Most of you have probably heard by now that Amazon has just recently announced that they will be creating an alternative to iTunes for their Kindle that will provide developers with another avenue to create hand-held device applications. In short an iTunes for the Kindle.
I want to be optimistic and get behind what they are trying to do but for the life of me I don’t understand the business model. I suppose it boils down to two simple but important questions for me:
- Why would Amazon want to compete with Apple in a market that isn’t their core business?
- Does Amazon honestly consider the Kindle to be a competitive device to the iPhone?
Maybe that’s too academic of me to bring it down to two relatively rudimentary questions but really – that’s it in a nutshell.
Let’s look at it in a little more detail – the Kindle and it’s e-ink technology is black and white – circa 1980 technology – reminiscent of the dot matrix era. For anyone that’s seen one imagining a game being played on it is somewhat foreign to say the least.
That being said some of the text based applications that could be created could be somewhat interesting – but still – in competition in a market that isn’t your core business in an arena that currently (based on the current version of the Kindle) you can’t compete in seems like an uphill battle – but I could be wrong.
The confusing thing from my perspective is that there is a Kindle application for iPhone that will presumably work on the iTablet (when it’s announced) that will allow you to read Kindle books on the iPhone – so if you were going to be in a competitive market space – would you give the tool that differentiates you to your competitor?
Interesting indeed – I wish Amazon luck – this could be a long bumpy ride for them.