2009 Is A Good Year For Amazon – Kindle Reader Now Their Number One Product
When the Amazon management team get together to review the company’s performance in 2009, they will have good 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.
In February 2009, Amazon launched the Kindle 2. It was widely perceived as a step in the right direction. Amazon had clearly listened to the customer feedback concerning the original Kindle, which was launched 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, no more than a few months later, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX. The DX featured a larger display and was developed dpecifically for readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks. A little surprisingly perhaps, it was the dusty world of academic publishing that helped to bring in a lot of publicity for the DX.
The academic community rapidly realised the potential benefits offered by the Kindle. It would be very much easier to update textbooks and interactive eduction – pop quizzes and tests for example – would be possible. As well as saving money by using electronic textbooks, academic bodies would also be more environmentally friendly – a very important factor for these institutions which have both financial budgets and environmental targets to meet today.
Amazon not only established partnership programs with a number of colleges and universities, but also benefited from a great deal of publicity generated by political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – both of whom waxed lyrical on the educational potential of e-book readers in general and the Amazon Kindle in particular.
Nevertheless, although things were looking bright for Amazon, there were some early signs that trouble was looming. 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.
It’s a compliment to Amazon that practically every ebook reader in development which displays the slightest potential is immediately dubbed the “Kindle Killer”. Currently, despite all the development work being done and the money spent by the competition, Amazon is still the only show in town. The Sony Daily Edition reader and Barnes and Noble’s Nook have both had their launch dates moved backwards. 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. Could we maybe see it in 2010?
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