The Business Model of Amazon Kindle and market status of E-Book

So the long awaited Kindle is finally arrived. After months of rumors and leaks, Jeff Bezos has pierced the veil and started the drum (organized not bad) for the launch of Kindle the eBook reading device based on electronic ink house Amazon.

On the device is actually quite little to say, you already knew that it would adopt the e-Ink technology, like Sony, iLiad and Cybook (the only device with Kindle, on the market today: Kindle and Sony in the U.S. alone , iLiad and Cybook also in Europe). We already knew that to curb the output was not so much the need to develop the hardware, how to close the necessary agreements with publishers to instantly get a nice ebook package to sell.

What we knew not, and what the official presentation has finally announced, it was quite the business model chosen by Amazon.
In this respect I confess that my expectations were wrong.

Bezos believed that he aimed to subsidize the hardware to offer a bundled package of nice ebook, or a subscription to download them or buy them a card refills. In short I thought he would follow the model where the cell phone companies have done school I’ll give you (or so) the phone, in return I signed this good contract for so many years.

Not so.
Amazon Kindle sells his $ 400, $ 50 more than the Sony Portable Reader (same display technology, same screen size, the benefit of the Kindle’s 3G connection to download books directly with the Amazon device without using a PC; benefit the appearance of the Sony device).

The business model is therefore model-iPod: you buy this hardware, with which you can connect to the store from which you can download and read these books, such as books, to close the circle, you can only read using this reader and -book.

Note that the mechanism to run the ebook from Amazon will not be normal Mobipocket (the format of the French company that Amazon, in view of this, it acquired a few years ago), but in a Mobipocket modified to create a ” Kindle Edition “.

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