VIDEO: Competition for the iPad
Here’s my video on Fox Business today where I was talking about the upcoming Amazon Tablet, which provides serious competition to Apple and their iPad. Too much scrutiny has been placed on the device itself and not enough about all the things the device is connected to. Amazon has been quietly amassing and launching several digital services including the Kindle Store, Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, Instant Video, Android AppStore and more on the way.
A big driver of where Amazon has the upper hand is the trust in eCommerce. Apple has spent time and money to build a great experience so that the company can earn the trust of users. The simplicity and ease of user has been a great way to lull people’s trust. And consumers have certainly spoken with their wallets. With the same goal of trust in brand, Amazon has accomplished the same thing with online eCommerce. The Kindle has been a great hit to prove success in digital books, and the Amazon Tablet can further extend the wallet share of digital spend for music, books, videos and much more.
The other remote opportunity that Amazon could resurrect, is a digital shopping assistant, albeit heavily oriented towards fulfillment via Amazon and its properties.
Last, the other thing that this tablet has a great shot is data connectivity. With the Kindle, it simply just works. You look for books almost anywhere, purchase and begin reading. I would be very speculative about how this will extend to the tablet. I am willing to bet that data access for any Amazon service or destination would be free and perhaps some select partners such as email. Otherwise, Amazon begins a new business unit as an MVNO.