[SensualPoet]

The OP states:

Originally Posted by Kris777

Show me a $99 Kindle, Mr. Bezos, and you'll get me and a few million more customers to reach for our wallets.

... but not everyone agrees.

Originally Posted by stargazertony

I disagree. Amazon, nor anyone else, doesn't need to show anybody a $99 reader ... E-readers are kind of a niche market. Not everyone is going to want or buy one.

Exactly ... $189 for the full value Kindle 2i brings to the market is low enough given its full 3G access / delivery, 6" e-ink screen, outstanding content, and the substantial, but niche, nature of this consumer market.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

While a $99 Kindle is theoretically possible, the negative effects to competition might stir up regulatory issues (especially in already-hostile Europe) that Amazon wouldn't want to deal.

... The next big development for Kindle, and probably the reason for a WiFi Kindle to appear, is that Kindle is going to have to move into B&M retail sales.

Regulatory issues no doubt are important in the board-room when these decisions -- lowering prices and significantly narrowing margins. Governments are more interventionist these days than they used to be. Many governments recently, effectively, took partial control of the entire banking system.

But how deeply into B&M does Kindle actually have to go? For all the reasons fjtorres in his full note suggsts -- there are economic costs and consequences to selling online AND in outlets like Best Buy or Wal-mart at the same time. Amazon is NOT in the CE business ... its goal is to be the number one destination for ongoing content sales and the Kindle, as a device, is only one venue to those purchasing dollars. Longer term, selling Kindles has to be a profitable business in its own right (which, if you look at Amazon's business model to date, is EXACTLY how Amazon has positioned it -- as a profit centre, not a loss leader).

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

For Amazon, it's not about the reader, it's about the books. Amazon was already the largest catalog retailer of paper books. eBooks are a logical extension.

Right! plus e-books reduce handling and delivery costs to close to zero (unlike paperbacks and hard covers which need physical warehouses, people to pick them off shevles and box them, and other folks and costs to deliver them ... and then reverse everything, at the same cost, for a return). It is absolutely about the books -- and this important distinction separates Amazon from Sony and Apple, and most other players.

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Hmm... you guys are aware that there has been a nice 5-inch, pocketable, multi-format, DRM supporting (eReader/Palm DRM), full sunlight readable, faster page turning (with no flash-to-black), easy 4 AA battery replacement, ebook reader selling at the $99.95 sale/street price point, for some time now? The Ectaco JetBook Lite. As it also has SDHC card support, so an unlimited library in your pocket. It requires no tie in with any particular ebook distributor and no power hungry rf transceivers (WiFi, 3G or Blutooth).

Amazon's visionary stand in this space is the insistence on 3G as part of the core package. WiFi is not nearly as robust or ubiquitous; nor is wifi the road to the future -- 3G, or wireless at any rate, is. There may be room to add wifi to a 3G Kindle, but it would be a huge mistake to remove 3G from any Kindle. Always on, always connected -- this is a core differentiator and only Amazon has put in place a seamless global solution, currently at no extra cost to the consumer.

Originally Posted by Connallmac

Well that $99 iPhone has free Kindle software available for it, so for $0 you can begin downloading Amazon's ebook. That is part of the reason that Amazon hasn't seen bigger drops in it's Kindle pricing, it has given you millions of other ways to buy it's books that have no upfront costs. Everyone with a Blackberry or iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch or Android device can buy books from them.

This is the second part of Amazon's visionary stand: Amazon delivered content, delivered everywhere, with the same piece of content synced so no matter where you are or one what device, your page picks up where you left off. That's an amazing promise and no other vendor makes that or can make that in the near term.

Originally Posted by kjk

If Amazon showed me a Kindle DX with over 200 dpi and zero screen flash on page turns-I'd pay $599.

This is a niche market Amazon is unlikely to pursue!

So what's next? Some sort of colour device, when the technology catches up with consumer desire. But you can bet it will offer even deeper hooks into Amazon's 3G enabled consumer community and continue to internationalise its base.