Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
cringely.com
Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
1–10 of 42 posts
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#2> “if Apple gives up its position” which it clearly hasn’t.
so, moot?
> Amazon is copying Apple’s playbook, page-by-page...
> What, after all, has Amazon (or Microsoft) actually invented here? Nothing. They’ve emulated Apple at a lower price point and to some extent disintermediated the mobile carriers.
Not according to Jeff Bezos, who spend a good portion of his presentation explaining how Amazon make money with their pricing strategy of the Kindles. The difference between iPad and Fire HD is not in price, but in their producers' business models.
The author clearly doesn't get it.
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#3> What, after all, has Amazon (or Microsoft) actually invented here? Nothing. They’ve emulated Apple at a lower price point and to some extent disintermediated the mobile carriers.
Well, perhaps Amazon. But while Microsoft have emulated Apple in hardware a little, they certainly haven't with the OS. Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 have a very different, very fresh UI. They only use some of the same gestures, even.
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#4Who is this author? Since when does "disintermediating an industry" mean "selling and subsidizing the products of an industry"?
And what pundits -didn't- predict a larger Kindle Fire? I thought that was a signed and sealed rumor straight from WSJ+Amazon themselves.
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#5> “if Apple gives up its position” which it clearly hasn’t. so, moot? > Amazon is copying Apple’s playbook, page-by-page... > What, after all, has Amazon (or Microsoft) actually invented here? Nothing. They’ve emulated Apple at a lower price point and to some extent disintermediated the mobile carriers. Not according to Jeff Bezos, who spend a good portion of his presentation explaining how Amazon make money with the…
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Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#6Who is this author? Since when does "disintermediating an industry" mean "selling and subsidizing the products of an industry"? And what pundits -didn't- predict a larger Kindle Fire? I thought that was a signed and sealed rumor straight from WSJ+Amazon themselves.
> "Who is this author?"
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#7Who is this author? Since when does "disintermediating an industry" mean "selling and subsidizing the products of an industry"? And what pundits -didn't- predict a larger Kindle Fire? I thought that was a signed and sealed rumor straight from WSJ+Amazon themselves.
The author has been around quite a long time, but he is better known lately for his (perhaps intentionally) counterintuitive opinions and goofy predictions. I think, sadly, he is going more for pageviews than credibility.
But to answer your second question, "Amazon next week will announce two 7-inch Kindle Fire models, one with new hardware and the other an updated version of the original, CNET has learned. That's counter to rumors it would launch a larger version." Oops. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57504515-94/kindle-fire-won...
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#8>The tablet market was already broadening, flattening, and moving down market before yesterday’s Amazon announcement
Right, but Microsoft is trying to bring it up market with the Surface Pro and other small x86 tablets(many of which seem to come with a keyboard or a laptop style dock, sometimes optional). Eg. see http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/30/hp-envy-x2-laptop-tablet-...
As I posted in another comment a few days ago, They will be expensive, but far more capable and powerful(heavier and less battery life too). For example, they can run the full Visual Studio or Eclipse.
You can take a Surface Pro and a Kindle Fire with you, run Eclipse with the Android SDK loaded, connect the Kindle Fire to the Surface and take the program you just wrote on the Surface and run it on the Kindle! Or write your code while on a roadtrip or on the subway and debug it on your Android or Windows phone(don't know how Hackintosh it can get for running apps on the iPhone).
Can you do that with a Kindle, iPad or any other tablet on the market right now, which are used by most people as consumption devices?
Where Microsoft is competing with the Kindle, Android tablets and the iPad is with Windows RT, which is a different beast(and costs less than $100 for OEMs + they are rumored to get kickbacks on ecosystem sales). The only big advantage Microsoft has right now in this space is Office RT. Amazon's tablets are oriented even more towards content consumption(read Amazon's content) than the iPad. It all boils down to how much consumption vs. 'creation' the consumers want to do on their tablets, or if they want to get one device that does it all.
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#9>The tablet market was already broadening, flattening, and moving down market before yesterday’s Amazon announcement Right, but Microsoft is trying to bring it up market with the Surface Pro and other small x86 tablets(many of which seem to come with a keyboard or a laptop style dock, sometimes optional). Eg. see http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/30/hp-envy-x2-laptop-tablet-... As I posted in another comment a few days…
So these new Surface Pro things are going to be like a current ipad-style tablet, but with a keyboard, heavier, have shorter battery life and be more expensive. That sounds very much like a device I already have, which is called a laptop. It runs Eclipse pretty well on the rare occasions I want it to.
Less than $100 is still a pretty hefty tag in this market too; that's half the price of a Nexus 7! I think Microsoft are going to have to learn that this market isn't going to allow them the huge margins they've traditionally enjoyed on PCs.
Re: Kindle Fire HD hurts Microsoft more than Apple
#10>Apple is the innovation leader. What, after all, has Amazon (or Microsoft) actually invented here? Nothing.
It's not like Apple invented anything either. As with most things they do, the ipad's secret was not innovation but polish, taking existing technology and putting in the integration and software effort to make turn it into a great user experience. I'm not saying this isn't valuable, but it's fundamentally no more or less innovative than what Amazon's doing (making the same experience available at lower cost).
Of the three Microsoft is the truly innovative company. E.g. many of the ideas behind iOS' sandboxing mechanism originated at Microsoft Research.