When Amazon’s management team get together to review the company’s annual results this year, they will have plenty justification 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 perceived as a step in the right direction. Amazon had obviously paid close attention to customer feedback on 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 novella to mark the launch and the Kindle 2 rapidly became the “must have” gadget amid a blaze of publicity.
In June of 2009, just a few months later, Amazon launched the Kindle DX. The DX featured a larger display and was developed dpecifically for readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it was the staid world of academic publishing that helped to gain the DX a lot of publicity.
The academic community was quick to realise the potential benefits the Kindle offered. Not only would it be very much easier to update textbooks but 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.
As well as establishing partnerships with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon benefited from a lot 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. Competing manufacturers, having watched Amazon develop the e-book reader market, were now becoming aware of the huge potential of this nascent sector. A long list of competitors, including such names as Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Barnes and Noble, wanted their share – and suddenly they all had readers of their own under development.
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”. Nevertheless, right now, in spite of all the development work by other manufacturers, the Kindle is still pretty much the only show in town. The Nook reader from Barnes and Noble and Sony’s Daily Edition reader have both had their releases dates shifted back. To tell the truth, it begins looks increasingly probable that the most likely source of the long awaited Kindle Killer is, in fact, Amazon itself. The Kindle 4 is the most probable contender. Will we see it in 2010?