Although the company will continue to offer software via mail order, the new option provides the customer with speedy delivery and efficient service, said Kirk Koenigsbauer, general manager of software at Amazon.com.

"With the introduction of a Software Downloads Store, we can meet the needs of our customers in a matter of minutes instead of a matter of days," he said. "Near real-time delivery is a huge benefit to software shoppers, whether they're battling the latest 'love bug' virus or procrastinating until the eleventh hour to do their taxes."

At launch, Amazon.com is offering leading software titles in the tax, multimedia and antivirus categories, including:

• Quicken and TurboTax from Intuit
• Norton AntiVirus 2001 from Symantec Dreamweaver and Flash from Macromedia
• PartitionMagic from PowerQuest
• PGP Personal Privacy from McAfee

"The Software Downloads Store will include all the features Amazon.com customers have come to expect, including search capabilities, unique personalization features and insightful customer reviews," Koenigsbauer said. "Much as in e-Books, the download URL is e-mailed to the customer within a few minutes of purchase."

The Software Downloads store is going to continue to grow and expand, added Justin Osmer, a spokesperson for Amazon.com.

"As more and more software titles become available in downloadable format from publishers we hope to offer them in this new store," he said. "We felt we had a good selection to start with in the antivirus, personal finance and multimedia categories as well as others, but look for more titles and categories in the future."

Amazon.com is implementing the services of Ingram Micro to host the digital content and Preview Systems, which provides the enabling technology to securely deliver the application to the customer's desktop.

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