Wired touts Amazon's cloud computing capabilities in a lengthy article about the company and its CEO Jeff Bezos. Whereas Microsoft today announced a new software-as-a-service initiative, Amazon's pay-as-you-go Web Services are commonly referred to as "utility computing", or "hardware as a service." These are pay-as-you go offerings that include storage, at 15 cents per gigabyte per month, megabyte-sized chunks of computing power that cost 10 cents per hour, virtual quad cores for 80 cents per hour, and they've even got a tool for managing your expanding iPhone library. Amazon wants your company to outsource your entire infrastructure to them. As …

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer responded to Yahoo's good-but-not-quite-good-enough first quarter results, warning Yahoo's board that the software giant doesn't need the company to succeed in its Web endeavors. "We are offering a lot of money," Ballmer said at a Microsoft conference in Milan.''If Yahoo's shareholders like it, that's great. We are prepared to go forward without a merger with Yahoo.'' Microsoft's offer for Yahoo stands at $31 per share in cash and stock. For more than two months, Yahoo's board has rejected that bid as undervaluing its assets. Microsoft then set this coming Saturday as the deadline for accepting the …

Microsoft's lofty "cloud" talk finally became a reality on Tuesday as the software giant unveiled "Live Mesh," a Web-based virtual desktop that allows users to seamlessly link their digital devices through a single desktop stored on the Web. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others refer to this always-on land of networked computers hosting your data as the "cloud," and Live Mesh is Microsoft's first significant consumer facing cloud development, following years of talking about it. "We may be seeing signs of a Microsoft that is newly focused," Jonathan Yarmis, a vice president and analyst at AMR Research, told Reuters. "This is …

Not something you see everyday: eBay, which owns 28.4% of Craigslist, is suing Craigslist, claiming that recent action taken by the mostly free online classifieds site's board have "unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest" in the company. The suit doesn't name the specific action taken by Craiglist, but eBay claims it diluted the online auctioneer's share by more than 10%. The suit was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Tuesday. Naturally, both companies' in their public statements claimed the other was wrong, expressing something akin to "shock and dismay." This is a strange lawsuit, to be sure, but given …

Google hasn't said so, but Read Write Web's Josh Catone surmises that the Web giant aims to turn iGoogle, its start page, into a social network. Earlier this week, Google unveiled a new developer sandbox for the start page that includes support for its OpenSocial APIs, which Catone says "makes this officially the start of a trend we're seeing in start pages to get more social." In its FAQ about the new iGoogle sandbox, Google suggests as much: "This is not the final network that will be used in iGoogle," the company writes about its "friends" section. "Users will have …

VirtualLogix, a mobile virtualization startup, on Monday received a big cash infusion from Motorola. The handset maker and other big techs like Intel and Texas Instruments see a big future for virtualization software on the mobile phone, technology that lets mobile devices run more features and easily integrate applications running on different mobile operating systems. This is good news for developers, handset makers and consumers. Here's why: Currently, mobile software writers have to rewrite the applications they create for each mobile operating system-Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, etc.-a process that takes months. Virtualization eliminates this by allowing a processor (chip) to …

The economic pinch is causing advertisers to look even more closely at how well their campaigns are performing. Click rates are once again top of mind. "Everyone's retail-oriented," said Tyler Townsend, a digital media marketing manager. "They want as many clicks for the dollar as possible." Increasingly, marketers are looking to ad networks-vertical, behavioral and otherwise-to buy more targeted advertising. That could be a boon to the likes of AOL and Yahoo, which recently scooped up a series of ad networks and exchanges in their bid to become one-stop-shops for marketers. Imran Khan, an Internet analyst at JPMorgan Chase, said …