If I were at Amazon I would be scared of Apple. Let’s face it, after grabbing the iPad, not many people will want an additional device just for reading. Sure, the Kindle is a way much better ebook reader, but iPad offers so much more. And in that sense, I really don’t see that many people buying both the iPad and Kindle. So what should Amazon do?
Here’s what I came up with – abandon Kindle as hardware and turn it into a platform!
Actually, they could turn their hardware product into a reference design, make it [reference design] open source and allow anyone to make their own ebook readers that will sing along Amazon’s service. And then every single Kindle hardware maker would automatically become the Amazon affiliate, earning portion of the revenue with every ebook sold. Moreover, world’s biggest book retailer should even help these guys (which, in this plan, are effectively turned into partners) market their products. So instead of offering two Kindle versions, there could be a whole category of Kindle products on Amazon.
Likewise, Amazon should also make the Kindle software available on every friggin’ platform. It should run on the iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Mac OS, Windows, Linux, MeeGo… you get the point.
What do you think? Is this the way to go for Amazon? Comments form is all yours…