Amazon Have A Good Year Due To The Kindle Ebook Reader

Mar.17, 2010 in Technology and Gadgets

Towards the end of the year, when Amazon’s management team gather to look over the company’s performance in 2009, they will have good reason to feel content – but not smug. It’s been a great year for the internet retail giant – and much of the credit must go to the Amazon Kindle reader.

Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February of 2009. It was widely viewed as a big step in the right direction. Amazon had clearly listened closely to customer feedback concerning the original Kindle, released in 2007. Wireless connectivity and the vast library of Kindle books were retained and quicker page turns, prolonged battery life and increased storage capacity were among the improvements which were introduced.

Best selling author, Stephen King wrote a special Kindle book to mark the launch and the Kindle 2 quickly became the “must have” gadget among a blaze of publicity.

Just a few months later, in June of 2009, Amazon released the Kindle DX. This had a large display and was targeted at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it was the conservative 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 faster to update textbooks but interactive education – pop quizzes and tests for instance – would be possible. Academic bodies would not only save money as a result of using paperless books, but they would be more environmentally friendly also – a key factor for such institutions who have both budgets and environmental targets to meet nowadays.

As well as cementing partnerships with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon benefited from a good deal 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.

However, as rosy as things appeared for Amazon, there were signs that trouble was looming. Other manufacturers, having watched Amazon develop the e-book reader market, were now becoming aware of the huge potential of this fledgling sector. An impressive list of competitors, including the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Barnes and Noble and Sony, wanted their share – and they all had their own readers in development.

It’s a compliment to Amazon – albeit a backhanded one that virtually every ebook reader in development which shows the slightest promise is immediately given the title of the “Kindle Killer”. The problem is that, at the moment, in spite of all the development work by the competition, Amazon is still the only game in town. Sony’s Daily Edition reader and the Nook from Barnes and Noble have both had their launch dates postponed. In fact, it looks ever more likely that the most probable source of the long awaited Kindle Killer would be Amazon itself. The Kindle 4 looks like the most likely challenger. Could we expect to see it in the next twelve months?