Quote:
Originally Posted by BenLee
Getting the Kindle working on all major devices, not just eReaders, is definitely a move that will pay off long term and have a huge impact on how we buy books in the future.
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Makes me wonder if at some point he might not want to license out a pre-packaged Kindle app for competing ebook readers. It's easy to see why not *now* as most of the likely licensees come with unstable core firmware and the Kindle app is hardly a particularly feature-rich reader but as hardware prices continue their decline into blister-pack territory, it might not be a bad way to cover the very-low end of the spectrum. Let the asian oems do what they do best, crank out dirt-cheap gadgets, and skip the part that limits them; the software.
Some of this can be achieved via Kindle for Android but at the very low-end an app that goes straight to the hardware would be a better performer, especially for pure reader devices that won't need the full Android functionality (and performance overhead).
Theoretically, Amazon could actually *pay* the manufacturers a small fee to carry their app (instead of *charging* as Adobe does) which might allow the reader to sell at cost. It may be how we get to $49 readers.
(Yes, I'm thinking of the old days and AOL's business model.)
Things could get very interesting if Amazon gets serious about going for market share over profit margin.