No doubt Amazon is taking a big gamble on Kindle Fire but I think they are one of the few that can make such an attempt and have better chance at success than anyone else. Amazon offers a similar close buying/shopping-ecosystem as Apple, the only thing I think could hold them back is they might not have the same vision as Jobs for post-PC devices. Amazon is specialized in internet-shopping, Jobs-Apple is into making better products and user experience with these devices on a daily basis...two very different approach to success.
I have said it to many "analytics" who love Amazon and their crazy P/E over 100.
The Kindle fire looses money on each one sold. Its not good for a company to loose money. Amazon believes that they will make back the lost money by locking the customers into Amazon store and buy all their stuff there.
The fun thing will be when you can jailbreak the fires and put Android on them. It will happen within days. Then maybe even I will buy one just to have an Android device to play around with.
BTW. Apple is "evil" for its 30-70 with Apps.
In music Apple have 7-11% and the artist/music company gets the rest.
Books 30-70.
Amazon kindle had 70-30. Amazon took 70% of the book sales. No one is angry at them since its not evil Apple.
Amazon is worried Apple's ecosystem will suck up a bunch of their customers and leave them frozen out of affluent markets (i.e. consumers who actually have money to spend). That could have drastic consequences for Amazon's bottom line. They're probably also worried that Google will start funneling customers to its own content services (like YouTube) via Android.
The Fire actually poses more of a threat to Google and its Android partners than it does to Apple, because of the price point. Android appeals to folks who don't have any money. It's a cheap but serviceable knockoff with a 2nd-rate ecosystem. The Fire is a cheap but serviceable iPad knockoff with - once Amazon gets done building it out - a decent ecosystem. It'll also be an ecosystem separate from the rest of the Android ecosystem, which currently is largely under Google's control. For Amazon, this represents a win / win. They'll successfully fragment the Android market, depriving Google of its control of that platform. They'll also hoover up a large percentage of low-value customers in the market, possibly enough to justify their enormous investment in the Fire. At the very least they'll keep Google and its other partners from successfully launching Android-based tablets to compete with the iPad. The Fire will suck all of the oxygen out of the Android tablet marketplace.
In a way, Amazon is borrowing a page from Microsoft's old playbook. Embrace and extend. They're doing to Google what Microsoft did to IBM.
The only problem is, Apple is way, way ahead of them in the enterprise space, which is where the software ecosystem matters the most. If they can't get established there, quickly, my guess is that the iPad will become the defacto tablet standard, and will become almost impossible to compete with anywhere outside of the low-margin, low-end of the space. Amazon still stands to make billions off of a commanding percentage of the overall tablet market, but the lion's share of all profits will flow to Apple, which will easily maintain a 25% market share.
The real losers in all of this will be Google and Microsoft, who will never make the transition to the post-PC marketplace.
Consumers are not stupid. You get what you pay for. If you want good food, you pay more. If you want a good education, you pay more. If you want a nice house, you pay more. If you want good technology, you pay more. If you want a $25 netbook, then you can live in poverty in India. Part of bettering yourself is to strive for something better. If you shop at Walmart your whole life, then you will have nothing better to offer your children when you die than Walmart items.
These statements make no sense. The iPhone 4S is not any more expensive than any other smarthphone. You don't have to look hard to find a phone on contract for 199. With everything the iPhone does its actually inexpensive. The perception of having to pay more to have perceivebly better things is NOT true.
Everyone had a bad 3rd quarter, even Apple. Wait till after the Holidays, and then we'll see what's what with whom.
Except they didn't have a bad third quarter, they had low iPhone sales due to the offset demand for the new iPhone. Apple beat their own guidance for the quarter. It wasn't Apple's fault that the street set lofty goals on the basis that the new iPhone might be released in the quarter.
The Kindle Fire is a low end tablet running phone apps that do not scale well. It will be a me too product with a crappy experience. This device is no better than an original 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab, only a year late.
This sounds just like the eMachines model: sell hardware at a loss to make it back on future sales.
It was a colossal failure then, and it won't work now. It gets to a point where the more units you ship, the more money you lose. Kindle Fire at fire-sale prices isn't going to be around long.
The Fire actually poses more of a threat to Google and its Android partners than it does to Apple, because of the price point. Android appeals to folks who don't have any money. It's a cheap but serviceable knockoff with a 2nd-rate ecosystem. The Fire is a cheap but serviceable iPad knockoff with - once Amazon gets done building it out - a decent ecosystem...
The biggest problem Amazon is going to face is the fact that they're selling a device aimed towards people that don't want to spend a lot of money. How exactly does that translate into content sales!?
What Apple has going for it, that no one else has been able to duplicate for the last decade, is a user base willing to spend money, not only for the devices themselves, but also for the content. This is why the iTunes Music Store was a huge success from the start; anyone willing to spend $399 dollars for an MP3 player, would surely have absolutely no problem paying 0.99 for content to play on that device. Likewise for iOS devices and apps.
Amazons margins will get even worse when Microsoft comes calling to get their cut because they are using an Android fork. The only reason why they probably haven't done so is that it isn't for sale yet. I expect another $5 - $10 loss per machine.
Oh wait, though, they would make it back on content sales. But yet again, you have another dumbfuck company looking at the wrong target. IT'S NOT CONTENT THAT MAKES APPLE RICH, IT'S THE HARDWARE, DUMMIES!!! When will these companies learn.
Steve (RIP) said it best, "They just don't get it."
It's the software, stupid.
just thought i'd throw that out there. everyone is going nuts over the Fire, but it's all based on price. they see the hardware as the PlayBook, which had pretty solid specs. but they focus so much on the price that they don't take a good look at the software.
the interface is pretty terrible for a tablet. how many of us use coverflow on our iOS device when browsing our music/movie collection? i sure don't. in fact, i don't even know if that is still an option with the new Music/Videos app...
now imagine if all the apps you had on your iPad were in one long coverflow style list? that is insane.
in reality, its both hardware & software. If you cut corners on one, doesn't matter how good the other is.
Wait, so selling things for less than what it costs you to make it is bad? What is this world coming to? Who is running Amazon now, Micheal Scott paper?
Wait, so selling things for less than what it costs you to make it is bad? What is this world coming to? Who is running Amazon now, Micheal Scott paper?
Hey now! Michael Scott Paper Company managed to swindle a pretty successful buyout out of their situation. Although, admittedly, Dunder Mifflin probably wasn't run any better.
Don't forget... Apple makes billion of dollars on hardware... but only a fraction of that from iTunes and the App Store.
Apple is and will always be a hardware company. iTunes and the App Store do make some money... but it pales in comparison to their hardware sales.
Now imagine if Apple didn't make any money on hardware... and only relied on iTunes and the App Store for profit. That would be suicide.
Well that sounds like what Amazon is doing.
No, it's not what Amazon is doing and you don't understand Apple's strategy.
It's true that Apple sells hardware and makes most of its money selling hardware. But one of the main selling points for their hardware sales is the ecosystem - all the software and media and other stuff that is available. Without the ecosystem, Apple would have a MUCH harder time selling most of its products (Most of the Macintosh computers wouldn't be that badly affected, but everything else would be).
Amazon is at least attempting to do the same thing. Amazon has the ecosystem -eBooks, media, apps, etc. The difference is that they are selling the hardware at a loss in order to get the profitable ecosystem sales. Apple sells the ecosystem sales at roughly break-even in order to get the profitable hardware sales.
It looks like Apple's strategy is going to be more successful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz
As another poster pointed out with more words and less directly...you are what's wrong with the world.
Good should be the standard. Better should cost more.
Not at all. Acceptable should be the standard. Some people will always want the bare minimum functionality and there's nothing wrong with that.
The funny thing about the kindle fire is.... I have no idea what I would use it for.... if I didn't have an iPad I still find it too small and crippled to even browse the web.
If, and that's a big IF, M$ and it's partners come up with a decent competitor to the iPad maybe there will be some real competition, but android based tablets are a waste of time.
I know exactly what I would use it for. But I'm not holding my breath in hopes of ever using it for what I want to use it for. That is a network remote to control my lossless iTunes library into an Airport Express into a DAC that is connected to my stereo system. (And the iTunes library is in a Mac Cube.) I find that my iPad is a little too big (and heavy) and my Touch a little too small for this. But a 7" tablet that is light and can withstand a drop to the floor from sofa height every now and then would be perfect. And this is all I would use it for. And maybe as a paper weight while it's sitting on the coffee table.
Hardware without the content is USELESS. Apple created the ecosystem to tie Mac, iPhone, and iPad together. Likewise, the reverse is also true. You can have the best content but subpar hardware won't get you anywhere. Amazon is ALMOST right. It has the contents, but it needs to improve on the hardware to compete.
As you probably already know, ALMOST is never good enough to compete with Apple.
Consumers are not stupid. You get what you pay for. If you want good food, you pay more. If you want a good education, you pay more. If you want a nice house, you pay more. If you want good technology, you pay more. If you want a $25 netbook, then you can live in poverty in India. Part of bettering yourself is to strive for something better. If you shop at Walmart your whole life, then you will have nothing better to offer your children when you die than Walmart items.
Your life and your self worth have little to do with the consumer electronics items that you select for purchase.
I guess it's mostly meant for video and games; Amazon still has the e-ink Kindles that are better suited for reading.
Web surfing too. It has a well-reviewed new browser.
Dunno about email, etc.
To me, not having access to the Android App Store is the biggest drawback, but I'll be curious if it will be possible to install plain vanilla Android onto it. I also wonder how durable it will be.
I know exactly what I would use it for. But I'm not holding my breath in hopes of ever using it for what I want to use it for. That is a network remote to control my lossless iTunes library into an Airport Express into a DAC that is connected to my stereo system. (And the iTunes library is in a Mac Cube.) I find that my iPad is a little too big (and heavy) and my Touch a little too small for this. But a 7" tablet that is light and can withstand a drop to the floor from sofa height every now and then would be perfect. And this is all I would use it for. And maybe as a paper weight while it's sitting on the coffee table.
What type of DAC do you use? Does the Mac Cube work well as a server? Do you use it for any other media, or just audio?
Nice pun but its true. The ones they are gunning for are B&N. They want to make sure that any tablet ebook is a Kindle and not a Nook. To the point they are going to allow rooting which surprises me. For $200 I'll buy one although the NC doesn't seem as clunky. I'll see what the NC 2 looks like first though.
Comments
Everyone had a bad 3rd quarter, even Apple. Wait till after the Holidays, and then we'll see what's what with whom.
IIRC earnings were up 54%. Really BAD quarter.
Keeping things in perspective: Amazon made 3.5% (0.035) of the profit Apple made. And that was BEFORE shipping millions ob Kindle Fires with a loss.
I really hope Jim B. makes it to orbit with Blue Origin. But he might have a real problem soon with Amazon.
The Kindle fire looses money on each one sold. Its not good for a company to loose money. Amazon believes that they will make back the lost money by locking the customers into Amazon store and buy all their stuff there.
The fun thing will be when you can jailbreak the fires and put Android on them. It will happen within days. Then maybe even I will buy one just to have an Android device to play around with.
BTW. Apple is "evil" for its 30-70 with Apps.
In music Apple have 7-11% and the artist/music company gets the rest.
Books 30-70.
Amazon kindle had 70-30. Amazon took 70% of the book sales. No one is angry at them since its not evil Apple.
The Fire actually poses more of a threat to Google and its Android partners than it does to Apple, because of the price point. Android appeals to folks who don't have any money. It's a cheap but serviceable knockoff with a 2nd-rate ecosystem. The Fire is a cheap but serviceable iPad knockoff with - once Amazon gets done building it out - a decent ecosystem. It'll also be an ecosystem separate from the rest of the Android ecosystem, which currently is largely under Google's control. For Amazon, this represents a win / win. They'll successfully fragment the Android market, depriving Google of its control of that platform. They'll also hoover up a large percentage of low-value customers in the market, possibly enough to justify their enormous investment in the Fire. At the very least they'll keep Google and its other partners from successfully launching Android-based tablets to compete with the iPad. The Fire will suck all of the oxygen out of the Android tablet marketplace.
In a way, Amazon is borrowing a page from Microsoft's old playbook. Embrace and extend. They're doing to Google what Microsoft did to IBM.
The only problem is, Apple is way, way ahead of them in the enterprise space, which is where the software ecosystem matters the most. If they can't get established there, quickly, my guess is that the iPad will become the defacto tablet standard, and will become almost impossible to compete with anywhere outside of the low-margin, low-end of the space. Amazon still stands to make billions off of a commanding percentage of the overall tablet market, but the lion's share of all profits will flow to Apple, which will easily maintain a 25% market share.
The real losers in all of this will be Google and Microsoft, who will never make the transition to the post-PC marketplace.
Consumers are not stupid. You get what you pay for. If you want good food, you pay more. If you want a good education, you pay more. If you want a nice house, you pay more. If you want good technology, you pay more. If you want a $25 netbook, then you can live in poverty in India. Part of bettering yourself is to strive for something better. If you shop at Walmart your whole life, then you will have nothing better to offer your children when you die than Walmart items.
These statements make no sense. The iPhone 4S is not any more expensive than any other smarthphone. You don't have to look hard to find a phone on contract for 199. With everything the iPhone does its actually inexpensive. The perception of having to pay more to have perceivebly better things is NOT true.
Talk about your double-edged sword ....
Everyone had a bad 3rd quarter, even Apple. Wait till after the Holidays, and then we'll see what's what with whom.
Except they didn't have a bad third quarter, they had low iPhone sales due to the offset demand for the new iPhone. Apple beat their own guidance for the quarter. It wasn't Apple's fault that the street set lofty goals on the basis that the new iPhone might be released in the quarter.
The Kindle Fire is a low end tablet running phone apps that do not scale well. It will be a me too product with a crappy experience. This device is no better than an original 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab, only a year late.
It was a colossal failure then, and it won't work now. It gets to a point where the more units you ship, the more money you lose. Kindle Fire at fire-sale prices isn't going to be around long.
The Fire actually poses more of a threat to Google and its Android partners than it does to Apple, because of the price point. Android appeals to folks who don't have any money. It's a cheap but serviceable knockoff with a 2nd-rate ecosystem. The Fire is a cheap but serviceable iPad knockoff with - once Amazon gets done building it out - a decent ecosystem...
The biggest problem Amazon is going to face is the fact that they're selling a device aimed towards people that don't want to spend a lot of money. How exactly does that translate into content sales!?
What Apple has going for it, that no one else has been able to duplicate for the last decade, is a user base willing to spend money, not only for the devices themselves, but also for the content. This is why the iTunes Music Store was a huge success from the start; anyone willing to spend $399 dollars for an MP3 player, would surely have absolutely no problem paying 0.99 for content to play on that device. Likewise for iOS devices and apps.
Oh wait, though, they would make it back on content sales. But yet again, you have another dumbfuck company looking at the wrong target. IT'S NOT CONTENT THAT MAKES APPLE RICH, IT'S THE HARDWARE, DUMMIES!!! When will these companies learn.
Steve (RIP) said it best, "They just don't get it."
It's the software, stupid.
just thought i'd throw that out there. everyone is going nuts over the Fire, but it's all based on price. they see the hardware as the PlayBook, which had pretty solid specs. but they focus so much on the price that they don't take a good look at the software.
the interface is pretty terrible for a tablet. how many of us use coverflow on our iOS device when browsing our music/movie collection? i sure don't. in fact, i don't even know if that is still an option with the new Music/Videos app...
now imagine if all the apps you had on your iPad were in one long coverflow style list? that is insane.
in reality, its both hardware & software. If you cut corners on one, doesn't matter how good the other is.
It's the experience.
Wait, so selling things for less than what it costs you to make it is bad? What is this world coming to? Who is running Amazon now, Micheal Scott paper?
Hey now! Michael Scott Paper Company managed to swindle a pretty successful buyout out of their situation. Although, admittedly, Dunder Mifflin probably wasn't run any better.
Don't forget... Apple makes billion of dollars on hardware... but only a fraction of that from iTunes and the App Store.
Apple is and will always be a hardware company. iTunes and the App Store do make some money... but it pales in comparison to their hardware sales.
Now imagine if Apple didn't make any money on hardware... and only relied on iTunes and the App Store for profit. That would be suicide.
Well that sounds like what Amazon is doing.
No, it's not what Amazon is doing and you don't understand Apple's strategy.
It's true that Apple sells hardware and makes most of its money selling hardware. But one of the main selling points for their hardware sales is the ecosystem - all the software and media and other stuff that is available. Without the ecosystem, Apple would have a MUCH harder time selling most of its products (Most of the Macintosh computers wouldn't be that badly affected, but everything else would be).
Amazon is at least attempting to do the same thing. Amazon has the ecosystem -eBooks, media, apps, etc. The difference is that they are selling the hardware at a loss in order to get the profitable ecosystem sales. Apple sells the ecosystem sales at roughly break-even in order to get the profitable hardware sales.
It looks like Apple's strategy is going to be more successful.
As another poster pointed out with more words and less directly...you are what's wrong with the world.
Good should be the standard. Better should cost more.
Not at all. Acceptable should be the standard. Some people will always want the bare minimum functionality and there's nothing wrong with that.
The funny thing about the kindle fire is.... I have no idea what I would use it for.... if I didn't have an iPad I still find it too small and crippled to even browse the web.
If, and that's a big IF, M$ and it's partners come up with a decent competitor to the iPad maybe there will be some real competition, but android based tablets are a waste of time.
I know exactly what I would use it for. But I'm not holding my breath in hopes of ever using it for what I want to use it for. That is a network remote to control my lossless iTunes library into an Airport Express into a DAC that is connected to my stereo system. (And the iTunes library is in a Mac Cube.) I find that my iPad is a little too big (and heavy) and my Touch a little too small for this. But a 7" tablet that is light and can withstand a drop to the floor from sofa height every now and then would be perfect. And this is all I would use it for. And maybe as a paper weight while it's sitting on the coffee table.
Hardware without the content is USELESS. Apple created the ecosystem to tie Mac, iPhone, and iPad together. Likewise, the reverse is also true. You can have the best content but subpar hardware won't get you anywhere. Amazon is ALMOST right. It has the contents, but it needs to improve on the hardware to compete.
As you probably already know, ALMOST is never good enough to compete with Apple.
Consumers are not stupid. You get what you pay for. If you want good food, you pay more. If you want a good education, you pay more. If you want a nice house, you pay more. If you want good technology, you pay more. If you want a $25 netbook, then you can live in poverty in India. Part of bettering yourself is to strive for something better. If you shop at Walmart your whole life, then you will have nothing better to offer your children when you die than Walmart items.
Your life and your self worth have little to do with the consumer electronics items that you select for purchase.
I guess it's mostly meant for video and games; Amazon still has the e-ink Kindles that are better suited for reading.
Web surfing too. It has a well-reviewed new browser.
Dunno about email, etc.
To me, not having access to the Android App Store is the biggest drawback, but I'll be curious if it will be possible to install plain vanilla Android onto it. I also wonder how durable it will be.
I know exactly what I would use it for. But I'm not holding my breath in hopes of ever using it for what I want to use it for. That is a network remote to control my lossless iTunes library into an Airport Express into a DAC that is connected to my stereo system. (And the iTunes library is in a Mac Cube.) I find that my iPad is a little too big (and heavy) and my Touch a little too small for this. But a 7" tablet that is light and can withstand a drop to the floor from sofa height every now and then would be perfect. And this is all I would use it for. And maybe as a paper weight while it's sitting on the coffee table.
What type of DAC do you use? Does the Mac Cube work well as a server? Do you use it for any other media, or just audio?
Yup...Amazon is going scorched earth with this.
Lets see whether it pays off.
Nice pun but its true. The ones they are gunning for are B&N. They want to make sure that any tablet ebook is a Kindle and not a Nook. To the point they are going to allow rooting which surprises me. For $200 I'll buy one although the NC doesn't seem as clunky. I'll see what the NC 2 looks like first though.