Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
I'm not sure that's a given.
The environment *is* challenging for competitors but there is room for alternative readers built around something other than ebook storefronts. Competitors do need to understand that if the want to compete they *have* to compete; they have to establish retail presence, let consumers know what their value proposition is, and make sure they offer more than just a minimalist reading experience.
In the new regime it's not enough to announce a reader, put up a website, and sit back to wait and see if anybody nibbles. Online-only "Fly-fishing" marketing won't do when there's trawlers out there. And it would help if (some) vendors remembered that there is such a thing as post-sale support.
Not going to be easy but, if quoted numbers can be believed, there's still 30-million customers up for grabs in the US alone. There should be room for something besides the connected-storefront readers.
We can hope.  |
hardware sales only is not a sustainable business market for ereaders, they will be squeezed out by Amazon, B&N and perhaps even Apple. Even a major player like Irex was doomed from the beginning. The manufacturing, marketing and other expenses can not be sustained by selling a few thousand readers to people who love to tinker. The majority of the consumers want to enter their credit card info and buy a book and then read it, they dont care about formats and drm and myriad of other technical minutiae that we do.
The Kindle is winning becuase you can buy one and with a credit card and electricty you can start reading books. You dont need a computer or a software client or a conversion process. We can talk about the efficacy of formats all day long but form and function will lose out over marketing and ease of use every single time with consumers.
With a content strategy you can sell your device at whatever you are willing to take in a loss in order to lock them into buying your contetent. Ask apple how that has worked out for them for music, it will be the same for books. I dont like certain aspects of the way its layed out, but i will put my money with Apple and Amazon. I think it will be a safe investment and so does the majority of the consuming public.
I have no doubt that if they needed to Amazon can and would sell the kindle for $49. A hardware only vendor does not have a prayer in that market