Amazon Plans Search Service To Drive Sales

Yep, you heard it right: Amazon.com has quietly established a beachhead in Silicon Valley to develop its own Web-search technology: Amazon’s new foray is called A9, a subsidiary it has set up in Northern California to tap into Silicon Valley’s large pool of software engineers. The region is home to Yahoo, Google and lesser search companies and is the de facto world center of Web-search technology.

A9 says its software will be aimed specifically at online shoppers, not users who want to perform general search requests for things such as sports statistics or news.

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