Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN:NASDAQ)

The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch a new scanning satellite to map the stars in galaxy in more precise form than ever before and researchers supporting the project, called Gaia, are evaluating whether Amazon.com Inc.'s cloud computing service can handle the mammoth processing task. ESA is now seeking to determine whether it would be feasible to rent about 4,000 application servers from Amazon to run the programs ESA has written for processing the star data. This would involve exporting the collected star data which the Gaia project plans to store in an Oracle database in a Madrid location to the Amazon cloud over the Internet. Some in Gaia's upper management have expressed uneasiness about cloud computing, especially if the cloud turns out to be an Amazon EC2 data center outside of Europe.

Brite-Strike Tactical Illumination Products Inc. announced that it had begun shipping its entire product line to the distribution warehouses of Amazon.com Inc., who has become a full-line stocking retailer.

Amazon.com Inc. announced unaudited consolidated financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2009. For the quarter, income before income taxes was $653 million against $569 million for the same period a year ago. The company reported net cash provided by operating activities of $799 million against $424 million for the same period a year ago. For the nine months, the company reported an income from operation of $653 million, income before income tax of $690 million, net income of $518 million or $1.18 per share on the net sales of $14.9 million compared to the income from operation of $569 million, income before income tax of $598 million, net income of $420 million or $0.97 per share on the net sales of $12.5 million for the same period a year ago. For the nine months, the company reported net cash provided by operating activities of $682 million against $126 million for the same period a year ago. The company spent $236 million on purchases of fixed assets, including internal-use software and website development compared to the $231 million for the same period a year ago.