WSJ: Amazon Testing Smartphone
one37.net
one37.net
The whole browser war is going to play out over the next year or two, this time via smartphones.
That could be very compelling.
The Readability (http://www.readability.com) bookmarklet comes in handy.
What is Amazon going to do here? I look at Palm, and saw an awesome OS that rivaled (at the time) iOS in many ways. Yeah, the hardware was lacking (this article cites Amazon shopping China and analogous hardware concerns, though they couldn't be as bad I would hope), but in the end, it was a platform that could not attract developers among other things. Didn't happen under HP. Look at what has happened to RIM, another platform sans developers. It's the same concern you hear repeated over and over again with Microsoft. Can they, somehow manage to make a convincing case to developers en masse?
And looking at Amazon's app store and forked Android strategy, all I've seen with their Kindle platform is yet another tablet without developers.
I know they are all trying, but I have to wonder when one of them are going to come up with some strategy that is so out of the box and different that we all have collectively no choice but to say "Damn. That is exciting. This could get them in the game."
I think that the value-add for someone else trying to get in the game has to almost come outside of broad app offerings. They need to avoid the 'chicken-egg' scenario by breaking in from the side.
For me, one of the little bouts of genius that Apple implemented on iOS was that you could not download completely free apps unless you had a valid credit card loaded into their system (yeah, I know you can get around this by purchasing a 5$ gift card). Believe me when I say that I told myself that I would never actually buy an app from the Appstore, as free software covered essentially all core functions and services in some form or another. But with the mandatory credit card filing, breaking that promise was effortless, and break it I did. Many times. With a tap.
Amazon and Apple both have their customers connected to their stores, and they both have terrific stores that are best in class, but while Apple sells media, Amazon goes one better and sells real world goods. All goods. Everything you can possible think of.
I think Amazon could benefit from this in a big way if they play their cards right.
I didn't know this for years, but Amazon has a service that lets you set a recurring schedule of products to be delivered at specific times, -could be every week, month, etc. I thought "How cool, -I can completely eliminate my trips to Target and just have all my non-perishable goods delivered to my back door every month or two." Cleaning supplies, paper towels, shampoo, -you name it.
It solves a problem for people, but it is hidden and not obvious or intuitive. I think it would be at least interesting if Amazon took a service like this right to the user and made it a prominent feature of their phone. What if, part of setting up your Kindle phone you were prompted to set up your shopping list, or at least had the option in a not to intrusive way? It wouldn't have to be turned on, but with the push of the button the users knew they were turning on a stream of goods, already effortlessly connected to their credit card, that would eliminate a massive percentage of their shopping. What if there was a grocery list app baked in (not a generic shopping app, but one tailored to an IRL behavior specifically) where you could just jump to your products and smash the 'send now' button when you run out of something and it arrives the next day.
Having the phone be the hub that eliminates a lot of your shopping and manages how you do that could be a big selling point if done right. While Amazon would love to reap the benefits of more online sales, they shouldn't treat that as the goal, -the whole experience would have to be focused on solving a problem for consumers and providing a value, which would be eliminating as much time spent on shopping IRL. It could be hard to do, but these are the kinds of value adds that a player like Amazon might need to execute, and execute exceedingly well, in order to get the platform beloved by consumers enough to make developers one day sit up and pay attention.
Maybe it's a terrible idea, but I just have this nagging feeling that new players are gonna keep failing unless they find a hook that leverages some other asset. I think Microsoft has a similar opportunity with their phone and the xBox, and while I know they see it too, it remains to be seen whether or not they will exploit it to the hilt.
You don't need a gift card either.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/07/get-an-itunes-or-mac-app-stor...
Price is tricky - you can already get free subsidized phones - so I'll be interested to see what they do here. They'll really need to work with a carrier (Virgin? Cricket? Sprint?) to offer a breakthrough value. In any case, I don't think they'll put something on the market that doesn't have attention grabbing value.
I don't think the OS is that important. %90 of people use computers much like they used them 10 years ago, and we're nearing that point with smartphones. If it has a browser, e-mail, a camera, maps, and good hardware most people will be happy.
The OS wasn't the Pre's problem - it had questionable hardware (slow, tiny screen) and was attached to a dorky brand. If it had a 4" screen and said "Sony" on the back, it could have been a hit in 2008.
I would submit that having attention grabbing value isn't remotely enough. It has to have actual value, hopefully in a way that goes beyond price. The Kindle Fire is a perfect example. They won't say how many they have sold, but at the end of the day, it yet another Android tablet with a crappy, laggy software experience and an App store that lacks broad developer support. You can argue that it does provide good price value.
"I don't think the OS is that important. "
I don't agree. For a myriad of reasons the OS is important. You can't just have email, a camera, a map, and good hardware, but rather you need to have an ecosystem and content delivery machine (at the very least good partnerships). And how this ecosystem is executed on every level is crucial. Not only that, but none of that even matters if you don't have developer support for apps. Sans that, your platform is going to die eventually, if it ever even scales to begin with, no question. I think providing some additional value is needed in order to get adoption up to the point where developers start delivering the broad app offerings that are required.
But I do agree with you that price is a great weapon in Amazon's arsenal. If they let consumers have them free or cheap, keeping their margins near zero with the aid of the carrier subsidy, that could be huge, especially if they deliver an experience competitive with newer, non-forked Android offerings. But the Kindle Fire hasn't exactly spoken much to this point thus far.
Regarding Palm, the OS was the only thing good about it, as I mentioned. The problems were no apps and poor hardware. I'd put all my money on it failing if it had a 4" screen and said 'Sony'. Sony is one of the last companies I could see bringing a new mobile OS to market. Not to pan them, but I'm trying to think of the last innovative initiative they've executed. All that comes to mind is a clear demonstration of their inability to handle content delivery with the inexcusable Playstation debacle, their flailing 'Sony Style' stores that nobody goes to, and a hope to return to profitability this year (the company made no money last year, registering a loss of 67.3 billion). HP had a much better shot, but they failed too.
I think there's an ethical problem in reporters not revealing that a "leak" is coming from a PR agency. "people familiar with the situation said" conveys a very different impression than "according to amazon PR off the record."
When I worked there, they released dozens of products a year. They would have teams work for 6 months to create a product for a press release and then the team would dissipate over the next 6 months, the "product" would simply get stale and eventually be cut.
Amazon movie times, local menus, catalog ordering, etc. Amazon is a hype machine, driven to keep their PE in the stratosphere. I understood this in the 1990s, I have not understood it since, but that's how they operate. They do have a solid business in Amazon.com (but notice how the international expansion stopped dead. Easy to do a big PR campaign about going worldwide, but then you don't have to follow thru).
All those kindle fire rumors before it was announced? They came from Amazon PR. This is how MG got his hands on one early... it wasn't some amazon employee that snuck it out of the building, it was an amazon PR Flack that handed it to him.
This is how they also say things like "The kindle fire is selling like crazy" to create that perception, without actually releasing any numbers. If they released numbers it would allow direct comparisons and be embarrassing. If they released fraudulent numbers it would be actionable in a shareholder lawsuit. But they can release whatever "Whispers" they want and create the perception that the kindle fire is selling like crazy... because Amazon PR said so.
I can't say it doesn't work though. These rumors come out, the stock price is goosed. They eventually release a phone, the stock price is goosed. By the time they give up on the phone, people will have generally forgotten about it anyway. Or it might be one of those few products that does make some money. (or that they figure is a sufficient PR generator to keep pouring money into-- if legions of people will call every leaked upcoming kindle fire an "iPad killer" then maybe the PR value is sufficient.)
Frankly, I think it is a form of fraud. They have way mislead people about amazon fire sales. Some people even think they sell as many fires as Apple sells iPads. But that's the kind of company they are.
Well "according to amazon PR off the record" is a contradiction in terms. If you identify them as the source, they're on the record in every way that matters.
That said, I completely agree that the press has long been horrible at passing along glorified press releases as 'news' and it ought to stop.
I just can't think of any feasible system to stop it. Even a community attempt to catalog and shame people out of it would just force the practice to evolve into using intermediaries, however deep as necessary, to establish plausible deniability.