Will Amazon Launch The Kindle 4 In 2010?
Sunday, 29 November 2009 09:02 | 
Written by Andrew King |
2009 has been an important year for e-book readers - substantially as a result of the efforts of Amazon. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an updated and enhanced version of the original Kindle which launched in November 2007.
2009 has been an important year for e-book readers - substantially as a result of the efforts of Amazon. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an updated and enhanced version of the original Kindle which launched in November 2007.
In June of 2009, Amazon released the Kindle DX, a large display version of the Kindle 2. It was quite deliberately aimed at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks - and it caused quite a commotion.
The academic establishment immediately saw the potential - from textbooks with interactive modes, to constantly updated text - and the potential to save money was certainly there as well. Amazon, in addition to entering into partnership agreements with a number of colleges and universities, got a high level of free publicity from the political scene. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California, and the New Democratic Leadership Council - which numbers Hillary Clinton among its members - both waxed lyrical about the opportunities afforded by digital textbooks in general and the Kindle in particular.
As a result of Amazon's innovation and foresight - and greatly helped by free publicity - the Kindle has now become Amazon's number one selling product. At the moment, the Kindle has an amazing 60% share of the American e-book reader market, and an international version has recently been launched. The Kindle is now synonymous with e-book readers.
It's probably worth reflecting upon the fact that Amazon were a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The original e-book reader, generally agreed to be the Franklin eBookman, was launched a decade ago in'99. Even Sony's PRS reader beat Amazon to market.
Amazon, although not first to market, combined clever marketing with technical innovation and a strong focus on customer needs and achieved the dominant position in the e-book reader market. Features such as the large number of books available for download to the Kindle (currently 360,000 and growing every day) and wireless connectivity were just as critical to the Kindle's success as technical functionality.
Now that Amazon has developed the market - almost single handedly it seems - it looks like there are plenty of other manufacturers who want their share. Sony, Asus, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Microsoft - the list goes on - all have readers ready for launch or in the final stages of development.
Wireless connectivity, currently one of Amazon's strong selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader over 1,000,000 titles to choose from. Sony's new Daily Edition reader will allow users to download e-books on loan from participating lending libraries. There will most likely be some standard e-book format adopted in 2010, and this will allow let users lend e-books to family and friends or port them over to other readers should they so wish.
Many business analysts are checking out the list of new readers and trying to identify which one is the "Kindle Killer". The competition is certainly impressive - but it would be foolish to imagine that Amazon will sit on their hands while their e-book reader crown is removed. Amazon almost certainly has further plans for the development of the Kindle. In fact, it might be that the Kindle 4 will be the Kindle Killer and that we could see this next launch in 2010.
2009 has been an important year for e-book readers - substantially as a result of the efforts of Amazon. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an updated and enhanced version of the original Kindle which launched in November 2007.
In June of 2009, Amazon released the Kindle DX, a large display version of the Kindle 2. It was quite deliberately aimed at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks - and it caused quite a commotion.
The academic establishment immediately saw the potential - from textbooks with interactive modes, to constantly updated text - and the potential to save money was certainly there as well. Amazon, in addition to entering into partnership agreements with a number of colleges and universities, got a high level of free publicity from the political scene. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California, and the New Democratic Leadership Council - which numbers Hillary Clinton among its members - both waxed lyrical about the opportunities afforded by digital textbooks in general and the Kindle in particular.
As a result of Amazon's innovation and foresight - and greatly helped by free publicity - the Kindle has now become Amazon's number one selling product. At the moment, the Kindle has an amazing 60% share of the American e-book reader market, and an international version has recently been launched. The Kindle is now synonymous with e-book readers.
It's probably worth reflecting upon the fact that Amazon were a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The original e-book reader, generally agreed to be the Franklin eBookman, was launched a decade ago in'99. Even Sony's PRS reader beat Amazon to market.
Amazon, although not first to market, combined clever marketing with technical innovation and a strong focus on customer needs and achieved the dominant position in the e-book reader market. Features such as the large number of books available for download to the Kindle (currently 360,000 and growing every day) and wireless connectivity were just as critical to the Kindle's success as technical functionality.
Now that Amazon has developed the market - almost single handedly it seems - it looks like there are plenty of other manufacturers who want their share. Sony, Asus, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Microsoft - the list goes on - all have readers ready for launch or in the final stages of development.
Wireless connectivity, currently one of Amazon's strong selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader over 1,000,000 titles to choose from. Sony's new Daily Edition reader will allow users to download e-books on loan from participating lending libraries. There will most likely be some standard e-book format adopted in 2010, and this will allow let users lend e-books to family and friends or port them over to other readers should they so wish.
Many business analysts are checking out the list of new readers and trying to identify which one is the "Kindle Killer". The competition is certainly impressive - but it would be foolish to imagine that Amazon will sit on their hands while their e-book reader crown is removed. Amazon almost certainly has further plans for the development of the Kindle. In fact, it might be that the Kindle 4 will be the Kindle Killer and that we could see this next launch in 2010.
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