Interesting article:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/26/read-on.html
Nothing that a lot of folks here haven't known for a while, but interesting to see it showing up in the mainstream press.
Quote:
Amazon’s Kindle e-reader is a terrific device, but a lot of people, myself included, figured that once Apple’s iPad came out, the poor little Kindle would be toast. The first thing I did at the iPad introduction event was snap a few pictures of a shiny new iPad right next to my Kindle. They came out looking like those pictures where a regular person is standing next to a movie star.
But guess what? Yes, it’s true that the iPad has been a smash hit, selling 3.3 million units in just a few months. But Amazon claims its plucky little Kindle is doing pretty well, too. Amazon won’t give out sales figures, but Forrester Research, a market-analysis firm, reckons Amazon will sell 3.5 million Kindles in the United States this year, bringing its total number in U.S. readers’ hands to 6 million by the end of 2010.
...
I suggested to Bezos that maybe Amazon didn’t care about selling Kindle machines, that maybe the device wasn’t important. He said that wasn’t the case, but that “our goal with the Kindle device is separate from the Kindle bookstore.” Bezos insisted there is a market for “a purpose-built reading device,” as he calls it. “It’s not a Swiss Army knife. It’s not going to do a bunch of different things. We believe reading deserves a dedicated device.” So far, at least, it looks like he’s right.
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