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I think I'm pleased to see this, but I'm not surprised.
Way back when, when Sony was first releasing the Sony Reader, there were question about the market and who would survive. My feeling now is the same as the one I expressed then.
Sony is a consumer electronics manufacturer. For them, it's about the device. In order to create and sell the device, they had to create the surrounding infrastructure, including books you could read on it and a store where you could buy them.
For Amazon, it's about the books. They were already the 800 lb gorilla in the book retailing industry. They are a catalog merchandiser, a la Sears Roebuck, only their catalog and order facilities are online, instead of on paper and in brick and mortar outlets. They have the infrastructure in place to display stock and take orders. And with ebooks, there is no warehousing or distribution. The product is virtual, stored on a server, and downloaded by the customer. For Amazon, it's a win/win, as storage and shipping costs are a tiny fraction of what they would be for physical books.
It was not a surprise to me when Amazon released an iPhone app to read Kindle titles, and versions for the PC and Mac should be no surprise either. the more things the customer can use to read Kindle ebooks, the more Amazon is likely to sell, and ultimately, retail sale is what Amazon does.
I don't see this really competing with Kindle device sales. The Kindle market revolves around convenience. It's an easy to use platform that provides a good reading experience and allows you to select and acquire books from the device, with no PC or other device required.
I think my only surprise is that it has taken them this long to do it.
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Dennis
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