Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Jeff Bezos’

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos presented the new Amazon Kindle – called ‘Fire’ this past Wednesday in New York. I’ve written much about the Kindle in general and had not planned to write about it particularly since yesterday’s unveiling offered few if any surprises. We knew there would be a 7 inch color screen, a touch screen, Wi-Fi internet access and a 30 day free trial for Amazon Prime (which includes unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV shows and free two day shipping on millions of items) which if consumers do not opt out it will be an additional $ 79 renewable ‘gift’ to Amazon that would keep on giving year after year – Mr. Bezos is a smart guy indeed.

Besides access to Amazon Appstore, the Kindle Fire will include a cloud-accelerated “split browser” called Amazon Silk, free storage for all of the user’s Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud, built-in email app that gets webmail (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc.) into a single inbox.

We also knew there would be no cameras (unlike the iPad), and no 3G or 4G network access (iPad’s have 3G and Apple is planning 4G access). The Kindle Fire 1.0 does not seem to me to be the iPad killer. The sale price was a bit of a mystery although most experts predicted $ 249 or less and it came out at $ 199. Amazon also released pricing plans for its entry-level black and white Kindle at $ 79 which makes it the least expensive e-reader on the market.

In releasing the Kindle Fire in front of the 2011 Christmas season at what appears to be close to its manufacturing cost, clearly Amazon is banking on increased sales of digital music, videos and books as well as other content if it is to make the new Kindle platform a winning one. The iPad (at more than twice the price) will continue to appeal to those that have the ability to afford it, and are desirous of the larger screen (a pain in the neck to carry around as far as I am concerned) and Apple App Store.

Other tablet makers as well as the Barnes & Noble Nook have great reasons to be concerned. The RIM (Blackberry) Playbook tablet is already gasping for air and the Kindle Fire will likely snuff it out completely. I believe sales of other popular Android based tablets (Galaxy, Xoom etc) will be impacted since there truly is another non-Apple alternative. If the Kindle Fire is not the iPad killer it may turn out to be the killer of many other tablets.

It’s also possible that the market for tablets could be split into two – a premium market headed by the Apple iPad and the everyday (lower end) tablet that is affordable to so many more people. It makes me wonder how many people will decide to own both devices. After all – does owning an iPad preclude one from buying and using an Amazon Kindle Fire?

As a serial early adopter I likely will pick up an Amazon Kindle Fire – 1.0. I still don’t have an iPad although I’ve used one several times and it is a great and cool piece of technology. I have and actually use my original Kindle and it still works fine. But many times since I bought the original Kindle I have wished that I waited for the 2.0 version which has been out for quite some time now.

Amazon would never tell but my burning question is how long will it be until the improved version of the Kindle Fire comes out? I can hardly wait. And that’s the problem.

With Chinese President Hu Jintao in the United States this week there was much talk about the state of Sino-U.S. relations. My interest in developing our company’s Chinese business has me keeping a watchful eye for business and marketing news in China. I thought it was interesting that during a week of heightened awareness of the U.S.-China relationship, that Alibaba.com and its Chairman Jack Ma would announce they are expanding their supply network in China. http://on.wsj.com/gIPr16. Full disclosure – we’ve had a couple of meetings with Alibaba.com here in the U.S. and I find the Alibaba.com story to be remarkable http://bit.ly/2vZW75.

It’s no trifling investment either. $ 4.6 billion U.S. is a staggering amount of money. The primary benefit is said to be the ability to expand Taobao.com which is Alibaba.com’s Amazon.com-like online shopping mall. I find it interesting that Alibaba.com CEO David Wei W considers Taobao.com to be more like EBay http://bit.ly/SjMep but that is not what most people think today. What also caught my attention was what Mr. Ma was quoted as saying – “In 10 years, we hope that anywhere in China you can buy a product online, and, at the slowest, it will get to your home in eight hours” This is to be somewhat limited to areas in the north like Beijing, and Tianjin, as well as major population centers in the south (Shanghai and Nanjing for instance). The western part of China is not nearly as developed and would be more difficult to cover with an 8 hour delivery promise.

The idea that you could order something online and have it delivered in as little as 8 hours is amazing to me. Back in the mid-1990’s Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos made a decision to invest in building distribution centers around the United States. This was at the time when Amazon.com primarily sold books and compact discs. Many people questioned the idea outright and many also thought that move would lead to the downfall of Amazon.com. It turned out to be one of the smartest things Mr. Bezos has done. But Amazon has never even tried to offer something like delivering an order in 8 hours.

I think the same thing will happen with Jack Ma’s decision to have Alibaba.com follow a similar path. Yahoo.com continues to own 40% of Alibaba.com (which was founded in 1999) and I have noted before that this might be the reason Yahoo.com CEO Carol Bartz still has her job. Mr. Ma would like to buy back the interest from Yahoo but Ms. Bartz has not acceded.

For the record Alibaba.com has something close to 18,000 employees in 60 cities and regions, including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And the company is still growing and is headquartered in beautiful Hangzhou in a Silicon Valley like campus.

You will be hearing a lot more from this rising force in the near future. My question to you is have you heard of them before and what is your opinion and impression of the company?

As an early adopter (November 2007) of the Kindle I have been a rather ardent fan of what could now be considered the forerunner of e-readers. I recently downloaded several titles that I wanted to read. I opened my Kindle the other night to see some odd horizontal lines across the entire screen yet the device was in the off position. After charging and recharging with no change in the display it was obvious that the flame had gone out on my Kindle.

Out of warranty (this one was more than a year old) apparently I am out of luck. So now I have several titles in my account that I cannot view unless I purchase a new Kindle or I guess return my Kindle to Amazon (at my cost) and hope that they can somehow repair it for less than the cost of the now reduced price of $ 259. I paid $ 399 for mine and it does thrill me that not once did Amazon offer me some sort of discount on purchasing the latest version which apparently is superior to the one that I have. Of course mine now does not work at all so a book with no printing is on a par.

A little history – the first one I received did not work and I had to send it back. Amazon had me check a bunch of things prior to agreeing to replace it which they did with no questions asked. Then I had another one which after several months also went dead. Again through the checklist that Amazon has you do on the phone (a half hour or so) with their tech person before they assented to my sending it back for yet a third which I received and has been working fine for more than a year.

I have been (and remain) a fan of Amazon in general. Jeff Bezos is a smart guy and has defied his critics in managing a company that has a stellar reputation for customer service and intuitive product offerings. But I really don’t understand the idea of not offering a replacement for a broken Kindle ANY TIME a customer asks. After all aren’t I going to use that platform to purchase e-books for the foreseeable future? And I buy a fair amount of books. I can ‘return’ those titles that I downloaded but have not read for some sort of rebate but that really does not solve my problem. I love e-readers (as well as traditional books) and think they will only get better (how about color folks and a back-lighted screen option?).

So now I have to reconsider my entire relationship with Amazon’s Kindle. Maybe the Sony Reader, or the new device from Plastic Logic, or maybe even the new Barnes & Noble device. What a shame, the Kindle had me at hello.