Opinions can be caustic. At least, mine was when I heard about Amazon’s Kindle. And, of course, I’ve been proved wrong. Kindle’s success has been quite strong, if not spectacular.
Here’s something I wrote last year about my thoughts on Kindle having limited sales prospects. Needless, to say, I’ve already eaten my share of humble pie.
Kindle despite its early success will ultimately goes the way of the Apple Newton. The reason for this is that we live in a world where convergence is valued. The iPhone is spectacularly successful because of it’s ability to provide multi-functional capabilities. Mass acceptance of the Kindle will not occur for a while because many folks still prefer reading books in paper format as opposed to the digerati who flaunt their kindles at airports or coffee shops.
Somehow, Jeff Bezos’ hubris led him to spend millions of R&D resources in the hope that he could create the next…iPod for books? I don’t think he knew the answer yet and neither do I.
What I know however is that today’s wired or is it wireless, world prefers the convenience of a multi-functional single device containing all the technologies that users require in terms of social networking, business tools (Outlook, Excel et al) and entertainment. So, give me Facebook mobile, my pictures, videos and cool im/text messaging on my iPhone and I’m golden. And, I assume that most users will think that way too. Who would want to lug yet another device around along with a phone, laptop and now the electronic book gadget?
But, as novel as the ebook option sounds, most seasoned readers will admit that there’s nothing like browsing through the pages of a book. So, I wonder who was the target market for this device? Was it a sub-segment of the million of Amazon shoppers i.e. those who purchased books maybe? Was the thought that they would achieve a certain penetration target and then let those early adopters drive this into the mainstream? I can just see book club users sitting around a room discussing a NYT bestseller, Kindle in hand.
So, was it the printer or video game model that Amazon was trying to follow to build some sort of customer retention model? Or the iTunes model. Problem is not only does Apple have a cool brand – it’s also got cool products. Amazon, while huge is scale is still a reseller – A good one though.
I think Jeff Bezos should be grateful that his pet project didn’t turn into a disaster and get him fired like Steve Job’s pet project did when he was usurped by John Scully and the Apple board back in the day. (Jobs’ return, of course, is the stuff of legends)
So, in conclusion, despite that hype about Kindle in the blogosphere (nice guerrilla marketing by Amazon), I agree that inadequate vision, poor product design and lack of adequate marketing strategy led to the creation of a mediocre unsuccessful product.
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In April 2009, analysts estimated that the Kindle and Kindle book downloads could generate between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion by 2010. Currently , the Kindle sells for $299 and can handle 1,500 books, many costing about $10. A thinner, faster version, called Kindle DX, was released in February and cost $489. Great job, Jeff and Good luck!
