Esthesis 4 - Kindle on fire?

Not an I-Pod, not yet.

It seems that Amazon.com’s Kindle is not the flop that many predicted when the e-book reader debuted last year. Citibank’s Mark Mahaney has just doubled his forecast of Kindle sales for the year to 380,000. He figures that Amazon’s sales of Kindle hardware and software will hit $1 billion by 2010.

NYT

"Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world," Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients. He kept a "buy" rating on the share.

Reuters

My contrarian view is that just as most digital cameras are now smart phones, most ebook readers are also smart phones. People have been reading books on tiny screens since the days of the Psion and Compaq's iPaq, and it's common on Windows Mobile and similar phones.

So, while the Kindle might be Amazon's iPod, I reckon the iPhone is more likely to be Apple's Kindle - at least until e-newspapers take off.

The Guardian


Evaluating e-books nationwide - the JISC national e-books observatory project