Top U.S. booksellers Barnes & Noble Inc <BKS.N> and Borders Group Inc <BGP.N> will pay a price for coming late to market with electronic book readers, analysts said.

By Phil Wahba

Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc., the nation's two largest brick-and-mortar book sellers, both posted quarterly losses Tuesday and forecast a difficult holiday season, saying competition from discount chains and online retailers is stiffening.

In what is emerging as one of the main story lines of the 2009 post-recession shopping season, the Wal-Mart and Amazon.com are waging an online price war that is spreading through product areas like books, movies, toys and electronics, the New York Times reports.

Up to 134 million U.S. consumers may shop for holiday gifts this Thanksgiving weekend, although most will check the bargains before venturing out, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The recession has taught retailers and consumers new lessons about the art of a deal. In the process, Black Friday, the traditional first day of the holiday shopping season, has lost some of its luster.

With nightmares of Christmas 2008 markdowns dancing in their heads, retailers have slashed inventories to some of the leanest levels in recent memory.

Barnes & Noble Inc said on Friday it had sold out of its newly-launched Nook electronic readers due to high demand -- a pre-holiday miscalculation that analysts said could boost sales of rival Amazon.com Inc's market leading Kindle.

By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Mayumi Negishi

Sony Corp said on Wednesday that early demand for its latest electronic reader was higher than expected in advance of the holidays and shipment delays could result.

Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it will launch its long-awaited Windows Azure cloud computing system on Jan 1, as it looks to take advantage of the growing interest in internet-based software and services.

U.S. Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday that it was introducing Kindle, its wireless electronic reader, in Canada.

Glyde, a start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., will introduce a Web site intended to make it simple for people to buy and sell used media products, the New York Times reports.

IBM launched a new cloud computing service on Monday, aiming to take on companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Salesforce.com Inc.

MasterCard is pushing its long-running "Priceless" campaign into the holiday realm this year with a Web site that helps people set up shopping lists for their Facebook friends and choose gifts based on offerings from Amazon.com.