Technology titans are racing to deliver music and other digital files from online storehouses, with Amazon.com Inc. grabbing the inside track over rivals such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc.
The competition comes amid a shift in the way digital songs, videos and other media are being purchased and played. For years, the marketplace has been dominated by Apple’s iTunes store and a business model based around downloaded files.
But the proliferation of mobile gadgets—and fears of losing access to family photos, music or other valuable files on broken or lost devices—is expected to drive consumer interest in remote storage lockers for digital files that can be accessed anywhere.
Amazon has already developed a significant sideline that rents computing resources and data-storage capacity to companies over the Internet—or in the cloud, in industry jargon.
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