Re:When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful
by raganwald on Thursday September 29, 2011 @11:55PM
(#3055598)
This is a very intelligent reply, thanks. Yes, kindle is available everywhere, and that won’t stop any time soon. And I’m sure Amazon would be happy to subsidize other tablet manufacturers who make their content available.
However, If Amazon don’t become a major tablet player, they are at the mercy of the tablet manufacturers. Terms could change at the drop of a hat. Amazon could wind up bidding for access.
If Amazon become a major player, they can sleep at night. They don’t have to worry about Apple demanding 30% or Samsung going into the content business and cutting Kindle out. They can farm their customers for profiling data that they themselves will use to sell more products.
Kindle everywhere is a no-brainer strategy, but it can’t be the only strategy, otherwise Amazon will find itself squeezed. Far better to have Kindle everywhere while simultaneously taking market share away from the tablet manufacturers that are erstwhile platforms for Kindle.
I get that Amazon can subsidize the tablet, but I do there is a story for someone who wants a Kindle app, and the Google/Microsoft app store, and the BN app, and the Netflix app. The cost might be higher, but I think a non-trivial portion of the world would be willing to pay it.
And note, there is nothing to stop Samsung from getting subsidies from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Hulu, Netflix, etc... for pre-installing their apps. It's the great crapware returned, except this time antivirus won't be the dominant crapware, but rather contest distributors.