Amazon.com’s private label products have been getting some attention recently. Now the online retailer is preparing to go international with its private label strategy, launching one of its largest brands — Pinzon — in the U.K. in August. Amazon has been steadily growing Pinzon and its other private labels — Strathwood, Denali and Pike Street — over the last several years. In doing so, Amazon is following the path of brick-and-mortar retailers like Wal-mart and Target, which are pushing their own brands as a cheaper option for shoppers squeezed by the recession.

Here’s a rundown of Amazon’s private label brands:

Strathwood (launched April 2004): outdoor furniture and decor.

Pinzon (launched August 2005): bed and bath, kitchen and dining, indoor furniture.

Pike Street (launched August 2005): low-cost bed and bath.

Denali (launched Nov. 2006): power tools and accessories.

Amazon next week is also launching "Tom Douglas by Pinzon," with a selection of kitchen gadgets from the Seattle celebrity chef.

Is Amazon planning more private labels? "There’s definitely talk that this is a great avenue to pursue because it offers a great value proposition," said an Amazon spokeswoman. "It’s something we are looking into but there’s nothing to announce at this time."

Amazon recently applied for a series of trademarks for Amazon Basics covering a range of goods. Could this be the beginnings of a new private label online store? The company isn’t talking about it yet.

Follow my updates on Twitter.

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and Mozilla: Microsoft’s ‘facts’ on IE, Firefox good for a few laughs  

Mozilla director Mike Beltzner and infrastructure engineer Vladimir Vukicevic stopped by our offices today to demonstrate the upcoming Firefox 3.5 — including performance improvements, advanced audio and video support, and some slick tabbed browsing enhancements, among other features A new release candidate was issued today, and they’re aiming to ship the final version by the end of the month.

In the process of getting the rundown, I asked for their take on Microsoft’s new "Get the Facts" campaign in which the Redmond company declares itself the winner against Firefox and Chrome in seven out of 10 categories — security, privacy, ease of use, developer tools, reliability, compatibility and manageability.

"That got passed around the office — a little bit more as humor thing," Vukicevic said.

"It’s marketing, I guess," Beltzner added.

Rather than address the Microsoft claims point-by-point, Beltzner said it’s interesting that Microsoft is now talking about the browser market in competitive terms — acknowledging and publicly comparing itself to the competition in a way it didn’t in the past.

"They seem nervous," Beltzner said. "They’re spending a lot of time talking about why people want to choose a browser, which is good for us, because I think if you’re at the point where you’re choosing a browser, it’s going to work out in our favor." 

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and Video: iPhone 3G S launch  

Here’s a video montage from today’s iPhone 3G S launch in Seattle.

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LiquidPlanner raises cash  

LiquidPlanner has reeled in $1 million in angel financing, cash that the Bellevue online project management and collaboration service hopes will drive it to profitability.

The deal marks the first investment for the Alliance of Angel’s "side car fund," a new $4.3 million iniatitive supported by Madrona Venture Group and Trilogy Partners that’s designed to provide matching funds to promising startups.

"We raised more than we expected to raise," said Chief Executive Charles Seybold, a former Expedia employee who launched LiquidPlanner about one year ago. Since then, the company has operated without much outside capital and has tried to keep things "lean," he said.

Seybold said they only formally started raising the capital about 45 days ago. "It was a bit of a nail biter to wait for first quarter results to come out to do our fundraising," said Seybold.

But he added that the business is doing well — growing at about 10 percent month over month. LiquidPlanner’s online service is used by about 200 organizations — including Sandlot Games, X Space and Oracle — to help them better plan and schedule internal projects.

With the economy still struggling, Seybold said that LiquidPlanner has been able to gain traction in part because "it became kind of cool to plan again."

Companies, he said, are looking to cut costs and more efficiently managing projects is one way to do it, he said.

Of course, there’s no shortage of competition in the online project management arena. We’ve written recently about Seattle area companies such as Guppers, Kamune, Daptiv and Smartsheet, but other players include Basecamp and @ Task.

Seybold admitted that there’s "a lot of noise" in the space. But he said that many competitors are Basecamp knock offs and don’t offer the more heavy-duty planning capabilities such as task scheduling and time monitoring found in LiquidPlanner.

"We are sticking to our knitting and focusing on delivering great software," he said.

The company employs 10 people and plans to start "cautiously hiring" in the coming weeks.

"We are pretty conservative," said Seybold. "(Co-founder) Jason (Carlson) and I are both from the Midwest and we want to largely grow the company on its profits."

As part of the new investment, angel investor Geoff Entress has joined the company’s board. The Bellingham angel group also participated.

The new capital should be more than enough to get the company to profitability, Seybold said.

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and Friday Memos  

- Main Street businesses still arenÂ?t hiring. Last month, small businesses shed more than four times as many employees as larger businesses did, according to payroll processor ADP. [CNNMoney.com]

- As small-business owners try to cut travel costs, they’re increasingly looking to Web conferencing. Fuze, Zoho Meeting and GoToMeeting are some of the best options available, with prices ranging from $12 per month to $50 per month. [Inc. magazine]

- Some small-business employers fear the possibility of a mandate in health care reform proposals that employers must pay for insurance. They’re concerned even as some of them may be eligible to get federal money to cover the costs of providing insurance. The National Federation of Independent Businesses says that such a mandate would force businesses to cut 1.6 million jobs over five years. [Kaiser Health News]

- Google Inc. introduced a new Â?dashboardÂ? for local businesses this week that would enable them to get more information about how Internet users are finding their establishments. The free online data analysis can detect the number of people searching for store hours as well as which ZIP codes are common among customers who are seeking driving directions. [Reuters]

- Small Business Administration Chief Karen Mills is on a multi-city U.S. tour to get the word out about the agencyÂ?s new loan programs and to tout its early successes. The latest stop was at a sixth-generation family-owned transportation and warehousing business in Columbus, Ohio. [Columbus Business First]

- ItÂ?s not too late to look for summer help. An online directory called Enternships.com can connect companies with interns with an entrepreneurial mindset and interest in small business opportunities. Full-time, part-time, project-specific and remote placements are on the table. [Springwise]

Any interesting or relevant small-business items we missed this week?

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and Crowdsourcing: What It Means for Innovation  , more 

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With all the buzz around Amazon’s big press conference in New York Wednesday — where the company is expected to unveil a new larger-screen Kindle — I found it intriguing that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has just arrived in New York, with his own personal Kindle in tow. When I asked him if he’s taking part in the Amazon event, however, Stone wrote back via e-mail, "No, I’m here for other business."

Dang, so much for our big scoop on a Kindle-Twitter linkup. Well, maybe we shouldn’t give up on it just yet.

Stone made a point about tweeting about his Kindle Sunday, writing: "Loaded my Kindle for flight to NYC tomorrow—can I resist the movies and games on Virgin America or FlightControl on iPhone?" He just tweeted about landing in New York.

The reports about Amazon’s Wednesday press conference have focused on how the new larger screen Kindle is tailored for reading newspapers and magazines and college textbooks. Popular microblogging service Twitter would certainly be an interesting feature as well.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is expected to lead the Wednesday event, is a personal investor in Twitter. Twitter is also a customer of Amazon’s S3 cloud computing service.

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and Gates vs. Google’s crocodiles, and other Microsoft notes  

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett appeared together for an extended interview on Fox Business News this morning, and TechCrunch has a transcript from their exchange about Google — which started when host Liz Claman quoted Buffett saying Google’s "moat of competitiveness" is so wide and full of sharks and crocodiles that it’s tough to compete against them.

Gates responded, “Well, technology companies do for a period get in these wonderful positions and, you know, it’s great that there’s somebody willing to attack those moats. Microsoft is undeterred. We look at each one of those crocodiles and we say charge!”

John R. Wilke, a Wall Street Journal reporter who covered Microsoft’s U.S. antitrust case, died of cancer Friday afternoon, according to the newspaper. He was 54.

Microsoft is opposing a proposal for a light-rail tunnel under the city of Bellevue, preferring a surface option that would preserve funds to extend the tracks further into Redmond, according to a story in the Seattle Times today.

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and Greg Huey to lead angel group  

Greg Huey, a former principal at Frazier Technology Ventures, has been appointed as the new program director for the Alliance of Angels. Tomorrow will be his first day on the job. Huey enters the non-profit angel investment group at a turbulent and exciting time.

Angel investors have been shellshocked by the downturn in the economy, which has created new challenges in how early-stage startup companies attract funding. But Huey also is joining just a few days after the AoA announced a new $4.3 million "side car fund" with support from Madrona Venture Group and Trilogy Partnership.

Huey’s appointment comes more than three months after Rebecca Lovell left the AoA to run the Northwest Entrepreneur Network.

Huey spent the past 18 months working in London for Hewlett-Packard. Before that, he spent nearly six years at Frazier Technology Ventures where he was able to get to know AoA chairman Dan Rosen well.

In a statement, Rosen said that Huey emerged as the best candidate for the job.

“He was a member of AoA during his time at Frazier Technology Ventures, so he brings a familiarity and appreciation for what we do in addition to a wealth of experience working with investors and startup companies," Rosen said.

Last year, members of the AoA invested $6.4 million in 36 companies.

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Windows 7’s new backgrounds  

People who install the Windows 7 Release Candidate after it’s available tomorrow will see an array of new desktop backgrounds, or wallpapers, or whatever you prefer to call that digital canvas behind the icons on your computer screen. A post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog over the weekend told the story of Microsoft’s work with photographers and artists to create the new backgrounds.

This Flickr gallery has even more examples. Windows product design team members Denise Trabona and Samuel Moreau explain in the post that it wasn’t just about finding good-looking images, but also about figuring out "how the image flowed under the new task bar and striking the right balance between visually compelling, and not too distracting when it came to finding that important file on your desktop."

Not sure if they fully achieved that "not too distracting" part, but these are a few of our favorites.

Credit: Will Austin

Credit: Paul Hwang and Benjamin Lee of Nanosphere

  Credit: Punga

Credit: Osmand Nosse

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Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, didn’t make any earth-shaking news at today’s Technology Alliance luncheon in downtown Seattle — despite jokingly pretending at one point that he was pulling a list of Microsoft’s secret projects from his jacket pocket.

He did, however, say some interesting things on a wide range of topics, responding to questions from the University of Washington’s Ed Lazowska. To start, here’s a video clip of Ozzie’s comments on the role of intellectual property at a time of booming online collaboration and open-source projects.

Here’s a clip, below, of Ozzie talking about the difference in approaches at startups and established companies such as Microsoft.

And in this clip, Ozzie references the Amazon Kindle in a discussion about special- vs. general-purpose devices, before commenting on the future of the news business model.

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and New VC fund looks to incubate startups from universities  

Big ideas emerge from research universities, one of the reasons why leaders of the state’s technology industry at the annual Technology Alliance luncheon today called for more support for the University of Washington and Washington State University.

Now, a new Bellevue venture fund called The University Funds is attempting to bankroll and incubate compelling technologies emerging from research institutions, reports PeHub.com’s Connie Loizos. The seed-stage fund is led by WSU grad and former Talyst CEO James Torina, who left the Bellevue pharmacy automation company last year. Als involved are Pat Murphy, a former Mosaix and N2H2 executive; and Len Jessup, a WSU professor and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

According to a press release, the directors of The Univesity Funds are looking to raise as much as $50 million in capital. They’ve already lined up relationship with eight universities and research organizations, including the UW, Arizona State, Oregon State and the University of Oregon.

“The model put forward by The University Funds is intriguing and when fully implemented may well provide an efficient commercialization route for some of the truly ground-breaking research being conducted at WSU,” said Keith Jones, executive director at the WSU Research Foundation in a statement.

Torina explained how he came up with the concept in a message on the firm’s Web site.

During my many visits to Washington State University, where I serve as a Foundation Trustee and Advisor to the colleges of Pharmacy and Business, I discovered a market gap in the eco-system for commercializing products developed within many of our nation’s research labs. This led me to further discussions with the leadership at WSU and several other research institutions, that confirmed the need for a new kind of venture partner to develop a repeatable model for driving research innovations out of the lab and into the marketplace.

It is unclear how much capital The University Funds have raised, and Loizos’ story points to a February SEC filing citing plans to raise $5 million.

Of course, raising a first time venture fund in this climate is extremely challening. The firm’s partner institutions certainly could be sources of capital with their endowment pools, but those have been hit along with the rest of the economy in the past eight months.

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and Microsoft ending ‘Search & Give’ on June 1 but promising revival  

Microsoft is temporarily ending its Search And Give program, a site that sought to boost usage of its Live Search engine by donating a penny per search to an organization of the user’s choice.

More significant, perhaps, is the date it will end: June 1. It’s the latest piece of evidence suggesting that the long-awaited revamp of Microsoft’s Live Search engine, code-named Kumo, is coming early next month.

"We are revising this program to improve the user experience and plan to release an updated version in the coming months," the company says on an FAQ page about the program.

What does this say about broader plans for a Live Search overhaul? "We have nothing additional to announce today about upcoming plans for Live Search," a Microsoft representative said in response to that question. "With Live Search, we are hard at work on understanding consumer needs and are increasingly finding big opportunities to advance the value that search engines are missing."

Microsoft has been testing an overhauled version of its third-place search engine under the internal code name Kumo, although it hasn’t yet said whether that will be the final name. Earlier this week, LiveSide.net pointed to a Neowin forum post about Kumo clock at Microsoft counting down to June 2, suggesting that’s when the new search engine will be launched.

The Search And Give site says it has donated more than $536,000 since September 2007.

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Investors can ‘double down’ with new angel investment fund  

The Alliance of Angels has established a  $4.3 million "side car fund," a new vehicle designed to drive more angel investments in the state. Madrona Venture Group and Trilogy Equity Partners contributed about $1 million each to the new fund, which will match some investments that are moving through the Alliance of Angels’ network.

"It is going to be fabulous," said Susannah Malarkey, executive director of the Technology Alliance, which oversees the Alliance of Angels. "What this allows us to do is double down on deals." The announcement was made today at the Technology Alliance’s annual luncheon, which featured Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie.

The fund has a pretty simple structure. An entrepreneur who raised $100,000 from members of the Alliance of Angels would have the opportunity to pull in an additional $100,000 in matching dollars from the side car fund.

A three person committee — made up of Madrona’s Tim Porter, Trilogy’s Peter van Oppen and angel investor Gaylord Kellogg — will evaluate those opportunities and decide how much capital to allocate in each instance.

Seattle area angel investors who attended today’s luncheon supported the idea, noting that it could help supercharge angel investing in the state. Last year, members of the Alliance of Angels invested $6.4 million in 36 companies.

"I think it will drive more money for the angel community," said Mark Mecham. "The idea is to get some critical mass there."

Voyager Capital’s Geoff Entress, an angel investor in more than two dozen Seattle area companies and a participant in the new side car fund, said that the fund won’t participate in every Alliance of Angel deal. And he noted that the structure allows for more capital to be deployed, leveraging the due diligence already conducted by the angels.

The $4.3 million fund is set to run for a couple of years, with Entress calling it a "great" way to support new companies. He doesn’t think there will be complications in terms of angel investors putting less money to work, saying angels don’t really think that way.

At the luncheon, the Technology Alliance also released results from a report that bench-marked the performance of the state’s innovation economy.

The state got high marks in entrepreneurship and venture capital investment, with Washington ranking fifth in terms of dollars invested last year. In fact, that segment of the economy got recognition later in remarks from Ozzie who called the state’s venture community "very solid."

However, the benchmark report showed much lower scores in higher education and state support of academic research. (The state ranked last of 10 peer states when it came PhDs awarded in science and engineering and 7th in high school graduation rates.)

And it is not just a problem in Washington state, with Technology Alliance Chair and Verdiem CEO Jeremy Jaech calling the poor rankings for science and math in the U.S. a "national tragedy."

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Although the recession continues, experts say now can be a good time to start your own business., more 
and Google poised for venture capital launch (Financial Times)  Google on Tuesday made a move to extend its already outsized influence over Silicon Valley with plans to join the handful of leading venture capital firms that dominate the tech regionâ??s thriving start-up business., more 

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SOUTHLAKE, Texas—-The Grout Medic, an industry leader in the aftercare market of grout and tile repair, is offering franchise business opportunities in the grout restoration industry for entrepreneurs interested in starting their own environmentally friendly cleaning company., more 
and That winning feeling (Oldham Chronicle)  BUSINESSES big and small were recognised for their immense contribution to Oldhamâ??s working life as the eight inaugural One Oldham award winners took to the stage., more 
and Do not assume that bigger means better (The Herald)  While the attention of the world focused on the G20 meeting of global leaders in London on Wednesday, the day was a milestone for a different reason in Scotland., more 

Bad economy? Become an entrepreneur (Bradenton Herald)  I normally write this column from the viewpoint of the established entrepreneur. However, in this column I would like to explain to people who are considering or who must consider new livelihoods, that entrepreneurship may be the perfect vehicle for them., more 

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