Will Amazon Launch Tablet To Compete With Apple iPad?

Reports that Amazon has acquired New York touch screen start-up Touchco may prompt a curious ‘Hm!’ from observers. As Brad Stone at NYTimes.com wrote on 3 February, the move “suggests” Amazon intend head-to-head battle with Apple’s iPad.

Touchco possess a touch screen technology not only less expensive than Apple’s but more responsive. This will enable Amazon to integrate the Kindle with the multi-media functions lacking from their e-reader.

The question is: why? Does Amazon expect to retain its e-reader market share against Apple’s tablet?

No commentator believes this is possible. Ramon Neuz at HuffingtonPost.com argues that Amazon must find itself on “the losing side” of a scuffle with Apple.

The Kindle’s reign of the e-reader market depended less on Amazon’s device than its lack of competitors. Matched against Apple – a company so powerful Steve Jobs is hailed a deity – Amazon must crumple.

Moreover, the Kindle also faces a challenger in HP’s forthcoming tablet this year. So the platform monopoly that protected Amazon’s lead of a non-existence pack is over.

Neither will Amazon preserve its place by opening the Kindle to third party software. The Kindle lacks the functionality to make it an attractive games platform – unlike the iPhone.

John Paczkowski puts it best: the most we can expect is “a slow motion version of pong.” Perhaps a Kindle integrated with Touchco technology would offer greater promise; yet Amazon’s acquisition of third party developer Lexcycle indicates that games will serve the current Kindle.

Whether Amazon can offer anything to compete with the iPhone app store seems doubtful.

Finally – Amazon recently conceded the rights to set publisher MacMillan’s e-book prices to MacMillan themselves. No longer will Kindle e-novels be sold below price.

The defeat – compounded by publishers lining up to release their back catalogues on the iPad – amounts to the release of Amazon’s grip on e-reader texts.

The iPad’s announcement hence finds Amazon in a position of weakness from all angles.

Colin Sebastian of analyst firm Lizard Capital told NYTimes.com: “If touch screens were added to the Kindle or other Amazon devices it would bring them up to date with the plethora of other screens consumers are becoming used to.”

Touchco could make the Kindle technically competitive then. Yet if Amazon compete against the iPad, they do so without a unique product nor stronger brand. Perhaps they ought ask themselves: “Why bother?” than tempt defeat.