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Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet computer, taking aim at Apple Inc.’s bestselling iPad with a device that’s smaller and less than half the price,” Brad Stone and Danielle Kucera report for Bloomberg.
The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek,” Stone and Kucera report. “The device, a souped-up version of the Kindle electronic- book reader, will run on Google Inc.’s Android software, the Seattle-based company said.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is betting he can leverage Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce to pose a real challenge to Apple’s iPad, after tablets from rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Research In Motion Ltd. have fallen short,” Stone and Kucera report. “Sales of Amazon’s electronic books, movies and music on the device may help make up for the narrower profit margins that are likely to result from the low price, said Brian Blair, an analyst at Wedge Partners Corp. in New York.
Apple rose $3.46 to $402.72. Shares of Barnes & Noble Inc., maker of the Nook e-reader, fell 51 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $12.70, on the New York Stock Exchange,” Stone and Kucera report. “The Kindle Fire doesn’t have an embedded camera or a microphone. The device offers Wi-Fi connectivity, though not 3G access, and comes with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, the company’s $79-a-year membership service that includes streaming video and free two-day shipping.
I don’t actually believe 7-inch is going to be a viable tablet for anybody,’ Brian Blair, an analyst at Wedge Partners Corp., said. ‘It’s a ‘twiner.’ A real tablet offering has got to be a 10-inch screen.
Via: Bloomberg
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