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Amazon’s New Tablet, "Kindle Fire", to compete w/ Apple’s IPad
Amazon just introduced its new tablet computer, called the “Kindle Fire.”
Amazon’s Kindle Fire will compete with Apple’s IPad.
Amazon believes they have a competitive advantage and will succeed (where many others have failed - the IPad dominates market share for tablet computing) based on content - not on technology.
Since Amazon can deliver, and charge for, content (books, movies, television, etc.), they can afford to price their Kindle Fire at $199.
Here is an article from Bloomberg News with detail:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/amazon-unveils-199-kindle-...
What do you think of this business/marketing strategy?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brad Poulson on
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Here is a "live blog" by Publisher's Weekly on Amazon's press conference: http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/?p=7209
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Permalink Reply by S. Eric Wachtel on
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With a competitive edge in the market, I'm confident, with an introductory price of $199., that they will more than succeed.
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Permalink Reply by 1106 Design on
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Just how big is big enough for Amazon? Jeff Bezos may be brilliant, but he's becoming a megalomaniac. Apparently it's no longer enough to sell books and products, he has to publish them, too. I take particular exception to his promotion of crowd-sourcing for cover design. What will happen to consumer choice and the information available if Amazon succeeds in driving everyone else out of the publishing business?
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Permalink Reply by Dave Bricker on
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I agree with you about crowdsourcing. Few authors are qualified to judge a design contest. See http://onehourselfpub.com/sewing-your-own-parachute-advice-about-bo...
Dave
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Great article, Dave. You offer excellent arguments that should convince all except the die-hard DIY-er.
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Apple has fundamentally changed their relationship with customers. They used to provide the best tools. Now they create engaging conduits for buying media from their stores. Though I have been a mac user since 1987, I hate the immersive branding experience of the Apple store and feel like the relationship mostly benefits them.
Amazon, on the other hand, has always been a bookstore and a product retailer. Their cloud services are excellent. Their book selection is the best in the world. Offering a $199 Android tablet tied to their services with a flash-capable browser sounds like a steal to me. It doesn't feel like they're forcing me to buy from them, but earning my loyalty instead.
Don't get me wrong. Amazon is a huge, corporate giant, but they offer me value as a customer and a publisher. I get book royalties from Amazon every month. My Apple book sales? Zero.
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Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on
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Dave,
I've been thinking about the technological differences between the Kindle Fire and the previous Kindle incarnations, and I was wondering if this new product from Amazon has caused any visible trends in your Amazon booksales in one direction or another over the last month.
Is it possible with the data you have to determine the impact the Kindle Fire has had on your book sales, since its November 15th release?
Bradley Flora
SPANnet.org
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Permalink Reply by Terry Minton on
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I am a big fan of eReaders and we are a Nook family with four of them. However, the Amazon Kindle is the defacto dominant standard. Amazon may crush Barnes and Noble because of superior margins due to lower overhead expense. As pointed out in the Bloomberg article the Fire is a "tweener" product. Unquestionably, the eBook market is rapidly growing and many new adopters of eBooks may opt for the Fire. One the other hand, if people are buying the Fire as a surrogate mobile computer they are likely to be disappointed. I believe Amazon's target customer is the one who wants to start reading on an eReader but also wants to do some minimal computing chores. I hope Amazon stays with their plan long enough to give Fire a real change to gain a toehold in the market. I am enthusiastic about the outlook for Fire. The $200 price point is about the same as a basic eReader two years ago.
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I have very mixed feelings on the Amazon issue. On one hand they're doing what the big publishing houses should have started doing years ago--creating a niche in the electronic world and enlarging it as fast as they can. I have to admire them for that. I also think that with the Apple iPad priced at $300-$400 more than Amazon's Kindle Fire, Amazon will once more corner a market niche and everyone will be scrambling to keep up with it. My concern is that as Amazon takes over more and more of the electronic publishing market, they become the guy with the big stick. Do it our way or we won't sell your books. It worries me when any company starts getting such a large share of any market, and Amazon is definitely taking over electronic publishing.
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As long as it is an "apples to apples" comparitive product, I say make the necessary market price to get into the market and compete (you are a late entry).
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Permalink Reply by Russell Mickler on
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Hmm.
The Apple iPad controls roughly 94-percent of this market. That leaves six percent of the market that is occupied by competitors running Android tablets.
The Fire is an Android tablet. It will have to compete directly with these other guys, attempting to out-pace brands like Samsung's Galaxy Tab, whereas they've got about a 1.5 year lead.
The Android isn't a competitor to the iPad in the sense that the iPad controls this market and sets consumer expectation as to what a tablet is, Brad. Thus, the Fire will compete for the six-percent that _isn't_ an iPad and who also runs Android, which is a relatively small niche.
One technology about Fire is distinctive and that's the Digital Ink stuff that they do. Will it be enough to dissuade consumers and set a new experience? Very doubtful.
Amazon really wants to create a distribution channel for their catalog. They should stick to their original strategy and pioneer what a digital reader is, and not try to redesign a space already occupied/defined by somebody else.
I personally think this will be a losing move for Amazon; they'd have better success partnering with Apple, Google, and others, for ubiquitous distribution across any device, anywhere - a cooperative strategy rather than competitive. Unless Android suddenly becomes feature-rich and offers an experience better than the iPad, nobody will buy it. They'll buy an iPad.
R
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Permalink Reply by Brian S Monroe on
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I wish I could say that they've got to be kidding but so far this bizarre strategy seems to be working - at least for the Kindle. As far as I'm concerned, Kindles are still way overpriced ($100 or less before I would even consider it) - but people keep buying them anyway. I suppose this will take off too unless Apple fires a counter-strategy.
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