Quote:
Originally Posted by herbalist
I hope it is the Sony because imho Amazon should not be in the hardware business in the first place! If they concentrate on selling ebooks to all ereader devices, they will make much more money and the rest of us who are not kindle owners would a bigger selection in books.
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They barely are. They contract with separate companies for both the hardware and the firmware. They're the reseller and are making the feature decisions but they're not doing the implementation. Their biggest contribution is making a great store and that's where the real money is.
That's why I'm a bit concerned for Sony despite the fact that they've just released great new firmware. The Connect store is not a big attraction and the new firmware should make a lot of revenue for other stores. I think eventually that will be a great move for them as well as being great for us consumers, but right now the market is still small. E-ink is still at a premium. Sony is charging a very low price all things considered, but it's still not a low price. They've got the kind of margin you need volume to sustain and a market that's not ready for volume. I hope they're willing to stay in the game for awhile until they can compete on a pure device level rather than a device + store combination.