Will Next Year See The Release Of The Amazon Kindle 4?
This has been a big year for e-book readers – mainly due to the efforts of Amazon. Amazon debuted the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an improved and enhanced version of the original Kindle which was launched in November 2007.
In June of 2009, Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX, which was a large display version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically targeted at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks – and it caused quite a stir.
The possibilities for academic use – from interactive textbooks to continually updated texts, and not forgetting the opportunity for academic bodies to save a good deal of money – attracted a lot of attention. As well as entering into agreements with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon got a lot of free publicity from political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California.
Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and determination – helped by all the free publicity – the Amazon Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s top selling product.Currently, the Kindle has an amazing 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and has recently launched an international version. The Kindle has become virtually synonymous with e-book readers.
It’s probably worth pointing out that Amazon were, in fact, a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The original e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, was launched in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, prior to the launch of the first.
Amazon may not have been first to market – but by a combination of marketing, technical innovation and responsiveness to customer needs, Amazon has reached its current dominant position. The large selection of books available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as crucial to the Kindle’s success as were the technical aspects of the device.
However, now that Amazon has – almost single handedly – developed the market, it seems that every man and his dog want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list continues – all have their own readers set for release or in the final stages of development.
Wireless connectivity, currently one of Amazon’s unique selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader over 1,000,000 titles to choose from. The new Sony Daily Edition reader will permit users to borrow books on loan from participating lending libraries. Meanwhile, there will most likely be a standard e-book format agreed next year, which will let users lend e-books to family and friends or transfer them over to other readers if they want.
Right now, a lot of industry analysts are checking out the line up of new readers and attempting to predict which one is the Kindle Killer. However, Amazon has been very astute thus far and they won’t surrender their top position without a fight. It took them less than eighteen months following the release of the original Kindle to launch the hugely improved Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has big plans for the future development of their Kindle family. Could it be that the Kindle killer will actually be the Kindle 4 and that we could see this sometime in the next twelve months?
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