Newsweek
Daniel Lyons writes that despite the iPad quickly reaching sales of 3.3 million units, there will continue to be a market for dedicated e-readers such as the Kindle.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos commented last week that a recent price cut by Amazon had “tripled” the growth rate of the Kindle, though the company has historically declined to release sales figures for the device. Lyons, recalling an interview with Bezos last fall, questions how important the Kindle hardware is to Amazon’s strategy in the first place:
“I suggested to Bezos that maybe Amazon didn’t care about selling Kindle machines, that maybe the device wasn’t important. He said that wasn’t the case, but that ‘our goal with the Kindle device is separate from the Kindle bookstore.’ Bezos insisted there is a market for ‘a purpose-built reading device,’ as he calls it. ‘It’s not a Swiss Army knife. It’s not going to do a bunch of different things. We believe reading deserves a dedicated device.’ So far, at least, it looks like he’s right.”
