Did Jeff Bezos Just Take the Baton from Steve Jobs?
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 1:55PM Admittedly, I'm a sucker for gadgets. In defense of my gadget addiction, I cling to the notion that pragmatism is closely aligned with my purchasing behavior. In other words, I do not buy a gadget simply to have something new to play with. So, when the Amazon Kindle was released four years ago, I ordered one because I thought that an e-ink device paired with the Amazon library was going to be a winning combination. While I had some criticism of the first version of the Kindle, I was an immediate fan. My biggest criticism was not around the product as much the Amazon distribution model, only being available on Amazon.com. Of course, since the first version was released, you can now buy a Kindle at Best Buy, Target and other retailers (great move). All of the sudden, I see Kindles everywhere.
Yesterday, Amazon introduced the latest version of the new Kindles which includes their first entrance into the tablet market. It's worth a watch.
You don't have to be a student of Steve Jobs to recognize that Jeff Bezos took a page directly from the playbook of Mr. Jobs. While Bezos has his own style, he clearly has taken some presentation queues and lessons from the former Apple CEO. When the first Amazon Kindle came out, I was critical that Amazon was getting into the hardware business at all. I advocated for Amazon to stick with Kindle as a software only platform and leave the hardware design and manufacturing to the big boys. Bezos took a huge risk and that risk has paid off. Amazon is a formidable technology player amidst Apple and Google. The release of the Kindle Fire shows innovation and market shrewdness. I think that Jeff Bezos is correct when he says that several million will be sold.
Even more interesting is now that we have the void that is Steve Jobs no longer performing feats of magic on stage, Jeff Bezos appears to have taken the baton and he is running with it. Well played.
Reader Comments (2)
I should also point out that I don't believe that the Kindle Fire will make any Apple iPad users particularly jealous. However, I do think that the Kindle Fire will eat into some of the tablet market share. I can several households having both an iPad and a Kindle Fire. For me, the Kindle Fire will probably replace my Android tablet. It fits right in between my chromebook and my laptop.
Bezos is a purveyor of content. Technology is his tray. The kindle fire is the latest technologicopy of the iPad that has enough appeal to position his content front and center. If you think about it, Google did the same thing with Android...it is all about Google content (very different from Amazon). I contend, the brilliance is not in the technology, but in the recognition that content is the product. Apple and Jobs excelled at creating something that had not really been done before and making it compelling to the masses. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad all broke new ground. Bezos doesn't need to break new ground, just fill in all the nooks and crannies with ebooks and streaming movies.