Quote:
Originally Posted by ppw
Another analogy is dedicated scanners vs. multifunction machines.
For a minority of people, a dedicated device is preferred. But for the majority of people, a multi-function device is suffice. Amazon's kindle hardware afters the minority while Apple' Ipad afters the mass. Amazon can not rely on the minorities to keep updating their devices as their business model because there would be no growth.
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The scanner vs multifunction device is a good example of just why it can still be a good thing to have separate devices, separate functions tied together in a package that is generally bulkier, no cheaper and a single point of failure i.e. your printer breaks and you have also lost your scanner.
As far as amazon, have you not being paying attention to the various Kindle for ... apps that are out there for pc, mac, blackberry, idevices and android? The actual Kindle hardware makes money in its own right and while that is still true then you will keep seeing new models if they offer sufficent benefits to the existing owners, their business model relies on nothing more than selling books and they are clearly not locked into any particular hardware to do that.