Amazon Enters the File-Shipping Business

Amazon.com’s curious ambitions as a computing infrastructure provider continue to grow. The company this week revealed a new service that will help companies of all sizes ship files like MP3s and software packages to people scattered around the globe.The “content delivery service” joins Amazon’s existing storage, software and database services where customers can store their data and code at Amazon’s data centers. The idea behind this push is that Amazon has developed vast expertise at running a complex Web operation, so it can lend a helping hand to those customers who would prefer not to manage their own computing systems. In addition, Amazon charges on a per-use basis, so customers can pay for the amount of disk space consumed instead of purchasing an entire storage system.

Some major hardware makers like Sun Microsystems are working on similar technology, but a company that specializes in delivering things like books and jewelry may beat the infrastructure crowd to the punch.

With the new service, which is only in private trials at the moment, Amazon will distribute customers’ files across its data centers in the United States, Europe and Asia. Ideally, people will be able to download the files from computing systems located near them and get the information quicker.

Current Amazon customers can accomplish much the same via the existing Simple Storage Service or S3. The new service, Amazon says, will make it easier for customers to distribute their files to a diverse set of data centers, improving performance. “This makes sense for popular content that may be accessed many times,” said Adam Selipsky, a vice president with Amazon Web Services.

Presumably, customers will need to pay a premium to spread out the files, although Amazon is not commenting on pricing for the new service.

Amazon is looking for large media houses that distribute MP3s and photos to embrace the new service along with customers who ship large amounts of their software over the Internet.

Amazon plans to have the service ready by the end of this year.