2009 Is A Good Year For Amazon – Kindle Reader Now Their Number One Product
When the Amazon management team meet to discuss the company’s performance this year, they will have every reason to feel content – but not smug. It’s been a very good year for the internet retail giant – and a lot of the credit must go to the Amazon Kindle ebook reader.
Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February of 2009. It was widely considered to be a step in the right direction. Amazon had clearly paid close attention to customer feedback regarding the original Kindle, released in 2007. Wireless connectivity and the huge choice of Kindle books remained and faster pages changes, longer battery life and increased storage capacity were among the improvements which were introduced.
Best selling author, Stephen King wrote a special short novel to mark the launch and the Kindle 2 quickly became the “must have” gadget amid a blaze of publicity.
In June of 2009, just a few months later, Amazon debuted the Kindle DX. This had a large screen and was intended to cater for readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks. It was the staid world of academic publishing, somewhat surprisingly, that helped to gain the DX a lot of publicity.
The academic community was quick to realise the potential benefits the Kindle offered. It would be very much easier to update textbooks and interactive eduction – pop quizzes and tests for example – would be possible. Academic bodies would not only save money as a result of using paperless books, but they would be more environmentally friendly also – an important factor for such institutions who have both budgets and environmental targets to meet these days.
In addition to cementing partnerships with a number of universities and colleges, Amazon profited from a good deal of publicity produced by political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – both of whom held forth on the educational advantages of e-book readers in general and, in particular, the Amazon Kindle.
However, as promising as things appeared for Amazon, there were some signs that there would be trouble ahead. Other manufacturers, having seen Amazon develop the e-book reader market, were now becoming aware of the massive potential of this fledgling sector. A large number of competitors, including the likes of Sony, Microsoft, Apple and Barnes and Noble, were hungry for their share – and they were all developing their own readers.
In a way, it’s a huge compliment to Amazon that almost every ebook reader under development which shows the slightest promise is immediately given the title of the “Kindle Killer”. The trouble is that, at this time, and despite all the development work by the competition, Amazon is still the only game in town. Sony’s Daily Edition reader and the Nook from Barnes and Noble have both had their launch dates put back. As a matter of fact, it appears more and more likely that the most probable source of the long awaited Kindle Killer will be Amazon itself. The most probable contender is the Kindle 4. Can we hope to see it in 2010?