Amazon: Transitioning Into a Technology and “Cloud Services” Company

The headlines read “Amazon Earnings Double” as news of amazon.com’s quarterly earnings hit the web. This is not true, by the way. The numbers include a one-time boost from the sale of their European DVD rental company … oops. Amazon’s North American sales remained strong growing 35% year over year. As for high fuel costs and the future of free shipping? Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos said “Since we offer free shipping and Amazon Prime offers fast free shipping, the burden is upon us to make sure that we can do that in a way that is economical for us, so that customers can continue to enjoy those free shipping offers.” All in all, it was a pretty good earnings report for Amazon and the stock is up about 8% on the news. I’ve read a bunch of analysts’ reports looking for a mention of the fact that Amazon is in the middle of a transition... [read full story]