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Matt thinks Amazon is a threat to Google, Apple and MS should step in! Hmmm OK. Just two problems, Amazon is not a threat to MS and Apple has faced lower priced competitors for decades.
Amazon is on a roll, and it's no longer just a question of dominating online retailing or public cloud computing. According to a Business Insider article, Amazon is already clearing more than $1bn each year in advertising revenue. This has Google scared. But it probably should have Apple scared, too. Amazon, after all, is the …
I think the threat to Google is credible. Goodle lacks an Android version of iCloud or SkyDrive - which Amazon has. Amazon lacks the rest of it (phone, desktop) but the Kindle reader is already available on all of the major platforms.
There's an opportunity there for Amazon...
They're probably already lawyered up with some kind of faux tablet patent claim and all it needs is to remind East Texas court that Amazon doesn't pay Texas sales taxes, it's an easy win.
I think they're holding off in misplaced hope that Amazon kills Android first.
This article is what I call Active Myth Manufacturing. I chalk them up to what I call 'The August Effect' where authors write filler articles because their brains are on vacation.
Amazon has nothing Apple wants that it hasn't already got:
• Apple's iTunes Store already rules the music market and there are no signs of Amazon changing that fact.
• Amazon LOSE MONEY with the sale of every Kindle Fire. There is no indication that the Fire has eaten ANY Apple iPad market share. This is because the Fire is in a different market. It's closest competitor is the Barnes and Noble Color Nook. Every article about the Fire competing with the iPad is merely a work of imagination. There is no money in this market. Why should Apple care?
Meanwhile:
• Amazon rules in the Internet book market and there is no sign of that changing. Apple doesn't care.
• Amazon is attempting to make a dent in the insecure Android app market. Apple doesn't care.
• Amazon is the best department store on the Internet. Apple doesn't care.
Apple isn't going to care either. Apple remains consistently FOCUSED on their best abilities and best strategies. There is no sign of that changing either.
Agreed. A small US centric, content consumption device that has limited appeal beyond the Amazon system, really won't have Apple worried.
Something like a global Windows 8 tablet that has access to all of Amazon's content, plus the content from almost every other media company around, is the tablet Apple should/does fear.
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people think companies should FIGHT their opposition
"Microsoft and Apple should hit Amazon, not Google"
Rather than making thier own products better, so they sell themselves. I fucking hate the way inferior shit like Xbox and iPads flood the market, just because Apple and Microsoft have so much money they can buy whoever they want and fight dirty to achieve what they need.
If they designed and engineered their products correctly, they wouldn't need to fight to sell them. Lets have things they way they used to be, the days before you could brainwash the entire planet with the power of the internet.
"inferior shit like Xbox and iPads"?
If a product came to market that was demonstrably (and undeniably) better I don't think any amount of budget would stop it from being a success. This is especially true now that 'the power of the internet' allows people to share their personal preferences so widely.
"Apple and Microsoft have so much money they can buy whoever they want"
Are you trying to say that these two companies are immune from criticism because of their budgets? Is this your first visit here by any chance? I think it's fair to say that El Reg has a fair few folk who haven't been brainwashed yet...
"If they designed and engineered their products correctly, they wouldn't need to fight"
Apple inparticular have quite a reputation for their design quality even if you disapprove of every other aspect. It's also quite hard to think of any product that came to market in a form which was unimprovable.
"If a product came to market that was demonstrably (and undeniably) better I don't think any amount of budget would stop it from being a success. This is especially true now that 'the power of the internet' allows people to share their personal preferences so widely."
How naive....
Take the Xbox360 example, barely worked for the first 3 years of it's life, owners with 5+ replacements being very common, 50%+ failure rate, fuck-all decent games at launch, noisy, expensive TCO when you add 5+ years of Xbox Live, constant need to buy extras like charging cables, memory modules, overpriced HDD updgrades, hobbled with PS2 era DVD storage and multiple DVD gaming.
Yet Microsoft's money ensured that there were enough voices on the Internet shouting it's merits despite it's endless flaws that the foolish in life bought one, and of course once you bought into this, you don't want to be alone, so they recruit others to join them on their broken platform, a bit more Microsoft money to stir the fires of hate against Sony and you have the worst consumer item in the history of the universe, yet it succeeded, despite vastly superior alternative systems being similarly priced.
Microsoft knows know to buy press, it knows how to manipulate press, it knows how to manipulate gamers and consumers directly and indirectly.
You can pretty much interchange Microsoft and Apple there, they both have a brainwashed army of users and an even bigger army of Internet shills protecting their products on every corner of the Internet, with bigger stealth viral marketing companies on their books that you can ever imagine.
Sure others do this to (Sony got caught with the "all i want for xmas is a psp" viral marketing), yet this is no different from all the Microsoft owned Viral marketing companies (WMPowerUser, Zune and Xbox gaming sites).