This has been a big year for e-book readers – largely due to the efforts of Amazon. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an updated and enhanced version of the original Kindle which was launched in November 2007.
In June of 2009, Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX, which was a large display version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically aimed at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks – and it caused quite a stir.
The potential for academic use – from interactive textbooks to constantly updated texts, and not forgetting the possibility for academic bodies to save a lot of money – attracted a lot of attention. As well as signing agreements with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon gained a lot of free publicity from political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his capacity as Governor of California.
Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and innovation – assisted by all the free publicity – the Amazon Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s number one selling product.Currently, the Kindle has an amazing 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and has recently released an international version. The Kindle has become virtually synonymous with e-book readers.
It’s probably worth noting that Amazon were, in fact, a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The first e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, was launched in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, prior to the launch of the first.
Amazon may not have been first to market – but by a combination of effective, technical innovation and responsiveness to customer needs, Amazon has achieved its current dominant position. The vast choice of books available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as key to the Kindle’s success as were the technical features of the device.
However, now that Amazon has – almost single handedly – developed the market, it seems that all the other consumer electronics manufacturers want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list goes on – all have their own devices set for launch or in the final stages of development.
Wireless connectivity, presently one of Amazon’s powerful selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader over 1,000,000 titles to choose from. The new Sony Daily Edition reader will allow users to borrow books on loan from participating lending libraries. Meanwhile, there will probably be a standard e-book format agreed next year, which will let users lend e-books to family and friends or transfer them across to other readers if they want.
Currently, many industry insiders are checking out the line up of new readers and attempting to guess which one is the Kindle Killer. However, Amazon has been pretty smart thus far and they won’t give up their top position without a fight. It took them less than eighteen months after the launch of the original Kindle to launch the much enhanced Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has some ideas for the further development of their Kindle family. Could it be that the Kindle killer will turn out to be the Kindle 4 and that we could see this sometime in 2010?