Lots of chatter about iPad as the Kindle killer. The chatter is bunk. Kindle has a specific target audience, a niche. That niche loves the Kindle. Niche is the new critical mass.
Look at some of the advantages Kindle has:
- Battery Life. Kindle can last up to 7 days without a charge. Seriously.
- Content delivery. Kindle has it included. No extra charges or higher price tag.
- Readability. Do you want to read a backlit screen all day?
- Opening an App Store that people will care about.
The iPad is a very slick device, but it will not be the only one to change the tablet game. Apple App Store developers will start to run into some of the issues that cross-platform mobile developers are dealing with. Namely screen size and incompatible devices. Apple has been very smart with their device hardware and software release cycles. This will become more difficult as different devices begin to proliferate. The iPad will face way more competition than the iPod. Repeating success is, in fact, harder than initial success. Other players and other platforms (HP, Asus, Dell, Everyone on Microsoft or Android) are ready this time. My take is that the biggest losers will be the publishers. Their pricing models will now be more fully exposed to the buying public. That new knowledge will suppress their margins.
On of the better reads on the “Kindle killer” iPad at TechFlash: 5 reasons why the iPad is not a Kindle killer
Disclosure: The wife is employed by Amazon, does not work on Kindle, and does not read my blog.
For many years I have found the notion of price controls interesting mainly because there is vast amounts of historical evidence that state they do not work. Time after time, price controls are put forward as a solution, most recently in Venezuela. Interesting read at Forbes that tracts price controls back to Diocletian, which came as a surprise to this Catholic school boy who only knew about his Christian persecutions.
Forbes: The Futility Of Price Controls
All the incredible and horrible stories from the Haiti earthquake made me think of an article I awhile back in Forbes. Digicel CEO Denis O’Brien has brought mobile telecommunications to the world’s poorest countries. Digicel has been a large part of the surviving communications infrastructure in Haiti and has offered €3.5m in charitable funding. It would be frightening to think what Haiti would look like right now without Digicel.
In time, Haiti will begin the rebuilding process, it will need more people with vision and guts like Denis O’Brien.
Forbes: Denis O’Brien Cover Story, July 2008
What it’s not willing to compromise is the security of the cloud, on which its entire business rests.
~ Nicholas Carr
Carr is spot on, again.
Check the full article here: Nicholas Carr: Rough Type
UPDATE 1/17
Another fine read on the topic from Forbes. Different take. Google has been beat by Baidu. This incident put the issue over the top.
Article here Forbes: Why Google Is Quitting China
Amazon AWS announced Spot Instances of EC2 a few weeks back. I have been very interested in this concept. Auction pricing should be natural for the cloud computing utility model. They will be selling spare capacity from moment to moment. The cloud is attractive since servers often site idle. Sharing that resource makes sense. “Spots” are an extension of the concept to keep AWS at full utilization. Win for AWS and customers. I look forward to seeing how this play out during 2010!
Great read on the Spot Market by Jonathan Boutelle, cofounder of Slideshare @ Gaming the Amazon Spot Market
More information on the AWS Blog: Amazon Web Services Blog
Nice read on recent findings on my favorite beverage.
WSJ: Good News in the Daily Grind
Great post from Microsoft Staffing Manager and Employee Evangelist Heather Hamilton for those 4 of you looking for a job these days…
One Louder: Finding recruiters and stalking them like a pro
Interesting reading. Worth checking this out. Some “real” posts coming soon.
Economist.com: Cloud Computing Debate
