991
    International (1) 6,747 6,199
    AWS (2) 6,981 3,840
    Corporate 27,520 20,129
    Consolidated $ 54,505 $ 40,159
    _____________________________
    (1) North America and International segment assets primarily consist of inventory, accounts receivable, and property and equipment.
    (2) AWS segment assets primarily consist of property and equipment and accounts receivable.
    Property and Equipment, Net
    Property and equipment, net by segment is as follows (in millions):
    December 31,
    2014 2013
    North America $ 5,373 $ 3,477
    International 2,000 1,549
    AWS 6,043 3,253
    Corporate 3,551 2,670
    Consolidated $ 16,967 $ 10,949
    Property and Equipment Additions
    Total property and equipment additions by segment are as follows (in millions):
    December 31,
    2014 2013
    North America (1) $ 2,833 $ 2,326
    International (1) 767 851
    AWS (2) 4,295 2,215
    Corporate 1,586 981
    Consolidated $ 9,481 $ 6,373
    ___ _ ____________
    (1) Includes property and equipment added under capital leases of $887 million and $555 million in 2014 and 2013, and under other financing arrangements of $599 million and $715 million in 2014 and 2013.
    (2) Includes property and equipment added under capital leases of $3.0 billion and $1.3 billion in 2014 and 2013, and under other financing arrangements of $62 million and $67 million in 2014 and 2013.
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Segment Financial Information
    Depreciation Expense
    Depreciation expense, including amortization of capitalized internal-use software and website development costs and other corporate property and equipment depreciation expense, are allocated to all segments based on usage. Total depreciation expense, by segment, is as follows (in millions):
    Year Ended December 31,
    2014 2013
    North America $ 1,203 $ 914
    International 740 583
    AWS 1,673 963
    Consolidated $ 3,616 $ 2,460

     

    Source: Amazon.com, Inc.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Orphan Black Is Streaming on Amazon for Free Today

    If you’ve been waiting to watch the first season of the hit BBC show Orphan Black, today’s your day.

    Amazon is letting anyone and everyone stream the first season – 10 episodes – for free. Both seasons one and two of Orphan Black are on Amazon Prime Instant Video, which means subscribers can watch them.

    But to the rest of you non-Amazon Prime subscribers, today may prove your only chance.

    The free streaming window will close at 11:59 pm PT Friday night, so you better get going.

    “Orphan Black has been extremely popular with Prime members since the series became available exclusively in Prime Instant Video—that’s why we’re excited to make season one available to all customers for free, for a day,” said Michael Paull, Vice President of Digital Video at Amazon. “We saw an incredible response when we made our Golden Globe-winning original series Transparent available to everyone, so we’re giving customers an opportunity to try out another great series that Prime members already love.”

    If you’re conflicted, the appropriate response to this is cool, but also gee thanks for the day, Amazon.

    “For fans of television who have heard the critical and fan buzz around Orphan Black, but just haven’t had gotten to it, this offering from Amazon is a treat—and available to not only existing Prime members but everyone who goes to Amazon during this 24 hour period. You better cancel all meetings and take Friday off from work,” said Matt Forde, EVP, Sales, Co-productions and Digital Distribution, BBC Worldwide North America.

    Easier said than done, Mr. Forde.

    Amazon is running this promotion to mark the kick-off of season three, which will debut this Saturday at 9pm ET on BBC AMERICA.

    So, if you really do have time off today – start your Orphan Black journey. You won’t be disappointed.

    Image via Orphan Black, Facebook

  • Amazon Web Services Gets Desktop App Marketplace

    Amazon announced the launch of a new marketplace for desktop apps on the Amazon Web Services Marketplace, enabling users to find and buy desktop applications for Amazon WorkSpaces. Virtual desktop customers of Amazon WorkSpaces can access it, and find over 100 apps in eleven categories. You pay by the month for any app you use.

    The company also announced Amazon WorkSpaces Application Manager (Amazon WAM), which packages and delivers apps to WorkSpaces so they run as if they were natively installed, but are controlled by IT admins. This makes for simplified maintenance and auditability, according to the company.

    “Today, many companies deploy a mix of upwards of 200 software titles to their desktops,” Amazon says. “This requires them to invest in infrastructure to manage their applications and track usage, which adds cost and complexity. Further, it is difficult to manage upgrades and retirement of applications when they are no longer needed. Amazon WAM makes it easy to manage and deploy these applications on-demand and at scale. With Amazon WAM, administrators can build and curate a selection of desktop applications, and then control which users have access to them. Users can then select and install only the applications they need, and administrators can track usage in real-time so they only pay for what their employees use. In addition to selecting applications from the AWS Marketplace, businesses can upload their own line of business applications and control employee access to them.”

    “With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, Amazon WorkSpaces customers are able to provision a high-quality, cloud-based desktop experience for their end users at half the cost of other virtual desktop infrastructure solutions,” adds Gene Farrell, General Manager of AWS Enterprise Applications. “By introducing the AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps and Amazon WAM, AWS is adding even more value to the Amazon WorkSpaces experience by helping organizations reduce the complexity of selecting, provisioning, and deploying applications. With pay-as-you-go monthly pricing and end-user self-provisioning of applications, customers will lower the costs associated with provisioning and maintaining applications for their workforce.”

    Here’s a glimpse of the types of apps you can expect to find in the marketplace:

    The marketplace and WAM aren’t the only new AWS offerings. The company also announced that it’s giving developers its machine learning capabilities with a new Amazon Machine Learning service, which includes APIs and wizards to guide them through creating and tuning machine learning models. More on that here.

    Image via Amazon

  • Amazon Gives Its Machine Learning Capabilities To Developers

    Amazon Gives Its Machine Learning Capabilities To Developers

    Amazon is giving its machine learning capabilities to developers as an Amazon Web Services offering. According to the company, it makes it easier for developers to use historical data to build and deploy predictive models, which can be used for things like detecting problematic transactions, preventing customer churn, and improving customer support.

    The offering is based on the same machine learning technology Amazon’s own developers use, which the company says includes generating over 50 billion predictions a week.

    Amazon Machine Learning hooks developers up with APIs and wizards that guide them through creating and tuning machine learning models that can be “easily deployed and scale to support billions of predictions.”

    It’s all integrated with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), so it will work with data that’s already stored in the AWS cloud.

    “Until now, very few developers have been able to build applications with machine learning capabilities because doing so required expertise in statistics, data analysis, and machine learning,” Amazon explains. “In addition, the traditional process for applying machine learning involves many manual, repetitive, and error-prone tasks such as computing summary statistics, performing data analysis, using machine learning algorithms to train a model based on data, evaluating and fine tuning the model, and then generating predictions using the model. Amazon Machine Learning makes machine learning broadly accessible to all software developers by abstracting away this complexity and automating these steps. With Amazon Machine Learning, developers can use the AWS Management Console or APIs to quickly create as many models as they need, and generate predictions from them with high throughput without worrying about provisioning hardware, distributing and scaling the computational load, managing dependencies, or monitoring and troubleshooting the infrastructure. There is no setup cost, and developers pay as they go so they can start small and scale as an application grows.”

    “Amazon has a long legacy in machine learning. It powers the product recommendations customers receive on Amazon.com, it is what makes Amazon Echo able to respond to your voice, and it is what allows us to unload an entire truck full of products and make them available for purchase in as little as 30 minutes,” adds Jeff Bilger, Senior Manager of Amazon Machine Learning. “Early on, we recognized that the potential of machine learning could only be realized if we made it accessible to every developer across Amazon. Amazon Machine Learning is the result of everything we’ve learned in the process of enabling thousands of Amazon developers to quickly build models, experiment, and then scale to power planet-scale predictive applications.”

    Amazon Machine Learning lets developers visualize statistical properties of datasets that will be used to train the model to find data patterns, which the company says saves time by helping devs understand and identify data distributions and missing or invalid values before actually training the model. The training data is automatically transformed, and the machine learning algorithms are optimized so the developers “don’t need a deep understanding” of such algorithms or tuning parameters to come up with the best possible solution.

    The offering also includes built-in quality alerts to help developers build and refine models.

    According to Amazon, in 20 minutes, one developer was able to use the technology to solve a problem that had taken two developers 45 days to solve. None of them had any experience in machine learning.

    Comcast is already using Amazon Machine Learning for data science analytics.

    “We particularly liked the ability to visually explore the tradeoff between parameter settings and classification performance during the evaluation,” said Jan Neumann, Manager of a Data Science Research team at Comcast. “With Amazon Machine Learning it was quite simple to prepare and clean the input data and train a model on large data sets in short order.”

    Now, if they can just come up with an algorithm for customer service.

    On the Amazon Machine Learning site, the company lists the following as popular use cases: fraud detection, document classification, content personalization, customer churn prediction, propensity modeling for marketing campaigns, and automated solution recommendation for customer support.

    Image via YouTube