In May 1998, Barnes & Noble.com launched a revamped website with a better design, and an Express Lane one-click ordering, improved book search capabilities, and expanded product offerings with a new software "superstore". Jeff Killeen, chief operating officer, stated in a press release dated May 27, 1998: "Through our first year in business we have listened intently to what our customers have asked for and believe we have delivered a vastly superior product based on those requests. (...) Innovation based on customer-focus has been the hallmark of our success and we see our new site as proof- positive of our commitment to be the leader in online bookselling and related products. We're also extremely excited to have Intel, a leader in the technology products category, open its SoftwareForPCs.com site at barnesandnoble.com." Barnes & Noble.com began a fierce price war with Amazon.com for the best book discounts. Amazon.com came to be known as "Amazon.toast". Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, didn't mind the competition. In the magazine Success of July 1998, he explained to journalist Lesley Hazleton: "The gap has increased rather than decreased. We went from $60 million annualized sales revenue in May to $260 million by the end of the year, and from 340,000 customers to 1.5 million, 58 percent of them repeat customers - all that in the context of 'Amazon.toast'. We're doing more than eight times the sales of Barnes & Noble. And we're not a stationary target. We were blessed with a two-year head start, and our goal is to increase that gap." = Amazon in Europe The European presence of Amazon began in October 1998, with the creation of two subsidiaries in Germany and in United Kingdom. In August 2000, Amazon had 1.8 million customers in U.K., 1.2 million customers in Germany, and less than 1 million customers in France. Amazon opened its third subsidiary, Amazon France, with books, music, DVDs and videos - software and video games were added later, in June 2001 - and a 48-hour delivery. At the time, online sales represented only 0.5% of the book market in France, against 5.4% in the United States. The opening of Amazon France was announced at the last minute, on August 23, 2000, after months of secrecy surrounding the next "American cultural invasion". The French subsidiary opened in Guyancourt, in the suburbs of Paris, with 100 employees - some of them trained in the U.S. headquarters in Seattle - for administration, technical services, and marketing. The distribution service opened in Boigny-sur-Bionne, near Orleans, a town in the south of Paris. The customer service landed in The Hague, Netherlands, because Amazon was expecting to broaden its European network. Amazon France had four competitors: Fnac.com, Alapage, Chapitre.com, and BOL.fr. Fnac.com was the online branch of Fnac, a network of "traditional" bookstores spread throughout France and other European countries, and run by the group Pinault-Printemps- Redoute.