SourceCode: Amazon's Gambit in the Tablet and eReader Space

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Yesterday's Amazon announcements including the new Kindle Fire tablet as well as the range of ebook readers were met with surprise and delight by many. The sight of a US$199 coloured tablet with Android underpinnings and the ability to play thousands of streaming videos, mp3 music files and tv shows plus a vast selection of eBooks and magazines led some people to call it an 'iPad Killer," which it so isn't. Here's why.

The Kindle Fire is a remarkable tablet, there's no doubt about that. It should satisfy most user's needs if they want to consume content from Amazon's vast network of books, music, videos an more. The scaled down Android OS (a phone version, 2.3 Gingerbread to be exact) opens up access to some tablet-like functionality. The $199 price point just pulled the rug under all the $399 7-inch tablets in the market. But it isn't going to be killing the iPad anytime soon.

The selection of apps is even more limited than regular Android tablets (which anyone who owns one of these Honeycomb devices will tell you, don't have much of a library of apps). We keep revisiting our Motorola XOOM for new HD (for tablet) Android apps and the pickin's are slim as they are underwhelming. The Kindle Fire will have even less.

The lack of 3G, and a camera also limits the device's functionality to a point. 3G would have been a nice option, even at a higher price specially since a lot of the functionality of the Kindle Fire is based on Amazon Cloud Services. The camera isn't a biggie but everything ships with a camera these days and video chat has become something of a common use for these devices (even if we don't know too many people who use it for that).

Another limitation of the Kindle Fire, and possibly the biggest reason why despite it's compelling feature set, it isn't going to make a dent on the iPad's market share, is that it isn't a global device. The Kindle Fire is for US users only and isn't going to be available for sale anywhere else, at least for now.

Even if Canadians cross the border to get one of these tablets, they will have to jump around hoops to get it to work as it should and even then, the access to all the great cloud features will be limited. This is a big difference to what most tablets, specially the iPad offer since they are available in multiple countries and dependent of cloud components (although Apple's iCloud is expected to launch soon and it will be international).

This is not to say that the Kindle Fire isn't without merit. While it wont displace the iPad 2 anytime soon, we think it will definitely shake up the Android tablet space specially in the US. The Kindle Fire comes with a ton of innovation, integrates Amazon's proven technologies and ease of use and has that enormous cloud system backing it up. Should Amazon decide to go global with this product, which they should in a matter of months, then it will dominate the crowded Android tablet space simply because it offers a lot for the price.

Aside from the proven WhisperSync technology that allows content syncing across devices, Amazon has also imbued the Kindle Fire with access to its formidable collection of content composed of millions of songs, TV shows and music. No one else, aside from Apple who has a seven-year head start,  has this big a content ecosystem. Surely, none of the Android smartphone and tablet makers come even close to what Amazon can offer in this area. IF we were Netflix and similar services, we'd be shaking in our boots, at least in terms of US streaming content sales.

We're interested to see how Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Sony react to the Amazon offerings. Price drops are a given but even more pressing are new, low-priced devices that can somehow match what the new Kindles offer. Barnes & Noble already has an Android eBook reader, the Nook Color, but it is priced significantly higher than the Kindle Fire and isn't as dynamic in terms of functionality.

Kobo has hinted at a new product launching soon but will it be another eBook reader or something completely different? For Canadians, Kobo remains the best bet in terms of book selection and ease of transaction (as well as pricing) but if they get into the tablet/ereader hybrid space, things will definitely get a lot more interesting.