Only 6gb of useable onboard storage, no mic, no gyroscope, no bluetooth, no sd card expansion slot for non-kindle apps/storage, no gorilla glass, and customer service reps from India and Pakistan. Should be interesting having to hit a button to switch from landscape to portrait mode, since there is no gyroscope, not to mention lack of games that utilize it. People expecting an ipad-like experience with the Fire are going to be seriously disappointed.
It's also interesting to hear that Amazon plans to outdate the 7" version of the Fire before it's even released to the public. Second quarter sales aren't going to be rosy.
I've been giving this "Fire" thing a lot of thought... trying to figure out what's going on.
AFAICT, Amazon has booked somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 preorders per day since the Sept 28 announce. There are 48 days between announce and availability on Nov 15.
If that holds it means that between 960,000 and 2,400,000 Fires will have been preordered.
There are 46 days between Nov 15 and Dec 31 -- it is possible that the pre-order rate could be sustained (or even increase) as the holidays approach..
So, it is conceivable that Amazon could sell between 2 and 5 million Fires this year.
All the rumors certainly suggest so...
I guess what bothers me is that it's all rumor.
There are no verifiable numbers -- and no apparent way to gain them...
1) Bezos talks in abstracts "well received", "big demand", "millions more than we planned"...
2) Amazon does not report Kindle device sales/inventory/returns...
3) The devices are only sold through the Amazon [online] store...
4) There is no way for anyone to measure sales -- other than a survey as suspect as the recent one under discussion...
5) Predictably, Every Kindle device is reported as a top seller in its category (whatever that is)
We, the outside public, have no way to tie Fire sales to any number (reasonable or unreasonable).
We're left with accepting rumors or doing our own SWAG estimates using the Aborigine Numbering System... somewhere between few and many!
...It's probably more than 200 thousand and less than 2 million, IMO.
The only check we'll have is after the fact when Amazon reports its earnings -- we can estimate a loss of $10-$50 per Fire sold and extrapolate the number in the decline in overall earnings.
So, Bezos is in the middle of kind of a perfect situation in the tablet? wars....
He can just declare victory and retire from the field (knowing that each Fire not sold will improve the bottom line).
Maybe I'll waddle over to asymco and ask Horace if he knows how to quantify this?
Actually, I do. Given a random sample, one can calculate the error limits based on any certainty level they choose. Depending on whether you want a 90 or 95% certainty level, the error in this study is a couple of percent - or greater than the number of people who allegedly delayed their iPad purchase.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConradJoe
Likely you are correct. 74% of the FireBuyers had no plans to buy an iPad.
And Conehead Joe continues his lies.
The study didn't say that 74% of the Fire buyers had no plan to buy an iPad. It said that 26% were going to delay or cancel their planned iPad purchase. The remaining 74% could be in several different categories:
- People who had no plans to buy an iPad
- People who bought a Fire and bought an iPad, anyway
- People who ACCELERATED their iPad purchase when they saw how bad the competition was.
I'm not going to try to put percentages on those options because, unlike you, I don't simply make things up and pretend they're factual. But clearly, the report does NOT support the claim you made.
Wrong! The Kindle Fire does use gorilla glass for the touchscreen.
Don't confuse the Kindle Fire with Amazon's Kindle e-reader devices. They're completely different products. The Kindle Fire is their "tablet" whereas the other Kindle devices have e-ink screens and are designed almost exclusively for "reading."
I wonder why they don't say anything about Gorilla Glass™ on the Kindle Fire website.
Is the display "just like" Gorilla Glass or is it actually Gorilla Glass?
Might be technically irrelevant but it is curious not to mention it by name.
I've been giving this "Fire" thing a lot of thought... trying to figure out what's going on.
AFAICT, Amazon has booked somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 preorders per day since the Sept 28 announce. There are 48 days between announce and availability on Nov 15.
If that holds it means that between 960,000 and 2,400,000 Fires will have been preordered.
There are 46 days between Nov 15 and Dec 31 -- it is possible that the pre-order rate could be sustained (or even increase) as the holidays approach..
So, it is conceivable that Amazon could sell between 2 and 5 million Fires this year.
All the rumors certainly suggest so...
One day we'll know for sure, Dick, but if I were to guess I'd say a few retailers are taking the same gamble that they took with the Xoom... order the crap out of the product with hopes that it will be a big holiday season seller and then take a loss on the product that is remaining.
Either Bezos actually has a real hit or we'll be able to buy a Fire for $149 in February.
Either way, Amazon is losing money on every unit sold... whether it can be recovered in content sales is yet to be seen.
One day we'll know for sure, Dick, but if I were to guess I'd say a few retailers are taking the same gamble that they took with the Xoom... order the crap out of the product with hopes that it will be a big holiday season seller and then take a loss on the product that is remaining.
Either Bezos actually has a real hit or we'll be able to buy a Fire for $149 in February.
Either way, Amazon is losing money on every unit sold... whether it can be recovered in content sales is yet to be seen.
IH...
Are 3rd-party resellers selling the Fire -- I thought it was only Amazon direct sales???
Are 3rd-party resellers selling the Fire -- I thought it was only Amazon direct sales???
On edit... the Kindle fire is available through 3rd party resellers.
"Beginning November 15 the new Kindle Fire will be in stock at over 16,000 stores in the U.S. BestBuy, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target and WalMart will carry the products."
The key for Amazon is obviously making enough money off of digital content to cover their losses on the hardware. But so far as I can tell, Amazon makes no more money off of digital content than Apple does (in terms of margins), and Apple has always said that they run their digital stores as break-even operations. Maybe Apple isn't being entirely honest about that, but still -- I doubt Apple is making much profit on digital content. So how will Amazon make better margins selling at the same prices as Apple, especially when Amazon has smaller volume on music and apps?
Apple makes a little profit from the App Store and iTunes and whatnot. They just make far more from hardware. That's what they're really trying to sell.
Amazon is going at it from the other direction: small loss on the device in order to become basically THE go-to source for any eBooks or digital movies anybody owns.
Additionally, they're pushing Amazon Prime for this pretty hard. It makes the Fire much more attractive — a free eBook (rental) every month, free movies and TV shows, free shipping through the Amazon store. That $80/year (or whatever it is now) is where they'll make their profit.
And if you already have Amazon Prime (as I do, because the shipping alone makes it worth it to me), then you are far, far, far more likely to pretty much just buy everything you can from Amazon. And why not? The shipping is free.
I expect that's where they'll make back their losses on the device itself and then some.
I think the tablet manufacturers that can't back up with extensive content will be the ones most badly affected. Nobody can compete against a loss leader unless they have something else to sell.
IMO, that is the fascinating thing about his whole phenomenon.
I'm not sure how the traditional hardware companies will compete at full price. I think that they will have to strike deals with companies who would benefit from the tablets as a retail portal.
Or maybe there will emerge two classes of devices, cheap subsidized ones that are tied to some particular provider using the Amazon formula, and more expensive, unsubsidized tablets that can be used for more different tasks and access more different stuff, like the Galaxy Tab.
It is questionable how much people will pay for limited-use tablets vs. full-featured tablets with robust non-shopping ecosystems.
It is also extremely inefficient for every retailer to develop sufficient apps for its tablet. And yet, anybody who wants to sell a subsidized tablet will need apps to sweeten the deal with a good-enough ecosystem.
It will be very interesting how this all shakes out. One extremely likely scenario, IMO, is that one or more retailers will decide to stop developing their forked OS in time. Whether they adopt a more mainstream OS or forego the subsidized tablet sales at that point remains to be seen.
I wonder why they don't say anything about Gorilla Glass? on the Kindle Fire website.
Is the display "just like" Gorilla Glass or is it actually Gorilla Glass?
Might be technically irrelevant but it is curious not to mention it by name.
Apple never mentioned it by name with the first iPhone and presumably the 3G and 3GS, as well. (Corning's CEO is quoted in the Steve Jobs biography talking about it; that's the first reliable confirmation I've seen anywhere that gorilla glass was used in the iPhone.)
We know that Apple developed (or, more likely, developed with Corning) a new glass for the 4 and 4S, which may or may not be Corning's new lotus glass, though.
I don't think the glass is much of a selling point to anybody outside of gadget nerds (like myself and most of us here), so a company opting not to name it doesn't really strike me as unusual.
Apple never mentioned it by name with the first iPhone and presumably the 3G and 3GS, as well. (Corning's CEO is quoted in the Steve Jobs biography talking about it; that's the first reliable confirmation I've seen anywhere that gorilla glass was used in the iPhone.)
We know that Apple developed (or, more likely, developed with Corning) a new glass for the 4 and 4S, which may or may not be Corning's new lotus glass, though.
I don't think the glass is much of a selling point to anybody outside of gadget nerds (like myself and most of us here), so a company opting not to name it doesn't really strike me as unusual.
Amazon disagrees with you. The toughness of the display is one of the Fire's selling points featured on the website. Amazon's target market is quite different from the iPad, I would imagine. Parents would think twice about giving an iPad to a younger child but the price of the Fire makes it attractive as a gift for children under 12, imo. If that's true then the durability of the glass would become paramount.
On edit... the Kindle fire is available through 3rd party resellers.
"Beginning November 15 the new Kindle Fire will be in stock at over 16,000 stores in the U.S. BestBuy, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target and WalMart will carry the products."
Wow!!
That is a surprise! (I yahooed and found some similar information).
AIR, the parts cost estimates for the Fire were right around $200 with total cost to Amazon estimated at $220-$250 -- or a loss of $20-$50 per sale. This would be recovered in subscription and content sales over a 1-2 year period.
I suspect they would need to give resellers a $150-$175 price based on order volume.
I fail to see how this could work at all...
Even if they show well compared to the other tablets sold by the retailers -- that's a pretty big loss to Amazon for each sale.
If they don't sell, then we'll have another TouchPad fiasco...
1) ship back to AMZN incurring additional costs/losses
2) drastic closeout price reductions, by AMZN incurring additional costs/losses
This looks like a lotta' risk with no upside...
If I were Schiller, I'd get iPad placement next to the Fire at all those resellers
Edit: We'll know before Thanksgiving if we have a roast turkey...
The Kindle Fire is essentially some Amazon lipstick gloss on an Android pig. Let's wait until this slab hits the street before we crown it as the next big thing, and I'm eagerly awaiting the customer reviews as the silk fantasy meets the harsh reality.
The Kindle Fire is essentially some Amazon lipstick gloss on an Android pig. Let's wait until this slab hits the street before we crown it as the next big thing, and I'm eagerly awaiting the customer reviews as the silk fantasy meets the harsh reality.
The big missing piece for the user is:
Where is my stuff?
My pictures, my CDs (that I already own), my home movies, my documents, my social life...
The only thing of mine on there is my email -- everything else is someone else's stuff... that I have to buy...
excellent point. The flip side is that at a $200 price point people may be happy with a web browser, book reader, movie watcher. Basically transient content.
The Kindle Fire is essentially some Amazon lipstick gloss on an Android pig. Let's wait until this slab hits the street before we crown it as the next big thing, and I'm eagerly awaiting the customer reviews as the silk fantasy meets the harsh reality.
Obviously, the blades are Amazon content and services...
...
What am I missing?
The blades are not just content and services.
The blades are everything that Amazon now sells via the website, plus anything and everything that Amazon chooses to sell in the future.
What if there were a fun little tablet that made it so anything you wanted at Mall*Wart appeared magically at your front door a couple of days later? Might that help Wallmart's sales?
Amazon is positioned to do that in a big way. Apple only sells content and apps, B&N is even more limited than Apple, but Amazon sells pretty much everything that anybody might want. And their horizons are unlimited in that regard.
So these early forays into tablet sales can easily be at a small loss, if they truly plan to expand the ecosystem. Even with their current ecosystem, they might do very, very well.
Comments
It's also interesting to hear that Amazon plans to outdate the 7" version of the Fire before it's even released to the public. Second quarter sales aren't going to be rosy.
I've been giving this "Fire" thing a lot of thought... trying to figure out what's going on.
AFAICT, Amazon has booked somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 preorders per day since the Sept 28 announce. There are 48 days between announce and availability on Nov 15.
If that holds it means that between 960,000 and 2,400,000 Fires will have been preordered.
There are 46 days between Nov 15 and Dec 31 -- it is possible that the pre-order rate could be sustained (or even increase) as the holidays approach..
So, it is conceivable that Amazon could sell between 2 and 5 million Fires this year.
All the rumors certainly suggest so...
I guess what bothers me is that it's all rumor.
There are no verifiable numbers -- and no apparent way to gain them...
1) Bezos talks in abstracts "well received", "big demand", "millions more than we planned"...
2) Amazon does not report Kindle device sales/inventory/returns...
3) The devices are only sold through the Amazon [online] store...
4) There is no way for anyone to measure sales -- other than a survey as suspect as the recent one under discussion...
5) Predictably, Every Kindle device is reported as a top seller in its category (whatever that is)
We, the outside public, have no way to tie Fire sales to any number (reasonable or unreasonable).
We're left with accepting rumors or doing our own SWAG estimates using the Aborigine Numbering System... somewhere between few and many!
...It's probably more than 200 thousand and less than 2 million, IMO.
The only check we'll have is after the fact when Amazon reports its earnings -- we can estimate a loss of $10-$50 per Fire sold and extrapolate the number in the decline in overall earnings.
So, Bezos is in the middle of kind of a perfect situation in the tablet? wars....
He can just declare victory and retire from the field (knowing that each Fire not sold will improve the bottom line).
Maybe I'll waddle over to asymco and ask Horace if he knows how to quantify this?
You have no estimate of the error in this study.
Actually, I do. Given a random sample, one can calculate the error limits based on any certainty level they choose. Depending on whether you want a 90 or 95% certainty level, the error in this study is a couple of percent - or greater than the number of people who allegedly delayed their iPad purchase.
Likely you are correct. 74% of the FireBuyers had no plans to buy an iPad.
And Conehead Joe continues his lies.
The study didn't say that 74% of the Fire buyers had no plan to buy an iPad. It said that 26% were going to delay or cancel their planned iPad purchase. The remaining 74% could be in several different categories:
- People who had no plans to buy an iPad
- People who bought a Fire and bought an iPad, anyway
- People who ACCELERATED their iPad purchase when they saw how bad the competition was.
I'm not going to try to put percentages on those options because, unlike you, I don't simply make things up and pretend they're factual. But clearly, the report does NOT support the claim you made.
Wrong! The Kindle Fire does use gorilla glass for the touchscreen.
Don't confuse the Kindle Fire with Amazon's Kindle e-reader devices. They're completely different products. The Kindle Fire is their "tablet" whereas the other Kindle devices have e-ink screens and are designed almost exclusively for "reading."
I wonder why they don't say anything about Gorilla Glass™ on the Kindle Fire website.
Is the display "just like" Gorilla Glass or is it actually Gorilla Glass?
Might be technically irrelevant but it is curious not to mention it by name.
I've been giving this "Fire" thing a lot of thought... trying to figure out what's going on.
AFAICT, Amazon has booked somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 preorders per day since the Sept 28 announce. There are 48 days between announce and availability on Nov 15.
If that holds it means that between 960,000 and 2,400,000 Fires will have been preordered.
There are 46 days between Nov 15 and Dec 31 -- it is possible that the pre-order rate could be sustained (or even increase) as the holidays approach..
So, it is conceivable that Amazon could sell between 2 and 5 million Fires this year.
All the rumors certainly suggest so...
One day we'll know for sure, Dick, but if I were to guess I'd say a few retailers are taking the same gamble that they took with the Xoom... order the crap out of the product with hopes that it will be a big holiday season seller and then take a loss on the product that is remaining.
Either Bezos actually has a real hit or we'll be able to buy a Fire for $149 in February.
Either way, Amazon is losing money on every unit sold... whether it can be recovered in content sales is yet to be seen.
One day we'll know for sure, Dick, but if I were to guess I'd say a few retailers are taking the same gamble that they took with the Xoom... order the crap out of the product with hopes that it will be a big holiday season seller and then take a loss on the product that is remaining.
Either Bezos actually has a real hit or we'll be able to buy a Fire for $149 in February.
Either way, Amazon is losing money on every unit sold... whether it can be recovered in content sales is yet to be seen.
IH...
Are 3rd-party resellers selling the Fire -- I thought it was only Amazon direct sales???
IH...
Are 3rd-party resellers selling the Fire -- I thought it was only Amazon direct sales???
On edit... the Kindle fire is available through 3rd party resellers.
"Beginning November 15 the new Kindle Fire will be in stock at over 16,000 stores in the U.S. BestBuy, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target and WalMart will carry the products."
The key for Amazon is obviously making enough money off of digital content to cover their losses on the hardware. But so far as I can tell, Amazon makes no more money off of digital content than Apple does (in terms of margins), and Apple has always said that they run their digital stores as break-even operations. Maybe Apple isn't being entirely honest about that, but still -- I doubt Apple is making much profit on digital content. So how will Amazon make better margins selling at the same prices as Apple, especially when Amazon has smaller volume on music and apps?
Apple makes a little profit from the App Store and iTunes and whatnot. They just make far more from hardware. That's what they're really trying to sell.
Amazon is going at it from the other direction: small loss on the device in order to become basically THE go-to source for any eBooks or digital movies anybody owns.
Additionally, they're pushing Amazon Prime for this pretty hard. It makes the Fire much more attractive — a free eBook (rental) every month, free movies and TV shows, free shipping through the Amazon store. That $80/year (or whatever it is now) is where they'll make their profit.
And if you already have Amazon Prime (as I do, because the shipping alone makes it worth it to me), then you are far, far, far more likely to pretty much just buy everything you can from Amazon. And why not? The shipping is free.
I expect that's where they'll make back their losses on the device itself and then some.
I think the tablet manufacturers that can't back up with extensive content will be the ones most badly affected. Nobody can compete against a loss leader unless they have something else to sell.
IMO, that is the fascinating thing about his whole phenomenon.
I'm not sure how the traditional hardware companies will compete at full price. I think that they will have to strike deals with companies who would benefit from the tablets as a retail portal.
Or maybe there will emerge two classes of devices, cheap subsidized ones that are tied to some particular provider using the Amazon formula, and more expensive, unsubsidized tablets that can be used for more different tasks and access more different stuff, like the Galaxy Tab.
It is questionable how much people will pay for limited-use tablets vs. full-featured tablets with robust non-shopping ecosystems.
It is also extremely inefficient for every retailer to develop sufficient apps for its tablet. And yet, anybody who wants to sell a subsidized tablet will need apps to sweeten the deal with a good-enough ecosystem.
It will be very interesting how this all shakes out. One extremely likely scenario, IMO, is that one or more retailers will decide to stop developing their forked OS in time. Whether they adopt a more mainstream OS or forego the subsidized tablet sales at that point remains to be seen.
I wonder why they don't say anything about Gorilla Glass? on the Kindle Fire website.
Is the display "just like" Gorilla Glass or is it actually Gorilla Glass?
Might be technically irrelevant but it is curious not to mention it by name.
Apple never mentioned it by name with the first iPhone and presumably the 3G and 3GS, as well. (Corning's CEO is quoted in the Steve Jobs biography talking about it; that's the first reliable confirmation I've seen anywhere that gorilla glass was used in the iPhone.)
We know that Apple developed (or, more likely, developed with Corning) a new glass for the 4 and 4S, which may or may not be Corning's new lotus glass, though.
I don't think the glass is much of a selling point to anybody outside of gadget nerds (like myself and most of us here), so a company opting not to name it doesn't really strike me as unusual.
Apple never mentioned it by name with the first iPhone and presumably the 3G and 3GS, as well. (Corning's CEO is quoted in the Steve Jobs biography talking about it; that's the first reliable confirmation I've seen anywhere that gorilla glass was used in the iPhone.)
We know that Apple developed (or, more likely, developed with Corning) a new glass for the 4 and 4S, which may or may not be Corning's new lotus glass, though.
I don't think the glass is much of a selling point to anybody outside of gadget nerds (like myself and most of us here), so a company opting not to name it doesn't really strike me as unusual.
Amazon disagrees with you. The toughness of the display is one of the Fire's selling points featured on the website. Amazon's target market is quite different from the iPad, I would imagine. Parents would think twice about giving an iPad to a younger child but the price of the Fire makes it attractive as a gift for children under 12, imo. If that's true then the durability of the glass would become paramount.
On edit... the Kindle fire is available through 3rd party resellers.
"Beginning November 15 the new Kindle Fire will be in stock at over 16,000 stores in the U.S. BestBuy, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target and WalMart will carry the products."
Wow!!
That is a surprise! (I yahooed and found some similar information).
AIR, the parts cost estimates for the Fire were right around $200 with total cost to Amazon estimated at $220-$250 -- or a loss of $20-$50 per sale. This would be recovered in subscription and content sales over a 1-2 year period.
I suspect they would need to give resellers a $150-$175 price based on order volume.
I fail to see how this could work at all...
Even if they show well compared to the other tablets sold by the retailers -- that's a pretty big loss to Amazon for each sale.
If they don't sell, then we'll have another TouchPad fiasco...
1) ship back to AMZN incurring additional costs/losses
2) drastic closeout price reductions, by AMZN incurring additional costs/losses
This looks like a lotta' risk with no upside...
If I were Schiller, I'd get iPad placement next to the Fire at all those resellers
Edit: We'll know before Thanksgiving if we have a roast turkey...
The Kindle Fire is essentially some Amazon lipstick gloss on an Android pig. Let's wait until this slab hits the street before we crown it as the next big thing, and I'm eagerly awaiting the customer reviews as the silk fantasy meets the harsh reality.
The big missing piece for the user is:
Where is my stuff?
My pictures, my CDs (that I already own), my home movies, my documents, my social life...
The only thing of mine on there is my email -- everything else is someone else's stuff... that I have to buy...
There's no me there!
This is good news? Amazon loses money on each unit sold. The old I can't make money on each unit sold but I'll make up for that with volume.
do people really believe that retarded 'pricing'?
The big missing piece for the user is:
Where is my stuff?
excellent point. The flip side is that at a $200 price point people may be happy with a web browser, book reader, movie watcher. Basically transient content.
Seems like Bezos learned the lessons of King Gillette -- but got confused trying to apply them...
...if you give away the razors, you must make enough money on the blades to recover the cost of the razors...
Obviously, the blades are Amazon content and services...
...but if the razors have a net cost of $20 (best case) and you "give away" 5 million razors -- that's $100 million in the hole to start.
Wouldn't it have been better just to write an app for all phones and tablets and give that away?
You could sweeten the pot by giving a free subscription and/or reduced price on content purchases for new users,
I don't know... maybe $4 million to develop the app, $1 million/yr to maintain it and $5 million worth of advertising/promotions...
Wouldn't you get the same bang for 10% of the buck?
...maybe AMZN plans to sell tickets to try the Fire...
...and we learned in history how trial by fire works out...
/ramble
What am I missing?
The Kindle Fire is essentially some Amazon lipstick gloss on an Android pig. Let's wait until this slab hits the street before we crown it as the next big thing, and I'm eagerly awaiting the customer reviews as the silk fantasy meets the harsh reality.
The Fire ain't no Porker. And it ain't spun silk.
The Fire ain't no Porker. And it ain't spun silk.
We'll see.
Obviously, the blades are Amazon content and services...
...
What am I missing?
The blades are not just content and services.
The blades are everything that Amazon now sells via the website, plus anything and everything that Amazon chooses to sell in the future.
What if there were a fun little tablet that made it so anything you wanted at Mall*Wart appeared magically at your front door a couple of days later? Might that help Wallmart's sales?
Amazon is positioned to do that in a big way. Apple only sells content and apps, B&N is even more limited than Apple, but Amazon sells pretty much everything that anybody might want. And their horizons are unlimited in that regard.
So these early forays into tablet sales can easily be at a small loss, if they truly plan to expand the ecosystem. Even with their current ecosystem, they might do very, very well.