Big Plans for Kindle Apps?

[purl4peace]

Just saw this on Business Week:

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...pStories_msnbc

Part of the story:

Giant online retailer Amazon.com may be plotting a broader foray into software for smartphones.

The company already offers a handful of mobile applications. One lets users of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone read electronic books on their screens. Another lets BlackBerry users snap photos of products in stores, then find similar items on Amazon. Those may be just the start of Amazon's (AMZN) mobile efforts.

In the past several months the online retailer has been expanding its team of mobile engineers. It's also acquiring companies whose products and knowhow could help Amazon turn out new software for cell phones. The goals may be to sell new programs that can run on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, make Amazon's digital titles available for more devices, and ring up revenue from sales of mobile applications, say several software executives and analysts.

Amazon won't comment on its mobile-software ambitions. "We don't discuss future plans or developments," spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal says in an e-mail.

As an aside:

I saw on Amazon that the Kindle DX is out of stock for at least 4-6 weeks. I thought it was ironic because last night I had a dream that I had broken my Kindle DX and couldn't afford to replace it (I was told yesterday that I'm going to be losing my job as of 7/24).

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by purl4peace

Just saw this on Business Week:

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...pStories_msnbc

Part of the story:



As an aside:

I saw on Amazon that the Kindle DX is out of stock for at least 4-6 weeks. I thought it was ironic because last night I had a dream that I had broken my Kindle DX and couldn't afford to replace it (I was told yesterday that I'm going to be losing my job as of 7/24).

So sorry about your job loss.
Good luck in your job search!

[Sonist]

I'd rather Amazon focused on getting better PDF support on their existing products, than chasing after the iPhone market.

Because, frankly, if Sony or someone else comes out with a large-screen device with good PDF support, I'd dump my Kindles for good, if Amazon hasn't implemented PDF well by then.

Personally, I'd rather start buying all PDF books, as soon as there is a good ~10" device supporting the format.

[Kali Yuga]

Bezos did a fairly in-depth discussion a few weeks ago, and basically said they were going to expand and get Kindle books onto more devices. The idea is that the Kindle Reader and the Kindle Store operate independently; i.e. they didn't lower the price of the device in order to hook people into sales (the razor-and-blade model), nor are they lowering e-book prices to drive device sales (the iPod-ITMS model).

Since the e-book sales don't have to rely exclusively on Kindle Reader sales, it makes sense for Amazon to spread out to as many supplementary devices as possible.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Bezos did a fairly in-depth discussion a few weeks ago, and basically said they were going to expand and get Kindle books onto more devices. The idea is that the Kindle Reader and the Kindle Store operate independently; i.e. they didn't lower the price of the device in order to hook people into sales (the razor-and-blade model), nor are they lowering e-book prices to drive device sales (the iPod-ITMS model).

Since the e-book sales don't have to rely exclusively on Kindle Reader sales, it makes sense for Amazon to spread out to as many supplementary devices as possible.

We've had this discussion in another thread. Jeff Bezos is lying. The Kindle and the Kindle store are one business. If they were not, the Kindle would handle Mobipocket DRMed eBooks instead of a new DRM attached to Mobipocket eBooks.

[fugazied]

Sorry to hear about the job loss, guard that Kindle!!

As for Amazon apps, they are oneof the companies actually smart about their Internet applications development (flex apps, iphone apps, rich APIs, their S3 storage). SO I am guessing any kind of popular mobile device will have some kind of Amazon app available.