Amazon

Amazon profit drops 96%

Profits sank even as sales jumped as Amazon continues to invest in its long-term future.

FORTUNE -- Despite a healthy bump in sales across multiple businesses, Amazon's profits took a hit in the second quarter.

The company reported a 29% sales increase to $12.83 billion, up from $9.9 billion the same time last year. That was off from Wall Street's estimates, which had predicted revenues of $12.9 billion. Profits dropped 96% to MORE

Today in Tech: Will Amazon same-day delivery destroy local retail?

Why a cloud looms over one of tech's most exclusive gatherings this year; how to survive after RIM. 

Hackers expose 453,000 credentials allegedly taken from Yahoo service [ARSTECHNICA]

Hackers posted what appear to be login credentials for more than 453,000 user accounts that they said they retrieved in plaintext from an unidentified service on Yahoo. ... To support their claim, the hackers posted what they said were the plaintext credentials for 453,492 Yahoo MORE

Today in Tech: A peek at the next Kindle Fire?

Why Amazon's purported smartphone is launching a tech war; is the death of cash imminent?

Amazon's next Kindle Fire will ship in Q3 with improved display [ALLTHINGSD]

The next iteration of the Fire will be thinner and lighter than the original. It will also have a built-in camera and a much-improved display. And, more importantly, developers familiar with the device have been instructed to build their apps for a display with a 1280 x MORE

Today in Tech: Amazon crafting iPhone competitor?

How Amazon could tackle smartphones with one of its own; what it's like to live at a 'hacker hostel'

Amazon's said to plan smartphone to vie with Apple [BLOOMBERG]

Foxconn International Holdings Ltd., the Chinese mobile-phone maker, is working with Amazon on the device, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Amazon is seeking to complement the smartphone strategy by acquiring patents that MORE

Kindle sales cooling down, Fire heating up?

The e-reader may be getting ready to take a permanent backseat to the sexier tablet.

FORTUNE -- Are people tiring of black-and-white e-readers? It seems that way.

According to a recent report from Pacific Crest Securities, a Portland, Oregon-based investment bank, orders for components used in Amazon's standard e-readers have fallen 75% from the bank's previous expectations.

We still expect new multi-touch, black-and-white devices to launch in Q3, but we are cutting our MORE

No, Virginia, e-books don't publish themselves

Ken Auletta addresses one of the popular myths of the Internet

FORTUNE -- Whenever I write about the e-book business -- especially in the context of the Justice Department's antitrust suit against Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers -- someone in the comment stream invariably suggests that e-books are vastly overpriced because the publishers who sell them incur none of the usual costs of printing and distribution.

E-books don't write or edit MORE

What will happen to Amazon's massive cloud business?

The Seattle tech giant's AWS has midwifed some of the world's most popular startups. That could put it on a collision course with Amazon's mainline business.

FORTUNE -- When Amazon Web Services emerged in 2006, it was questioned far and wide. What, exactly, was the online mega-retailer doing dabbling in web infrastructure?

The move to provide services that have widely become known as cloud computing even puzzled some inside the company. "It MORE

Steve Jobs on camera: 'The publishers are actually going to withhold their books from Amazon'

Telegraphing an alleged price-fixing conspiracy 2 years before the DOJ caught up to it

FORTUNE -- Paid Content's Laura Hazard Owen, combing through documents newly unredacted in the states' (as opposed to the U.S. Department of Justice's) antitrust complaint against Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers, uncovered a gem: a blunt Steve Jobs e-mail that basically hands the attorneys general their price-fixing case.

In a note to a publishing executive nervous about MORE

How is AMZN worth 13 AAPLs?

There seems to be a growing disconnect in Wall Street's valuations

FORTUNE -- I know that comparisons, as Shakespeare's Dogberry put it, are supposed to be odorous, but this one is beginning to stink.

How can Apple (AAPL), with $110 billion in the bank, annual sales of $140 billion and earnings that nearly double every year, be valued so much lower than Amazon (AMZN), which has $6 billion in the bank, sales MORE

How Amazon learned to love veterans

Won over by their logistical know-how and "bias for action," the online retailer is on a military hiring spree.

FORTUNE -- In a world where the typical preparation for becoming a junior executive at a Fortune 500 company is to go to college, sign on to some big corporation's management-training program, and perhaps pick up an MBA, Dennis Clancey stands out. The fresh-faced 29-year-old is an operations manager at an Amazon.com warehouse in MORE