Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyR
Amazon might not be fighting Apple, but Apple sure is fighting Amazon. And winning.
The iPad and the Agency pricing deal it forced was the first blow. A pretty major one. Thanks to pricing being the same, there is basically no reason to ever buy an e-book from Amazon any more (other than it being Amazon).
Amazon hasn't done anything to fight back. As I said, this move clearly shows they aren't even going to try, and just fight with B&N over Apple's scraps.
Indeed, all Amazon seems to be doing lately is reacting to moves other companies are making. Apple walloped them with the iPad, and B&N outflanked them with the Nook Color.
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It is not as if the only books on Amazon are Agency books. There are a LOT of other publishers there too. Sure those might control a majority of the publishing industry in general, another issue I have in itself, but that could begin to change.
Also, Apple has all but shown they want out of the content business save maybe music as it's pretty established. What they seem to want is to let everyone provide content to the consumer via iTunes store and get their "protection" fee. Apple wants all the profit with none of the overhead in maintaining the content licencing. I don't have a link but there were a couple articles I've read over the past month which made some solid observations that Apple is indeed inching away from actually providing the content, preferring instead to let others
carry the water. Apple is moving to making themselves just a conduit for content.
Time will tell though and I don't see Apple fading away nor do I see Amazon doing the same. Both seem to be trying for the same customers but using very different angles of attack.