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Originally Posted by rhadin
The question isn't whether Apple or Google have deeper pockets than Amazon. The question is whether they are willing to and capable of spending the money needed to compete against Amazon in what would be for Apple and Google niche product lines.
Remember that unlike Amazon, Apple and Google consistently think in terms of profit, giving return to shareholders; Bezos, unlike Apple and Google, is willing to lose scads of money and not give shareholders a return.
If we are going to name companies that could fund a competitor to Amazon, we shouldn't leave out ExxonMobil and IBM, among others. Yet I doubt these companies would be willing to spend the money needed to get into a price war regarding ebooks.
For none of the named companies -- except Amazon -- are books in any format a core business. They are peripheral businesses.
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Apple and Google are actually in the ebook market so suggesting that Amazon's deep pockets were unique is silly. How about using Sony as an example? That's who Amazon was competing with in the early days after all. ebooks weren't a core business until Amazon sunk a ton of money into promoting both the Kindle and making ebooks widely availble via their technology. Hammering Amazon for a strategy that no one else selling books or anything else was willing to risk makes no sense.