While imitation is often taken as the sincerest form of flattery, Amazon’s decision to hold an Apple-style launch for the introduction of their new Kindle range was a marker of their competitive intent. With his tongue firmly in cheek, Jeff Bezos took a leaf out of Apple’s book, to focus his ironic asides on Apple themselves.
Both companies go that extra mile to get their product and supporting service ecosystem right. While Apple tends to concentrate on the branding and promotional razamatazz around their launches, Amazon has tended to make price and its position as the world’s largest retailer the focus of its competitiveness.
With this event Amazon seemed to be saying, ‘We can do the razamatazz but we know that as well as having well-designed products and supporting service eco-systems, a good price-point is what the consumer wants.’
Amazon have already built a strong customer for with its Kindle reader and the new range now includes an entry version for £89. They also introduced the Kindle Touch, which is basically an upgraded version of their current offering.
But the new product that will really catch the attention of the consumer is the Kindle Fire tablet. With a price of $199 (UK launch date and price has not yet been announced) it is set to provide the first significant competition to Apple’s iPad. The Kindle Fire has a seven inch screen, free data storage over the internet and a new browser called Amazon Silk. Unlike other tablet competitors, the Kindle Fire already has a well established service eco-system, which combines Amazon books, video, MP3, a wide range of newspapers and magazines via the Kindle Fire ‘News-stand’ and taps into the Android apps range.
“These are premium products at non-premium prices,” Jeff Bezos said at the launch on 28 September. “We are going to sell millions of these.” And it would be hard to disagree. At the moment, Apple has eighty per cent of the tablet market in America. It will be interesting to see how things stand in a year’s time.
