US court grants Amazon motion for pause in Microsoft's Pentagon deal

Current Affairs
A US judge on Thursday allowed Amazon.com Inc's solicitation to briefly stop the US Department of Defense and Microsoft Corp from pushing ahead on an up-to-$10 billion (£8 billion) distributed computing bargain that Amazon says reflected undue impact by President Donald Trump.
Amazon, which had been viewed as a leader to win the agreement, recorded a claim in November only weeks after the agreement was granted to Microsoft. Trump has openly mocked Amazon head Jeff Bezos and more than once scrutinized the organization. Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith gave a fundamental directive however didn't discharge her composed conclusion. She additionally requested Amazon to post $42 million in the occasion the order was given illegitimately.
The Amazon claim said the Defense Department's choice was loaded with "intolerable blunders," which were an aftereffect of "inappropriate weight from President Donald Trump, who propelled rehashed open and in the background assaults" to guide the agreement away from Amazon "to hurt his apparent political adversary" Bezos.
Bezos additionally claims the Washington Post, whose inclusion has been incredulous of Trump and which has as often as possible been an objective of thorns by Trump about the news media. The Pentagon, which had wanted to begin take a shot at the agreement on Friday, said it was frustrated in the decision.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Carver, a Defense Department representative, said the Pentagon accepted "the moves made right now superfluously deferred actualizing DoD's modernization system and denied our warfighters of a lot of abilities they earnestly need." It included it stayed "certain about our honor of the JEDI Cloud agreement to Microsoft." ...READ MORE

Amazon doing extremely well in India; hope for regulatory stability: Bezos

International News
E-commerce giant Amazon is doing "extremely well" in India, its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said while expressing hope for regulatory stability in the country.
Bezos' remarks came in response to a question on Amazon's concerns over some Indian policies with regard to digitization.
"Regulatory stability is the thing that we would always hope for India. Whatever the regulations are ... they are stable in time and that's one of the things we're hoping will now be true. We'll see," Bezos, 55, told reporters on the sidelines of his induction into the National Portrait Gallery here on Sunday.
He said Amazon was doing very well in India.
"Our business in India is doing extremely well. It's growing very rapidly," Bezos said.
He said the head of his India operations Amit Agarwal, with whom he has worked for 20 years, was an extraordinary leader and is doing really well.
Responding to another question, the Amazon head said he "definitely" wants to go to space, asserting that he is having a great deal of fun doing everything that he does.
Ruling out a 2020 White House run, Bezos said he has a lot of other things that he wants to accomplish and is currently focused on them."Governing and running are two different skill sets," he said.The US-based Amazon is pumping in over Rs 4,400 crore (more than $600 million) in its various units in India including marketplace and food retail to provide them more ammunition to compete against arch-rival Flipkart.

Amazon, which is locked in a battle against Flipkart, had registered cumulative losses of over Rs 7,000 crore across various units in 2018-19...READ MORE

Amazon challenges Pentagon's $10-billion cloud deal with Microsoft

International News
Amazon has challenged the awarding of a USD 10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft, alleging "unmistakable bias" in the process.
The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence.
"It's critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence," a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services said on Thursday.
"Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias." Amazon said it filed a notice in US court last week signaling its intent to protest the handling of the bidding process.US President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Amazon and company founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. The newspaper is among US media outlets most critical in its coverage of Trump and his administration.
The president told reporters during a news conference in July that he had asked aides to investigate the JEDI contract, citing complaints from companies that compete with Amazon.
"I'm getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon. ... They're saying it wasn't competitively bid," Trump said."Some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it, having to do with Amazon and the Department of Defense, and I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what's going on."

Amazon was considered the lead contender to provide technology for JEDI, with its Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominating the cloud computing arena and the company already providing classified servers for other government outfits including the CIA....READ MORE

Amazon is turning 25 - here's a look back at how it changed the world

International News

A quarter of a century ago, on July 5, 1994, a company, which shared a name with the world’s largest river, was incorporated. It sold books to customers who got to its website through a dial-up modem.
It wasn’t the first bookstore to sell online. (Books.com launched in 1992.) But it behaved like a local store, whose shopkeeper knew customers by name – a bell even rang in the company’s Seattle headquarters every time an order was placed.
Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, set his sights on making it an “everything store.” The company would go on to become not just an everything store, but an “everything company.”
Today, 25 years later, Amazon has reshaped retailing permanently. It is one of the top three most valuable companies in the world, with a market capitalization hovering around US$1 trillion, greater than the GDP of nearly 200 countries.
If you had bought $100 worth of its IPO shares in 1997, it would be worth about $120,000 today.
Redefining retail
Amazon continually took shopping convenience to newer levels.

 Before 1994, shoppers had to travel to stores to discover and buy things. Shopping used to be hard work – wandering down multiple aisles in search of a desired item, dealing with crying and nagging kids, and waiting in long checkout lines. Today, stores try to reach out to shoppers anywhere, anytime and through multiple channels and devices...Read More

Berkshire Hathaway finally bought shares of Amazon, says Warren Buffett

International News

Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway Inc has bought shares of internet retailing giant Amazon.com Inc for the first time, though he has not been the one doing the buying, CNBC reported on Thursday.

Buffett said the purchase was made by one of his investment managers, Todd Combs or Ted Weschler, and details would be disclosed later this month in Berkshire's quarterly report of its US stock holdings.The purchase marks a U-turn for Berkshire, where Buffett has long praised the leadership of Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.

"Yeah, I've been a fan, and I've been an idiot for not buying," Buffett told CNBC.Buffett's assistant did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Amazon did not immediately respond to a similar request.

Shares of companies often rise when Berkshire reveals its support through new stakes, even when the purchases are believed or known to have been made by Combs or Weschler, who together invest about $26 billion.

The initial impetus of the portfolio managers has in the past heralded Buffett's eventual forays into some of their investments, often in big ways.

It was Combs who in 2012 began investing in industrial and aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts Corp. Four years later, Berkshire completed its purchase of that company for $32 billion, in what remains Buffett's largest acquisition.


 More recently, it was either Combs or Weschler who in 2016 began investing in iPhone maker Apple Inc.But it was Buffett who ramped up that stake into Berkshire's largest common stock investment, more than 255 million shares, now worth roughly $53 billion.The Amazon purchase adds an additional bond between Buffett and Bezos, whose companies teamed up last year with JPMorgan Chase & Co to form a new venture, Haven, to reduce employee healthcare costs...Read More

MacKenzie Bezos to be world's 4th-richest woman after divorcing Amazon CEO

Company News

MacKenzie Bezos is set to become the world’s fourth-richest woman after her divorce from Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos is finalized.

She’ll receive a 4 percent Amazon stake, currently worth about $36 billion, as part of the settlement, according to a filing Thursday from the Seattle-based company. The divorce is expected to be completed in about 90 days.

Her stake in Amazon ranks her behind the $54 billion fortune of L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the $44 billion held by Alice Walton and the $37 billion net worth of Jacqueline Badger Mars, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Jeff Bezos, 55, will continue to exercise sole voting authority over the shares, according to the filing. He will probably remain the world’s richest person, with a 12 percent Amazon stake that’s currently valued at $107 billion. He will retain other assets, including the Washington Post and space-exploration company Blue Origin, which adds $4 billion to his fortune, according to the index.

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75 percent of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares,” MacKenzie Bezos, 48, said in a tweet.
Jeff Bezos said in a tweet that he was “grateful to all my friends and family for reaching out with encouragement and love. It means more than you know. MacKenzie most of all.”


 The agreement makes it the most expensive divorce on record. Oil industry magnate Harold Hamm was ordered to pay Sue Ann Arnall $972 million of his then-estimated $16.1 billion fortune in 2014 after a two-year trial. Arnall later sought to reopen the case but the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2015...Read More

Mukesh Ambani world's 10th richest with networth of $54 bn: Hurun Report

Companies News:

With a networth of $54 billion, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has broken into the global top 10 richest billionaire list complied by Hurun Research.

"The only Asian in the Top 10, Ambani's wealth is based on telecom, retail and energy, and bucked the poor stock market trend in India last year," Hurun Research said in a statement.
The Hurun Global Rich List 2019 is topped by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for the second year in a row, while the senior Ambani is placed 10th with a network of Rs 3.83 trillion, thanks to a rally in RIL shares, which had topped the Rs 8-lakh-crore-mark last month. Ambani owns almost 52 percent in Reliance.

Anil Ambani, held in contempt of court by the Supreme Court last week for not paying up Ericsson Rs 540 crore, has lost over $5 billion, from $7 billion seven years ago to $1.9 billion this year, even though both the brothers got off with more or less same amount of inherited wealth.
"Having started off similarly after the break-up of the family wealth, Mukesh added $30 billion to his wealth in the past seven years, while Anil has lost over $5 billion during the same period," says the Hurun report.

Other individuals from India who were named in the list include S P Hinduja (40th), Azim Premji (57) and Cyrus Poonawalla.

Cyrus S Poonawalla, chairman of the Poonawalla group that run Serum Institute, with a networth of $13 billion is not only ranked as the fourth richest Indian but also breaks into the top 100 global ranking.


 Steel giant ArcelorMittal's Lakshmi Mittal stands at fifth position, followed by Kotak Mahindra's Uday Kotak ($11 billion), Gautam Adani ($9.9 billion) and Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi ($9.5 billion)...Read More

Were Jeff Bezos' plans to dominate Indian e-commerce ambushed by Ambani?

Companies News:

Amazon.com and Walmart Inc.’s plans to dominate India’s online retail landscape have been ambushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political priorities heading into a tightening election.

The vote, which must be held by May, has increased the influence of local retailers that lobbied for growth-crimping curbs on the U. S. giants. On cue, India this month rolled out constraints on foreign e-commerce players including Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, which together control 70 percent of its online shopping. The tighter rules, aimed at protecting small traders, may end up benefiting the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who is building a home-grown competitor.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is still licking its wounds after being trounced in three key recent state polls and a year ago fighting an unexpectedly close contest in Gujarat -- Modi’s home state. Among small businesses, which are a traditional support base, the government’s popularity has been eroded by 2016’s surprise cash ban and the subsequent chaotic roll out of a new sales tax.

The rules now bar Amazon and Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. from owning inventory, and require them to treat all vendors equally, throttling discounts and exclusives -- a huge advantage to homegrown companies including Ambani’s new venture. His Reliance Industries Ltd., which owns India’s largest retail chain and third-biggest telecom network, has the potential to evolve into a local version of Amazon or Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., UBS AG said last month.


 “Whether serendipitous or not, India’s tightened regulatory regime for online retailers is a huge win for Reliance with its new retail ambitions,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief executive officer of consultancy Greyhound Research. “This could be a field leveler for them..Read More