Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
The intent here is not to compete with the iPad, it is to provide another avenue to sell books.
Amazon does not have a color reader. The nook is kicking butt in that space. The intent here is to offer that option to the kindle community.
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So Amazon's trying to settle into a niche. But with
tablets squeezing into the ereader market from one end, and the
Nook Color pushing into the tablet market from the other, that niche is starting to resemble a cubbyhole.
Remember how a year ago the Kindle was riding the crest of a media feeding frenzy into the hearts and minds of mainstream America? All the Kindle-buzz has been drowned out in the tablet roar of the past six months, and if the media aren't talking about it, people aren't thinking about it. Sure, to those of us at MR, the iPad ain't an ereader, but to most consumers it's a distinction without a difference. For Joe Sixpack, eink reading experiences and three-week battery life just aren't compelling reasons to forgo tablets for a device that just reads books and, that, frankly, just isn't as cool as it used to be. No one oohs and aahs over your Kindle on the subway any more because they're all too busy going gaga over that iPad2 three seats back. In the gadgets-and-devices market, the Kindle is last quarter's news.
In short, both technologically (as the Nook Color demonstrates) and as a business model, the
dedicated ereader distinction is quickly becoming unsustainable. Price drops have forced ereaders down into commodity territory, and
manufacturers have been exiting the arena for a year now. The market isn't consolidating, folks, it's asphyxiating.
--Nathanael