Where Will The Kindle Killer Come From?
2009 has been a big year for e-book readers – mainly due to the efforts of Amazon. Amazon launched the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an updated and enhanced edition of the original Kindle which was launched in November 2007.
In June of 2009, Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX, which was a large display version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically targeted at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks – and it caused quite a commotion.
The potential for academic use – from interactive textbooks to constantly updated texts, and not overlooking the possibility for academic bodies to save a lot of money – attracted a lot of attention. As well as entering into agreements with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon got a lot of free publicity from political entities such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California.
Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and determination – assisted by all the free publicity – the Amazon Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s top selling product. At the moment, the Kindle has an incredible 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and has recently released an international edition. The Kindle has become virtually a byword for e-book readers.
It’s probably worth pointing out that Amazon were, in fact, a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The first e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, debuted in 1999 – ten years ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, prior to the launch of the first.
Amazon may not have been first to market – but by combining smart, technical innovation and responsiveness to customer needs, Amazon has reached its current dominant position. The large selection of titles available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as key to the Kindle’s success as were the technical aspects of the reader.
However, now that Amazon has – almost single handedly – developed the market, it seems that every man and his dog want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list goes on – all have their own devices ready for release or in the final stages of development.
Wireless connectivity, presently one of Amazon’s powerful selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader more than 1,000,000 titles to pick from.Sony’s new Daily Edition reader will allow users to borrow books on loan from participating lending libraries. Meanwhile, there will most likely be a standard e-book format adopted in 2010, which will allow users to lend e-books to friends and family or transfer them over to other readers if they wish.
At the moment, a lot of industry analysts are eyeing the line up of new readers and attempting to predict which of them is the Kindle Killer. However, Amazon has been pretty smart thus far and they won’t surrender their top position without a struggle. It took them under eighteen months following the release of the original Kindle to launch the hugely improved Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has big plans for the further development of their e-book readers. Is it possible that the Kindle killer will actually be the Kindle 4 and that we could see this sometime next year?
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