Amazon Looking For Investors

Amazon has issued its first bonds in nearly 15 years as it looks to borrow money while interest rates are low.

Amazon’s position as the undisputed king of online retail has put the company in a good position to take advantage of cheap borrowing rates. Amazon issued three, five and 10-year bonds at 0.38, 0.63 and 0.93 percent above US Treasury rates with investors clamouring to get a ride on the firm’s coattails.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s $3bn bond issue has attracted more than $10bn in investor interest. According to ratings agency Moody’s, the firm will use the cash generated in the bond sale to make investments such as buying its corporate headquarters.

Standard and Poor’s rated Amazon’s debt as AA- and said there was minimal financial risk with Amazon. While Moody’s rated the bonds at Baa1, the agency also forecast strong growth in sales for Amazon in the coming years. It seems that Amazon, given that it hasn’t got any other bonds, is proving popular with bond investors despite reporting low profits and recently having been grilled in the UK Parliament over allegations of tax avoidance.

Amazon has been diversifying the ways it generates cash, and while it long ago moved away from simply selling books, the firm is a big player in cloud services through its Amazon Web Services division and is aggressively marketing its own brand of electronics devices in the Kindle range of ebook readers and tablets.

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Tech CEOs Ready For Tablet Wars

The biggest names in consumer technology, smacked by a string of disappointing quarterly results this month, are gearing up for what appears to be the fiercest holiday battle in years.

Investors and consumers have already largely written off flaccid quarterly numbers from tech behemoths like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon. What counts is the next 60 days, when the biggest names in technology do battle at a near-unprecedented scale and pace.

Just last Thursday, Amazon compared its Kindle Fire with Apple’s new iPad mini, point by point, in its earnings release, an unusual forum to name rivals. Apple CEO Tim Cook compared Microsoft’s Surface tablet to an over-engineered car that can fly and float. And Microsoft went for the iPad, saying its Surface boasted twice its storage.

All three tablets will vie for the shrinking consumer dollar these holidays. By tech standards, it’s getting ugly.

“The tablet space is where the growth is. That’s why they are all fighting over it. PC shipments are down and some tablet buyers may never buy another PC,” said Michael Allenson, strategic consulting director in the Technology and Telecom Research Group at Maritz Research.

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Will Microsoft Sell The Surface RT For $199?

Microsoft’s Surface for Windows RT tablet will sell for $199 when it ships on Oct. 26, according to an unidentified source in an Engadget story.

At that price, Microsoft would surely be selling below its costs, analysts said. However, Microsoft could take the loss in hopes of making up revenues on apps and media sales for the device.

Also, Microsoft would be trying to make an impact against the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire sold at the same $199 price, since Microsoft arrived arrived late to the tablet game.

Engadget said it learned the price from an inside source at Microsoft’s recent Tech Ready15 conference, where launch details for Surface were announced.

Microsoft said the Surface tablet would be priced in-line with Windows RT tablets from other makers such as Asus, which hasn’t announced a price. However, given the components in the Surface and other Windows RT tablets, analysts have suggested it could cost more than $600.

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E-Readers More Popular Than Tablets

More people are using e-readers than tablets, according to a Pew Research Institute study.

The Pew survey of 2,277 adults that finished on May 22 found that 12% of Americans owned an e-reader device in May compared to 8% who owned a tablet like Apple’s iPad.

Also, ownership grew faster for e-readers like the Nook or Kindle than ownership of tablets over the six months between November 2010 and May, the Pew survey found.

The telephone survey found that Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing ownership group of both e-reader and tablet devices.

E-reader ownership increased from 6% of American adults in November 2010 to 12% in May, Pew said.

Tablet ownership grew from 5% to 8% over the same period. Tablet ownership had been increasing “relatively quickly” through Nov. 2010, Pew said, but growth was virtually flat from January to May, growing from only from 7% to 8%.

Pew also found that 3% of U.S. adults own both kinds of devices, while 9% own an e-reader but not a tablet, and 5% own a tablet but not an e-reader.

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Microsoft Eyeing More Software For The iPad

The current rumor on the street is that Microsoft might be looking beyond the recently released OneNote for iPad. Insiders are saying Microsoft is closely monitoring the number of downloads of OneNote for iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch to perhaps gauge the possible interest in adding more productivity software for Apple iOS suite of products. Read More…..