Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Sure, Amazon would like you to buy a Kindle...at a price where they'll make decent money on the deal. They don't need to lose money to gain market share, and won't.
______
Dennis
|
If Amazon wanted to lose money on Kindle hardware sales as a means to ramp up ebook sales, the time to do it was early in the game when the biggest complaint was that dedicated readers were too expensive. Yet the Kindle2 was introduced with a 100% markup. They could have easily cut $100 off at that time and *still* made decent money. Instead, they went with market-based pricing instead of loss-leader pricing.
Nothing that has changed since gives any hint that they *what* to get in a race to the bottom; their recent price cuts were reactive and measured. If anything, the last update makes it clear they intend to add value to the readers via Whispernet and social networking features. That pretty much rules out an unconnected Kindle.
Anyway, when it comes to cheap Kindle delivery systems, smartphones and Tablet PCs will fill in the gaps quite nicely so Amazon can bide their time and focus on their dedicated reader gadgets. The recent release of Kindle for Android is particularly well-timed as it appears to run fine on the Pandigital Novel, which runs brings color LCD reading to under $149. That means yet another platform (webpads) to prop Kindle up.
There's lots of ways to build installed-base volume that don't involve giving Kindles away. Though they *have* considered it. Do notice they haven't done it...