Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Exactly; Beta had a more impressive specsheet... to techies. The core technology might've been better but the consumer *product* wasn't.
To the people that voted with their wallets it *wasn't* a better system because they had to live with the entire ecosystem, not just the specsheet.
The same thing is ongoing with Kindle vs the ADE horde.
Both camps have good products on paper and reasonable, well-informed people can and will buy and be happy with either. But Kindle outsells the entire ADE horde by a mile or two because it is cheaper *and* it doesn't need a PC. That is a very compelling argument for a lot of people, even computer literate ones.
Different people have different needs and different value judgements which is a generally good thing when it comes to market dynamics. Product variety and vendor competition is good for everybody. But it requires vendors to understand their product and their competitors' and what about them is driving sales. And right now, as the ebook reader industry is still very young, there are a quite a few vendors who don't really understand what sells the gadgets. Amazon, however, is not one of them; they understand what sells the Kindle and have shown no interest in changing their approach until the market tells them they have to change. So far, that isn't happening.
This subject announcement is them reminding their customers, might-be customers, and critics that they are doing just fine. It might be helpful to take note of this and consider that their sales numbers are telling us something meaningful about what the market does and doesn't value and not just dismiss it as the result of uninformed or misguided buyers.
As the saying goes; "If you keep on doing what you always did, you'll keep on getting what you've always got." 
Amazon outselling the field is a reality.
The real question isn't by how much but rather what, if anything, competitors are going to do about it. |
Also what I think the bigger question is how much of the total market has ereader grabbed and how much is left as an untapped market?
I take the train into work every moring and it's not even close between the number of people reading books as compared to ereaders, the kindle nook or otherwise.
This past holiday season was supposed to be the ereaders coming out party to the general public, we'll have to see.