Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The Kindle for iPad app has shown up in the iPad Apps list on iTunes. The conspiracy theories can rest as can the FTC – Apple is not going to block reading apps from other companies.

There was one bit that was really amusing -

This initial Kindle for iPad release has only been tested on the official iPad simulator provided by Apple.

It’s interesting to see that while Apple isn’t keeping out iBooks competitors it is doing other things to ensure their progress is hampered. Also, if you search for ‘Kindle for iPad’ and other related terms the Kindle for iPad app doesn’t show up.

Kindle for iPad helps both Amazon and Apple

Amazon benefits as it gets to add another channel to the kindle value proposition. It obviously has to compete for readers – However, given that the iBooks App has just 60,000 books that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Apple benefits as it can talk about having the all the Kindle Store books and having books from all sellers and sell more iPads.

In a funny sort of way it’s a symbiotic relationship. All the analysts falling over themselves announcing how the iPad will kill the Kindle aren’t really thinking about what happens if Amazon owns dedicated readers and the iPhone (which it does) and the iPad and reading on the PC and Mac.

PC World gets the Kindle as Platform angle

PC World skirts the madness and points out that the Kindle is a platform -

 Kindle 2 and Kindle DX may not be too important to Amazon’s future.

The Kindle isn’t just a set of devices, but an e-reading platform with applications available for the iPhone, Blackberry, PCs and Macs.

The article also points out that ‘open’ ePub sometimes isn’t – Book sellers like B&N and Apple lock it using proprietary DRM that prevents it from being accessed by other ePub supporting devices.

Dave Winer also chimes in -

In the background of all the hype about the iPad is the question about the future of Amazon’s Kindle. But I wonder how much Amazon really cares about it.

But I wouldn’t bet against Amazon coming up with a new Kindle that’s competitive with Apple’s iPad. And I wouldn’t bet against Apple being a major bottleneck and trying to keep competitors like Amazon off their platform.

Amazon coming up with an iPad competitor is a topic for a later post – one that Apple lovers will definitely love to comment on .

Supporting the iPad makes sense for Amazon if they want Kindle to be a platform for all of Publishing

If Kindle is a platform every device is just a channel to customers.

1. Being the device of choice is important as the device controls the relationship to customers. 
2. Being available on every device is important as every new customer strengthens the platform.
3. Both initiatives can go on in parallel.

It’s completely possible to focus on both winning every channel and strengthening your own channel. Critics think this is Amazon hedging their bets or not being confident in the Kindle device – However, they’re not thinking big enough. A platform encompasses everthing – every book sale, every book read.

Part of the job of a platform is to make sure that it enriches each of the companies using it. If anything, Amazon is happy to let the iPad profit from Kindle for iPad – It might sell more iPads but it also strengthens the Kindle platform. There’s lock in to Apple’s system and there’s also lock-in to the Kindle platform (thanks to the books you buy).

At best that Kindle for iPad customer starts reading more and buys a Kindle. At worst she keeps buying Kindle Store books.

Who are Amazon’s true competitors?

Amazon’s only true competitors are rival platforms that don’t let Amazon in. Any company that lets Amazon use their platform isn’t an enemy.

Apple lets Amazon in, Blackberry does, Microsoft does – all of them are win-win relationships where the Kindle platform is strengthened and the platform letting Amazon in is strengthened in return.

Amazon started off as a bookseller and the kindle book store is the most important part of the platform to them - the bookstore lets Amazon control all of ebooks. That in turn will eventually let them control all of Publishing.

Once eBooks become big enough, if Amazon still controls ebooks (as it supposedly currently does with 90% market share) it can do anything it wants – become the biggest Publisher, start taking over the channels, dictate terms to device manufacturers.

Google is perhaps a true competitor as it’s going after books and eventually will go after 100% of the profits in Book Publishing. Apple is much more concerned about getting iPads into people’s hands and selling them all sorts of content. Apple is not concerned about control of book publishing. 

People don’t really get Amazon

This comment by Dave Winer probably matches what lots of business people think about Amazon -

Amazon is a funny company too — their EC2 and S3 businesses must generate a lot of money and don’t seem to have anything with being a store.

So maybe Amazon has a reason to want to be in the Kindle business?  With Amazon there’s always a bit of mystery as to why they’re doing what they do.

Whether you look at their willingness to wait for profits or their gradual expansion into all of retailing it’s hard to figure out the master-plan. It might be because there isn’t a master-plan or it might be because the master plan is too immense for profit focused or single industry focused companies to understand.

Amazon’s profit margins aren’t as high as Apple, Microsoft, or Google – It makes you wonder whether it’s because their years of true profitability are still under construction. Perhaps Amazon is a company with infinite patience – building up infrastructure and a platform that will eventually show itself to be far bigger than what people currently envision.

Filed under: kindle Tagged: | amazon strategy, kindle strategy