Earlier this week, Amazon claimed and registered the new domain names KindleScribe(s).com. This brings speculations of a new tablet in the ever so competitive marketplace. After witnessing how HP’s TouchPad tablet flew off the shelves at a $99 price point, this may have changed the tablet market for the future. During a time of an unstable economy, consumers have watched how and on what they spend their money. These current events caused me to wonder if iPad could be vulnerable to a strong competitor at the lower end of the tablet product pyramid. An analysis from Retrevo would seem to also support this hypothesis. And it appears that Google is probably “the man behind the curtain” as Android on Galaxy tablets is getting beat up recently in the patent battles, especially outside the United States.
Rumors are traveling around the web about Amazon’s tablet which would include a stylus with note-taking attributes on its e-ink display. This would make the product especially attractive to the student market that would be replacing their notebook computers and looking for a cost-effective alternative to buying traditional textbooks. Amazon obviously already has the fulfillment arm to make a tablet computer a profitable reality for them. Not to mention, the following they already have with their Kindle customer base.
A few years ago, I had the chance to meet with Dr.Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, and as a result better understand their practice of not discussing things they have not yet done. But based on this series of conditions, it’s probably true and will no doubt be very interesting.
Brian, I believe your analysis is correct. I have also known people to already buy the Kindle and re-install it with Android. Either way, at this price point and Amazon’s online power, this tablet cannot fail.
It will be very interesting to see how apple really responds to this. I’m really excited to see what feature the iphone 5 will showcase