While I was smarting from my loss of our in-office “Kindle Launch Date” pool, I still took some time to break down what seems like a very interesting value proposition:
What they got right
wireless connectivity
in-device purchasing (Connect has always been one of Sony’s liabilities.)
significant bestseller discounting (gives you a mental amortization “If I buy x books a year, this pays for itself in…”)
wireless pricing rolled into overall cost rather than requiring a plan
input options (you can do a bit of typing…)
untethered operation (never dock again.)
books + newspapers + magazines + sites/blogs (and the right ones)
“service not hardware”
got the marketing and author endorsements right. (Anybody see Toni Morrison or Michael Lewis stumping for Sony? Me neither.)
$5.50 mass markets. (Although did I notice a distinct lack of Harlequin series romance in the store…?)
What they missed (for now)
EVDO—great for US (and Japan, Korea, OK for Canada) but GSM-based UK, EU could be waiting for a while, rights issues aside.
(Added) Mostly closed format—Purchasing and display is in Kindle’s proprietary format only. Text can be converted, but no .epub, .pdf, etc.
Things people will think is a big deal, but probably aren’t
no WiFi (Blackberry lived for years without WiFi and as long as this is push rather than browse, it shouldn’t compromise the experience.)
not the greatest input/typing layout. (but it isn’t an email device)
(Added) DRM—DRM matters a lot to people who don’t like DRM, much less to those who are looking to buy stuff. I’d argue that the format issue matters more. If I don’t like iTunes, I can still drop MP3’s on my iPod. On the Kindle, not so much…
At first glance, looks like a significant step forward on the eReading front, which is surprising for a company taking its first swing in consumer electronics. Does it do everything? No. This is something my dear friend Mr. Shatzkin and I fence back and forth on: “One Device to Rule Them All vs. “The Best Device for This Media”. Every media experience involves a form factor optimization; books more than most because you are constantly interacting and the mechanics have to recede into the background in order for the experience to become immersive. So personally, I think the ultimate music+phone+reader+laptop+food processor is a red herring. New devices can get added to the repertoire if they confer significant advantages vs. the media they replaced and this one has some goodies that I think consumers will find appealing. (And you know the busy beavers in Amzn Bus. Dev will be cooking up the value-add deals for some time to come…)
Also, never underestimate Amazon’s ability to leverage a platform: AWS, ECC, S3…
(Updated: added some additional “things missed” after reading some of the commentary by people smarter than myself.)
