A local newspaper in Israeli, the Calcalist, has reported that Amazon is in “advanced talks” with Israeli semiconductor company, Annapurna Labs. According to early reports, Amazon is willing to pay up to $370 million for the semiconductor company that has a very secretive corporate policy. The Calcalist has said that the deal would help establish a new technology research and development operation in Israel and Amazon certainly has been interested in the region with the desire to help expand its cloud program in Israel.
Amazon interested in Annapurna’s secrecy
Annapurna has largely kept its operations under wraps, as the Calcalist puts it “Annapurna Labs managers have refused to elaborate on its products,” and even does not explain its operations and manufactured products on its own website. However, unknown to how the Calcalist got a hold of this information, the paper reported that the company mainly focuses on microprocessors for fast data traffic for mostly low powered servers.
It is certainly interesting to see that Amazon is interested in a company that practices such secrecy and nonpublic transparency, but no doubt Jeff Bezos and Co. know the operations and have found a use for it as an integrated upgrade for Amazon’s cloud products.
Amazon to enter the movie business
Amazon, lately, has been making interesting announcements that show the company is looking to expand quickly into other markets. The most recent and surprising announcement was that Amazon is entering the movie business. The Vice President of Amazon Studios, Roy Price, said Monday that the company is looking to develop 12 movies in the coming year. In additional details, it was made known that Amazon plans to use its premier Amazon Prime Instant Video service to stream the new exclusive movies “four to eight weeks” after they are released in theaters. Additionally, Amazon will develop their movies for DVD and Blu-ray format as well. This marks a huge opportunity for Amazon, after they just recently scored two Golden Globes for original series, Transparent. Coming off the big win at the Globes, Amazon is turning its sights higher and looking to become a legitimate movie studio that will be making money off its theater ticket sales, DVD sales, and Amazon Prime memberships (to view the movies shortly after release).
The bottom line here is that Jeff Bezos and the rest of Amazon’s management are tired of hearing about how they have big sales, but no profits. Several moves by the company lately have shown they are looking to expand and dominate new markets, as a source of additional revenue aside from its traditional ecommerce website. The stock has been a very solid performer over the past few years, but Amazon’s critics say that the gains are built on speculation rather than actual earnings results. Jeff Bezos and the rest of Amazon are making the right moves to show its critics that a earnings in rise will be a big focus and hopefully will continue to aid the stock’s rally.
Disclosure: None
